json-schema-to-ts

What is json-schema-to-ts?

The json-schema-to-ts npm package is a utility that converts JSON Schema definitions into TypeScript types. This allows developers to ensure type safety and consistency between their JSON data and TypeScript code.

What are json-schema-to-ts's main functionalities?

Convert JSON Schema to TypeScript Types

This feature allows you to convert a JSON Schema into a TypeScript type. The `FromSchema` utility type takes a JSON Schema object and infers the corresponding TypeScript type.

import { FromSchema } from 'json-schema-to-ts';

const userSchema = {
  type: 'object',
  properties: {
    id: { type: 'string' },
    name: { type: 'string' },
    age: { type: 'number' }
  },
  required: ['id', 'name']
} as const;

type User = FromSchema<typeof userSchema>;

const user: User = {
  id: '123',
  name: 'John Doe',
  age: 30
};

Type Validation

This feature ensures that the TypeScript types derived from JSON Schema are validated at compile time, reducing runtime errors and improving code reliability.

import { FromSchema } from 'json-schema-to-ts';

const productSchema = {
  type: 'object',
  properties: {
    productId: { type: 'string' },
    price: { type: 'number' }
  },
  required: ['productId', 'price']
} as const;

type Product = FromSchema<typeof productSchema>;

const product: Product = {
  productId: 'abc123',
  price: 19.99
};

Other packages similar to json-schema-to-ts

typescript-json-schema

The typescript-json-schema package generates JSON Schema from your TypeScript types. It works in the opposite direction compared to json-schema-to-ts, which converts JSON Schema to TypeScript types. This package is useful if you start with TypeScript types and need to generate JSON Schema for validation or documentation purposes.

ajv

Ajv is a JSON Schema validator that can also generate TypeScript types from JSON Schema using additional plugins. While its primary focus is on validation, it offers similar functionality to json-schema-to-ts when combined with the appropriate plugins.

zod

Zod is a TypeScript-first schema declaration and validation library. It allows you to define schemas in TypeScript and infer types from them. While it doesn't convert JSON Schema to TypeScript types directly, it provides a similar type-safe experience for defining and validating data structures.

README

Stop typing twice 🙅‍♂️

A lot of projects use JSON schemas for runtime data validation along with TypeScript for static type checking.

Their code will probably look like this:

const dogSchema = {
  type: "object",
  properties: {
    name: { type: "string" },
    age: { type: "integer" },
    hobbies: { type: "array", items: { type: "string" } },
    favoriteFood: { enum: ["pizza", "taco", "fries"] },
  },
  required: ["name", "age"],
};

type Dog = {
  name: string;
  age: number;
  hobbies?: string[];
  favoriteFood?: "pizza" | "taco" | "fries";
};

Both objects carry similar if not exactly the same information. This is a code duplication that can annoy developers and introduce bugs if not properly maintained.

That's where json-schema-to-ts comes to the rescue 💪

FromSchema

The FromSchema method allows infering TS types directly from JSON schemas:

import { FromSchema } from "json-schema-to-ts";

const dogSchema = {
  type: "object",
  properties: {
    name: { type: "string" },
    age: { type: "integer" },
    hobbies: { type: "array", items: { type: "string" } },
    favoriteFood: { enum: ["pizza", "taco", "fries"] },
  },
  required: ["name", "age"],
} as const;

type Dog = FromSchema<typeof dogSchema>; // => Will infer the same type as above

Note: The as const statement is used so that TypeScript takes the schema definition to the word (e.g. true is interpreted as the true constant and not as boolean). It is pure TypeScript and has zero impact on the compiled code.

Docs

Installation

# npm
npm install --save-dev json-schema-to-ts

# yarn
yarn add --dev json-schema-to-ts

Use cases

Litterals

const litteralSchema = {
  type: "null", // "boolean", "string", "integer", "number"
} as const;

type Litteral = FromSchema<typeof litteralSchema>; // => null, boolean, string or number

Objects

const objectSchema = {
  type: "object",
  properties: {
    foo: { type: "string" },
    bar: { type: "number" },
  },
  required: ["foo"],
} as const;

type Object = FromSchema<typeof objectSchema>; // => { foo: string, bar?: number }

Arrays

const arraySchema = {
  type: "array",
  items: { type: "string" },
} as const;

type Array = FromSchema<typeof arraySchema>; // => string[]

Tuples

const tupleSchema = {
  type: "array",
  items: [{ type: "boolean" }, { type: "string" }],
} as const;

type Tuple = FromSchema<typeof tupleSchema>; // => [] | [boolean] | [boolean, string] | [boolean, string, ...any[]]

FromSchema supports the additionalItems keyword.

const tupleSchema = {
  type: "array",
  items: [{ type: "boolean" }, { type: "string" }],
  additionalItems: false,
}

type Tuple = FromSchema<typeof tupleSchema>; // => [] | [boolean] | [boolean, string]
const tupleInstance: Tuple = [true, "string", 42] => ❌

Const

const fooSchema = {
  const: "foo",
} as const;

type Foo = FromSchema<typeof fooSchema>; // => "foo"

Enums

const enumSchema = {
  enum: [true, 42, { foo: "bar" }],
} as const;

type Enum = FromSchema<typeof enumSchema>; // => true | 42 | { foo: "bar"}

enum can be used concurrently with type.

const enumSchema = {
  type: "string",
  enum: ["foo", "bar", { foo: "bar" }],
} as const;

type Enum = FromSchema<typeof enumSchema>; // => "foo" | "bar"

If used in concurrency with const, the enum keyword will be omitted.

Nested schemas

Nested schemas will work fine as long as you don't forget the as const statement!

const childSchema = {
  type: "object",
  properties: {
    foo: { type: "string" },
    bar: { type: "integer" },
  },
  required: ["foo", "bar"],
} as const;

const parentSchema = {
  type: "array",
  items: childSchema,
} as const;

type Parent = FromSchema<typeof parentSchema>; // => Will work 🙌