"The inferred type of X cannot be named without a reference to Y" (TS2742) occurs when multiple modules with the same package ID are resolved

[renke]

Bug Report

🔎 Search Terms

• TS2742
• cannot be named without a reference

🕗 Version & Regression Information

Problems occurs with 4.5.x and 4.6.x and most likely earlier versions (I've tried a few other versions). It stills occurs on 4.7.0-dev.20220321.

⏯ Playground Link

I've created minimal repository that shows the problem: https://github.com/renke/typescript-package-id-merge-repro

The problem occurs when using pnpm (due to the modules layout it uses). No problems occur when using npm/yarn.

To reproduce the problem run pnpm install and then pnpm check pnpx tsc -b.

💻 Code

I don't think the code itself matters to much except from the fact that it in fact does not have explicit type annotations (which is kind of the idea when using zod and by extension @renke/vommer).

import { vod } from "@renke/vommer";
import { z } from "zod";

export const UserId = vod("UserId", z.string());

export type UserId = z.infer<typeof UserId>;

export const Email = vod("Email", z.string().min(0));

export type Email = z.infer<typeof Email>;

export const User = vod(
  "User",
  z.object({
    id: UserId,
    email: Email,
  })
);

export type User = z.infer<typeof User>;

🙁 Actual behavior

The following error occurs when trying to build a composite TypeScript project (same happens when just using declaration: true).

The inferred type of 'User' cannot be named without a reference to '.pnpm/@[email protected]/node_modules/@renke/vo'. This is likely not portable. A type annotation is necessary.

The dependency tree of @renke/vommer

@renke/vommer 0.2.0
├── @renke/vo 0.2.0
└─┬ @renke/vod 0.2.0
  └── @renke/vo 0.2.0

Looking at the resolution trace TypeScript tries to resolve @renke/vo two times the first time from @renke/vommer and the second time from @renke/vod. Both end up having the package ID @renke/vo/dist/[email protected].

Using "preserveSymlinks": true doesn't solve the problem in so far that the error disappears but the type is inferred as any, because the dependencies of @renke/vommer are not found. Also I don't actually want to use it.

🙂 Expected behavior

The error should not occur when there are two (or more) modules that have the same resolved package ID. It would make sense for the error to occur when they have different versions.

[zengguirong]

same problem

[renke]

So, aside from finding a solution to this problem, is my assumption correct that having multiple packages with typings that have the same version should not cause any problems?

I'd also appreciate any hints on where to look at the source code to solve this problem.

[dohooo]

same problem!

[quadristan]

@renke i have a repro where everything has the same version here : https://github.com/quadristan/ts-indirect-type-reference-bug

[agmitron]

same problem :( have you solved it?

[renke]

I haven't solved it yet, but there is also a similar issue #48212 with a milestone of TypeScript 4.8.0. Let's hope it will be solved soon.

[StarHosea]

same problem

[kiastorm]

I got this issue because the mentioned dependency had this code in its index.d.ts:

declare module 'react' {
  interface DOMAttributes<T> {
    css?: InterpolationWithTheme<any>
  }
}

and the file it was complaining in was using React.HTMLAttributes<HTMLElement> which references React.DOMAttributes. I worked around this issue by omitting the declared properties Omit<React.HTMLAttribute<HTMLElement>, "css">

[laurix-wizard]

Same problem :(

[vaibhavkumar-sf]

Same Problem for me too :(

[ivanbanov]

is there any expected timeline for a fix for this problem?

[grmkris]

same here

[patroza]

@RyanCavanaugh

[yingpengsha]

Same problem :(

[Evertt]

same here

[xlboy]

same here

[shellscape]

What's worse is that neither // @ts-ignore nor // @ts-expect-error will allow us to ignore the incorrect error. This is a pretty gnarly bug.

[mrmeku]

This bug occurs pretty readily when using pnpm since the node_modules directory layout is different under pnpm than npm/yarn. Any npm package whose types reference another npm package's type will generate the error

I've made a minimal reproduction here: https://github.com/mrmeku/portable_types_repro

[shellscape]

I've been deep-diving the issues related to this error and symlinks and pnpm specifically. Since 2019 it appears that this regression is reintroduced at least twice for each major version. That would suggest that tests are not sufficient for the case, nor to catch the regression.

[quadristan]

I have a repro + a workaround/solution here

https://github.com/quadristan/ts-indirect-type-reference-bug

tl-dr:

import type {} from "Y"; // or whatever Y really refers to

[i7eo]

I have a repro + a workaround/solution here

https://github.com/quadristan/ts-indirect-type-reference-bug

tl-dr:

import type {} from "Y"; // or whatever Y really refers to

Nice job! This is by far the best practice.👍

[RyanCavanaugh]

I've been deep-diving the issues related to this error and symlinks and pnpm specifically. Since 2019 it appears that this regression is reintroduced at least twice for each major version. That would suggest that tests are not sufficient for the case, nor to catch the regression.

