Inner inference doesn't inherit the contextual type from the outer one in argument position

Bug Report

🔎 Search Terms

contextual type nested inference

🕗 Version & Regression Information

• This is the behavior in every version I tried

⏯ Playground Link

Playground link with relevant code

💻 Code

const matcher = Symbol("@ts-pattern/matcher");

type MatcherProtocol<input> = {
  match: <I>(value: I | input) => void;
};

interface Matcher<input> {
  [matcher](): MatcherProtocol<input>;
}

type Pattern<a> =
  | Matcher<a>
  | (a extends readonly [any, ...any]
      ? { readonly [index in keyof a]: Pattern<a[index]> }
      : a extends object
      ? { readonly [k in keyof a]: Pattern<a[k]> }
      : a);

type Match<i> = {
  with<p extends Pattern<i>>(pattern: p): void;
};

declare function match<input>(value: input): Match<input>;
declare function union<input, ps extends [Pattern<input>, ...Pattern<input>[]]>(
  ...patterns: ps
): Matcher<input>;
declare function when<input, p extends (value: input) => unknown>(
  predicate: p
): Matcher<input>;

// those have broken inferences
match<"a" | "b">("a").with(union("a"));

match<"a" | "b">("a")
  // @ts-expect-error
  .with(union("this is wrong"));

match<"a" | "b">("a").with(
  // this should not be an error, since `x` should be `'a' | 'b'` and not `unknown`
  when((x) => { let a: "a" | "b" = x; return x; })
);

// those have correct inferences
match<{ type: "a" | "b" }>({ type: "a" }).with({
  type: union("a"),
});

match<{ type: "a" | "b" }>({ type: "a" }).with({
  // @ts-expect-error
  type: union("this is wrong"),
});

match<{ type: "a" | "b" }>({ type: "a" }).with({
  type: when((x) => { let a: "a" | "b" = x; return x; }),
});

🙁 Actual behavior

In cases with match<"a" | "b">("a").with(...) the inference is broken whereas in cases with match<{ type: "a" | "b" }>({ type: "a" }).with(...) things work as expected.

🙂 Expected behavior

Both cases should work the same as the position in the with's argument should not matter.

---

This is a distilled case from ts-pattern by @gvergnaud . The real thing (equivalent of this repro case) can be tested out in this TS playground.

In the broken case, in inferTypeParameters (for the nested call):

• the contextualType is p
• the inferenceTargetType is Matcher<input>
• and the instantiatedType gets calculated as never since it's using the outerMapper with InferenceFlags.NoDefault. This in turn assigns silentNeverType to the inferredType here
• all of this leads to inferring unknown when a better inference could have been found (Pattern<'a' | 'b'>)

In the working case, within the same inferTypeParameters we get those:

• inferenceTargetType -> Matcher<input>
• contextualType -> Pattern<"a" | "b">
• instantiatedType: Pattern<"a" | "b">

It's worth noting down that outerMapper is the same in both cases (p -> never) but in the working case it's simply not used because the contextualType has no type variables so instantiateTypeWithAlias returns early with the supplied argument here (Pattern<"a" | "b">).

Looking at the previous steps we can learn that the returned contextualType here is better in the working case because getContextualTypeForObjectLiteralElement checks getApparentTypeOfContextualType and there:

• contextualType -> p
• instantiatedType -> p
• apparentType -> Pattern<{ type: "a" | "b"; }>

Thanks to that the getTypeOfPropertyOfContextualType can return Pattern<"a" | "b"> here in the getContextualTypeForObjectLiteralElement.

It's also worth noting that the current version of ts-pattern works OK because we can "observe" this whole silentNeverType in the userland (which, I think, shouldn't be possible) here and we can return there what we originally expected there to be computed for us. The minimal repro case from this issue with this "hack" being applied can be found here

Start in src/compiler/checker.ts at inferTypeParameters and the linked contextual-type handling around getContextualTypeForObjectLiteralElement. Reproduce the issue with the provided TypeScript Playground code, then trace why the nested call receives unknown instead of Pattern<'a' | 'b'>; done means both primitive and object argument forms infer consistently without the userland workaround.