reactjs / reactjs/react-docgen

Feature: Option to remove `| undefined` from optional prop types

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Dominant language
TypeScript
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Description

Problem

When using TypeScript's explicit optional property pattern (prop?: Type | undefined), react-docgen displays the type as union instead of showing the actual type.

This pattern is common in codebases using exactOptionalPropertyTypes: true in tsconfig, which requires explicit | undefined for optional properties.

Example
interface ButtonProps {
  onClick?: ((event: MouseEvent) => void) | undefined
  variant?: 'primary' | 'secondary' | undefined
  icon?: ReactNode | undefined
}

In Storybook's props table (using react-docgen), these all display as "union" instead of:

  • (event: MouseEvent) => void
  • 'primary' | 'secondary'
  • ReactNode

Requested Feature

Add a parser option similar to react-docgen-typescript's shouldRemoveUndefinedFromOptional:

{
  shouldRemoveUndefinedFromOptional: true
}

When enabled, this would:

  1. Detect optional properties (those ending with ?)
  2. Strip | undefined from their type representation
  3. Display the actual meaningful type instead of "union"

Prior Art

react-docgen-typescript has this feature via the shouldRemoveUndefinedFromOptional option:
https://github.com/styleguidist/react-docgen-typescript#parseroptions

Workaround

Currently, Storybook users must manually specify table.type.summary for every affected prop:

argTypes: {
  onClick: {
    table: { type: { summary: '(event: MouseEvent) => void' } }
  }
}

This is tedious and error-prone for large component libraries.

Environment

  • react-docgen: latest
  • TypeScript: 7.x with exactOptionalPropertyTypes: true
  • Storybook: 10.x using reactDocgen: 'react-docgen'

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start by locating the TypeScript parser entry point and its parser-option handling; no file or test is named in the issue. Compare the requested option with the linked react-docgen-typescript prior art, then verify that enabled parsing removes | undefined from optional prop types while preserving the meaningful type instead of reporting union.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
typescript
Domain
documentation, tooling
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
3/5
Estimated time
1-2 days
Activity status
Active
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
58/100

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