Export all types (and just types) from typescript module

Question

If I want to export all the exported members of a module (including code), I can use

export * from 'module'

If I want to export the type of a class without code I can do

export type {typeName} from 'module'

Now I have a need to export all the types from a module, without code. I would be tempted to do

export type * from 'module'

as that's the intuitive thing, but typescript type exports must be named exports (ts 1383).

So how I can I export everything from a module in such a way that its members cannot be used at runtime?

Workarounds I can think of:

Get over it and use export *. This is an option. But for our use case I don't want users of our library to use these classes, only to use them to annotate their types
Ask pretty-please that everyone who uses our library please use import type {typeName} from 'myLibrary'. I guess this is an option too, but how do I convince users to do this?

tl;dr: How can I emulate global type exports in Typescript?

I'm not sure I understand your scenario, aren't you supposed to export only public code and types to the user so he can only use those explicitly exported? Or you just have too many types and want some kind of "shortcut" to export? — zhuber
– zhuber, Commented Jan 6, 2021 at 16:21
The latter. To be very specific, I was working on this PR and I wanted to export all the types from another module from this module. So your point about only exporting public code is valid. In this case, all the code is public, but it's public in another library. — Max Coplan
– Max Coplan, Commented Jan 8, 2021 at 22:15
@zhuber Essentially the library I just linked is a wrapper and helper library for another library. In order for this library to function successfully as a "wrapper", users of the wrapper will need the type info from the underlying library. So instead of listing every type individually, I would have liked to just done an export type {*} from 'accesscontrol' — Max Coplan
– Max Coplan, Commented Jan 8, 2021 at 22:17
have something like types.ts inside a folder or file containing all global types.. and then in your index.ts just do export * from './types' something like this we have done here — Manish Gowardipe
– Manish Gowardipe, Commented Jan 11, 2021 at 11:45

soimon · Accepted Answer · 2021-01-11 15:36:25Z

14

As stated in your referenced pull request, wildcard reexporting of types is not yet implemented (and may never). Hence reexporting all types to the root level is currently not possible. The closest you can get is by wrapping the reexported types in their own named collection:

// your-module
import type * as Types from "external-module";
export { Types };

// Usage by the end user
import { Types } from "your-module";
let a:Types.Class;

The drawback of this approach is that the user is not able to import the types independently like import { Class } from "your-module";. The types are exported as type only though, so this would still have no effect on the size of your bundle and one still can't instantiate the exported types.

answered Jan 11, 2021 at 15:36

soimon

2,6301 gold badge17 silver badges18 bronze badges

Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

6 Comments

Summer Sun Over a year ago

what if end users want to access Types.Class as Class without name Type?

busterroni Over a year ago

I am able to do export type * from 'package'

Ernest Jones Over a year ago

Can you tell us more @busterroni ?

busterroni Over a year ago

Doing export type * from 'package' enabled me to do what I was trying to do, related to the question. Sorry that's not more helpful.

rshea0 Over a year ago

@busterroni That works for you? When I do that I get Only named exports may use 'export type'. ts(1383)

|

Alex · Accepted Answer · 2025-03-24 22:54:29Z

0

For those coming via Google, I ended up adding a separate entry point. My build process passes all exported types to the dist/types.js (from src/types.ts)

Adding the below to package.json, I was able to import without having to export every type at the top-level.

"exports": {
    ".": {
        "import": "./dist/index.js",
        "require": "./dist/index.js"
    },
    "./types": {
        "import": "./dist/types.js",
        "require": "./dist/types.js"
    }
},

Then to import, you just extend the path for the module (note the /types):

import { MyType } from "module_name/types";

answered Mar 24 at 22:54

Alex

12 bronze badges

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

Export all types (and just types) from typescript module

2 Answers 2

6 Comments

Comments

Your Answer

Hot Network Questions

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

2 Answers 2

6 Comments

Comments

Your Answer

Sign up or log in

Post as a guest

Related