microsoft / microsoft/TypeScript

Add option to always inline .json type import

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#61,614 1 comment 0 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub
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Description

### 🔍 Search Terms

json type import inline library resolveJsonModule

### ✅ Viability Checklist

- [x] This wouldn't be a breaking change in existing TypeScript/JavaScript code
- [x] This wouldn't change the runtime behavior of existing JavaScript code
- [x] This could be implemented without emitting different JS based on the types of the expressions
- [x] This isn't a runtime feature (e.g. library functionality, non-ECMAScript syntax with JavaScript output, new syntax sugar for JS, etc.)
- [x] This isn't a request to add a new utility type: https://github.com/microsoft/TypeScript/wiki/No-New-Utility-Types
- [x] This feature would agree with the rest of our Design Goals: https://github.com/Microsoft/TypeScript/wiki/TypeScript-Design-Goals

### ⭐ Suggestion

Add a tsconfig.json option to force .json type imports to inline the inferred .json type, rather than preserve .json import inside emitted .d.ts

or always inline without introducing a new option

or enable [#resolveJsonModule](https://www.typescriptlang.org/tsconfig/#resolveJsonModule) by default

### 📃 Motivating Example

JSON type imports are a very convenient feature for getting a type of localization strings to get intellisense when dealing with translation strings:

```ts
// The .json for correct locale will be loaded at runtime - but we need a type at compile time
import type T9nStrings from "../assets/t9n/messages.en.json";
```

However, as a library author, that presents two issues because TypeScript may preserve the above type import in the .d.ts file:
- Unless every consumer has [#resolveJsonModule](https://www.typescriptlang.org/tsconfig/#resolveJsonModule) enabled, their typescript will error out when trying to resolve the .json type import from my .d.ts
- I need to make sure the above .json file is also accessible relative to the final .d.ts file I distribute in dist/

### 💻 Use Cases

1. What do you want to use this for?
- I want to use .json type imports for getting types of translation files and configuration files
2. What shortcomings exist with current approaches?
- the .json type import is inlined some of the time only. when not inlined, it can break my consumers
3. What workarounds are you using in the meantime?
- the following hack seems to trigger typescript to always inline the .json file rather than preserve the type import:

```ts
import type T9nStrings from "./assets/t9n/messages.en.json";
const identity = (value: T): T => value;
const messages = identity;
type Messages = ReturnType;
```

related issues:
- https://github.com/microsoft/TypeScript/issues/60647
- https://github.com/microsoft/TypeScript/issues/43940

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

Research direction

Start by reading the tsconfig.json documentation for resolveJsonModule and the related issues #60647 and #43940. Trace how the JSON type import is represented in emitted .d.ts files, then determine how the proposed option or default behavior should affect inlining. Done means library declarations no longer require consumers to resolve the original .json file when this behavior is selected.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
typescript
Domain
compilers
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
5/5
Estimated time
Over a week
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
35/100

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