microsoft / microsoft/TypeScript

Unexpected distributive behaviour on type alias

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#62,761 6 comments 1 reaction 1 assignee View on GitHub

@ahejlsberg is already working on this.

Since Nov 17, 2025.

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Description

🔎 Search Terms

distributive conditional types, naked type parameter, type alias, unions

🕗 Version & Regression Information
  • This changed between versions 3.8.3 and 3.9.7.
  • This is the behavior in every version I tried, and I reviewed the FAQ for entries about distributive conditional types, naked type parameter, type alias, unions.
⏯ Playground Link

https://www.typescriptlang.org/play/?ts=5.9.3#code/C4TwDgpgBAaghgGwK7QLxQIxQD5QEwBQBokUAKhALZhToDa8yEAulBAB7AQB2AJgM5Q6AS24AzCACdYzAlCgB+WG048BUJNwDW3APYB3bnPmKhMADSxEKWSagAuKNwgA3KccfO3koiWgAlCH4kBGBacioaAHoolUgAYzC6DEssXDxWXDo8VJx8WxMYgD0FIA

💻 Code
type Value = 1 | 2

type Result = [Value] extends [infer V]
  ? V extends unknown
    ? [V, Value]
    : never
  : never
🙁 Actual behavior
[1, 1] | [2, 2]
🙂 Expected behavior
[1, 1 | 2] | [2, 1 | 2]
Additional information about the issue

It shouldn't work the way it does now, for several reasons:

  1. Value is not naked type parameter.
  2. Using brackets, distributive behaviour must be disabled.

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Assessment

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