The reason you see a history of this "regressing" at each version is that pnpm patches TypeScript when you install it, so every time TS updates, there's a few days where it appears to not work because pnpm hasn't updated their patching code yet.

[RIP21]

@RyanCavanaugh really? Do PNPM is patching TS in order for it to be compatible each and every time it installs it? That's a huge surprise for me really. Feels very unsustainable and kinda scary. Why is TSC itself is not compatible with PNPM? I hear about the first time in my life and never saw anything like that in the PNPM change log (not that I reading them (aside from major releases)) :)

[shellscape]

I've been deep-diving the issues related to this error and symlinks and pnpm specifically. Since 2019 it appears that this regression is reintroduced at least twice for each major version. That would suggest that tests are not sufficient for the case, nor to catch the regression.

The reason you see a history of this "regressing" at each version is that pnpm patches TypeScript when you install it, so every time TS updates, there's a few days where it appears to not work because pnpm hasn't updated their patching code yet.

could you point me at the code responsible for that? I'm a core contributor to PNPM and this is the first time I'm hearing of it. not to say that I disagree with you or that it isn't true, I'm just unaware of that.

[RyanCavanaugh]

Sorry, you're right. I've misconfused this with yarn.

[Carnewal]

I am having this issue as well, on v5.3.3.
...
This code alone generates 137 TS compiler errors, all in the format shown in the first screenshot. It's very unfortunate that this has been an ongoing issue for so long. It feels like I have hit a brick wall, as this one error essentially renders TS unusable. Every workaround that compiles involves stripping varying levels of contextual data from the type (such as explicitly setting the type of client to any), which undermines the entire point of using TypeScript in the first place.

@Threebow I spent some time trying to solve it for the redis package but wasn't succesful.
However, you can fix this by installing & using @redis/client (and other redis packages you rely on) directly instead of redis / node-redis.
Good luck!

[gabrielcosi]

Same problem when building a react library alongside styled-components with tsup

[lovrozagar]

Same problem here

[alvis]

@ivancuric I could fix your issue with workaround #3 ("intermediary interface"), see https://github.com/pkerschbaum/repro-pnpm-types/commit/d3cd550990301959d058a3df65531c9a57d25146.

I forgot to mention one thing for workaround #3: it must be an interface, not a type. In the repo you provided, the broken code is:

// case #1, just reexport
export type RemoteObj = typeof exportedApi;

It stays broken when we do this:

// case #2, intersection type with empty object
export type RemoteObj = typeof exportedApi & {};

But it suddenly works when we do this:

// case #3, intersection type with interface
interface MyBlah {}
export type RemoteObj = typeof exportedApi & MyBlah;

That's of course very weird and suggests that there is a bug in TypeScript. I think in its inner workings, tsc "optimizes away" simple type aliases. Both case #1 and #2 can be simplified to just typeof exportedApi, which tsc tries to put into the types of the package imagecapture-main. But this leads - for valid reasons - to the This is likely not portable error. Case #3 seems to be not simple enough so tsc keeps the RemoteObj type around, solving the error.

Note that this is just my reasoning based on the observed behavior.

The fact that intersecting a type with an interface would make it suddenly works like a miracle indeed suggests something interesting. I'm not sure if @RyanCavanaugh @DanielRosenwasser has seen this hint, but if you haven't, please prioritize.

[Dorianslavov]

I have managed to make the error go away by making a TypeScript Reference Type at the top of the file

In my case I was was importing useI18n function and spreading an object in it's parameter object like
useI18n({ ...someObj })

which caused this

The inferred type of useI18n cannot be named without a reference to .pnpm/@[email protected]/node_modules/@intlify/core-base . This is likely not portable. A type annotation is necessary.

✅ Fixed it by doing this

At the top of the file which used useI18n I've added the TS reference type like so

/// <reference types="@intlify/core-base" />

So to fix it, basically check the problematic package name ( in my case it was @intlify/core-base ) and add it as a TypeScript Reference Type like in the example above

[LOWE-7566]

use type casting it is always solved in that way

[matheo]

import type {} from "Y";

This didn't work for my Nx monorepo with pnpm because in the workspace, peer dependencies were installed inside the library folder duplicating the package and causing the error. I opted to disable the peerdeps installation with:

.npmrc
auto-install-peers=false

and reviewed the peer dependencies warnings to confirm that they were installed, and added the ones missing: then I confirmed that everything ran as expected.

[pkerschbaum]

FYI there is some interesting discussion on this topic in microsoft/TypeScript#58176.

I find this idea for a solution by @eps1lon interesting (which is kind of bringing workaround #3.1 of my comment above into tsc itself):

Is there an option to enforce that whatever getMakeSubDep returns, is also exported from other_package? Then TypeScript could reference those exports instead. It should already do that today if you explicitly export the return type. But TypeScript favors import('sub_dep').Options over import('other_package').Options even if other_package explicitly exports Options.

[cumt-robin]

您的邮件我已收到！  我会在第一时间内回复您！非常感谢！

[RyanCavanaugh]

Closing per #42873 (comment)