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TypeScript Development with Strapi

Work in progress

The content of this page might not be fully up-to-date with Strapi 5 yet.

While developing a TypeScript-based application with Strapi, you can:

Use Strapi TypeScript typings​

Strapi provides typings on the Strapi class to enhance the TypeScript development experience. These typings come with an autocomplete feature that automatically offers suggestions while developing.

To experience TypeScript-based autocomplete while developing Strapi applications, you could try the following:

  1. Open the ./src/index.ts file from your code editor.

  2. Declare the strapi argument as type Strapi within the global register method:

    ./src/index.ts
    import { Strapi } from '@strapi/strapi';

    export default {
      register({ strapi }: { strapi: Strapi }) {
        // ...
      },
    };

  3. Within the body of the register method, start typing strapi. and use keyboard arrows to browse the available properties.

  4. Choose runLifecyclesFunctions from the list.

  5. When the strapi.runLifecyclesFunctions method is added, a list of available lifecycle types (i.e. register, bootstrap and destroy) are returned by the code editor. Use keyboard arrows to choose one of the lifecycles and the code will autocomplete.

Generate typings for content-types schemas​

To generate typings for your project schemas use the ts:generate-types CLI command. The ts:generate-types command creates the folder types, at the project root, which stores the typings for your project. The optional --debug flag returns a detailed table of the generated schemas.

To use ts:generate-typesrun the following code in a terminal at the project root:

npm run strapi ts:generate-types --debug #optional flag to display additional logging
Tip: Automatically generate types

Types can be automatically generated on server restart by adding autogenerate: true to the config/typescript.js|ts configuration file.

Tip: Using types in your front-end application

To use Strapi types in your front-end application, you can use a workaround until Strapi implements an official solution.

Fix build issues with the generated types​

The generated types can be excluded so that the Entity Service doesn't use them and falls back on looser types that don't check the actual properties available in the content types.

To do that, edit the tsconfig.json of the Strapi project and add types/generated/** to the exclude array:

./tsconfig.json
  // ...
  "exclude": [
    "node_modules/",
    "build/",
    "dist/",
    ".cache/",
    ".tmp/",
    "src/admin/",
    "**/*.test.ts",
    "src/plugins/**",
    "types/generated/**"
  ]
  // ...

However, if you still want to use the generated types on your project, but don't want Strapi to use them, a workaround could be to copy those generated types and paste them outside of the generated directory (so that they aren't overwritten when the types are regenerated) and remove the declare module '@strapi/types' from the bottom of the file.

Warning

Types should only be imported from @strapi/strapi to avoid breaking changes. The types in @strapi/types are for internal use only and may change without notice.

Start Strapi programmatically​

To start Strapi programmatically in a TypeScript project the Strapi instance requires the compiled code location. This section describes how to set and indicate the compiled code directory.

Use the strapi() factory​

Strapi can be run programmatically by using the strapi() factory. Since the code of TypeScript projects is compiled in a specific directory, the parameter distDir should be passed to the factory to indicate where the compiled code should be read:

./server.js

const strapi = require('@strapi/strapi');
const app = strapi({ distDir: './dist' });
app.start();

Use the strapi.compile() function​

The strapi.compile() function should be mostly used for developing tools that need to start a Strapi instance and detect whether the project includes TypeScript code. strapi.compile() automatically detects the project language. If the project code contains any TypeScript code, strapi.compile() compiles the code and returns a context with specific values for the directories that Strapi requires:

const strapi = require('@strapi/strapi');

strapi.compile().then(appContext => strapi(appContext).start());

Develop a plugin using TypeScript​

New plugins can be generated following the plugins development documentation, ensuring you select "TypeScript" when prompted by the CLI tool.

There are 2 important distinctions for TypeScript applications:

  • After creating the plugin, run yarn or npm install in the plugin directory src/admin/plugins/[my-plugin-name] to install the dependencies for the plugin.
  • Run yarn build or npm run build in the plugin directory src/admin/plugins/[my-plugin-name] to build the admin panel including the plugin.
Note

It is not necessary to repeat the yarn or npm install command after the initial installation. The yarn build or npm run build command is necessary to implement any plugin development that affects the admin panel.