Expose `textChanges.ChangeTracker` for public API

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#53,399 1 comment 1 reaction 0 assignees View on GitHub

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Assessment

Difficulty
5/5
Estimated time
Over a week
Newbie friendliness
30/100
Issue type
Feature
Clarity
Mostly clear
Activity status
Stale
Tech stack
typescript
Domain
api, developer-experience

Research direction

Start by reading the language service plugin entry points named in the issue, especially getEditsForRefactor and getCodeFixesAtPosition, alongside textChanges.ChangeTracker and its insertNodeAt, replaceNodeRange, and delete methods. Determine the public API and compatibility requirements for exposing ChangeTracker, including how formatOptions would be used; done means the supported surface and validation approach are clear.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Description

Awaiting More Feedback Suggestion

Suggestion

I'm not sure how such requests as this one suits into TypeScript repo, but I've seen such requests earlier so decided to put another one!

Motivation: Currently it's very unclear for new developers how to contribute new code actions (refactorings / quick fixes: getEditsForRefactor / getCodeFixesAtPosition) with current plugins API. While factory API is exposed AFAICS the only way to convert nodes to actual changes is ts.createPrinter().printNode, which makes passed in formatOptions useless (just always inserting semicolons is already too annoying). I don't see a reason why don't let other developers to build their own code actions in the same way as built-in bulit.

Of course I've already seen a lot of plugins using in our days, most of them are using constructor and with along with these methods: insertNodeAt, replaceNodeRange, delete and a few others. With types exposed it would be easier to use language service methods that receive formatOptions.

🔍 Search Terms

Language Service Plugins API

List of keywords you searched for before creating this issue. Write them down here so that others can find this suggestion more easily and help provide feedback.

✅ Viability Checklist

My suggestion meets these guidelines:

  • This wouldn't be a breaking change in existing TypeScript/JavaScript code
  • This wouldn't change the runtime behavior of existing JavaScript code
  • This could be implemented without emitting different JS based on the types of the expressions
  • This isn't a runtime feature (e.g. library functionality, non-ECMAScript syntax with JavaScript output, new syntax sugar for JS, etc.)
  • This feature would agree with the rest of TypeScript's Design Goals.

⭐ Suggestion

📃 Motivating Example

💻 Use Cases

Dominant language
Go
Stars
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Forks
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Avg merge
1d 19h
Merged PRs (30d)
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