microsoft / microsoft/TypeScript

Support loading remote types

Open
#63,115 5 comments 2 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub
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Description

### 🔍 Search Terms

It would be great if TypeScript supported importing type definitions in config files directly from a remote URL (akin to JSON’s $schema), enabling typed configs without forcing consumers to install and maintain purely type-level dependencies in package.json

### ✅ 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

-

### 📃 Motivating Example

Example:

`// @ts-import "http://example.com/Definitions-1.2.0/Library.d.ts"`

### 💻 Use Cases

1. What do you want to use this for?
For tools config ts files
3. What shortcomings exist with current approaches?

- Type-only dependencies are unnecessarily coupled to package management
Even when a library is consumed purely at the type level, users are required to declare and version it in package.json. This inflates dependency graphs, increases maintenance overhead, and introduces update and security workflows for artifacts that have no runtime relevance.
- Ergonomics for library and framework authors
Tool authors lack a lightweight, declarative way to publish stable, versioned configuration contracts.

5. What workarounds are you using in the meantime? Import in the package.json

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

Research direction

No files, tests, or entry points are named. Start by reviewing the proposed ts-import example and the stated package.json workaround, then investigate how TypeScript currently resolves type-only dependencies. Done would require an agreed design and implementation for loading remote .d.ts files, including defined behavior for the URL-based configuration use case.

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
Active
Clarity
Needs clarification
Newbie friendliness
30/100

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