TypeScript

Next.js provides a TypeScript-first development experience for building your React application.

It comes with built-in TypeScript support for automatically installing the necessary packages and configuring the proper settings.

As well as a TypeScript Plugin for your editor.

🎥 Watch: Learn about the built-in TypeScript plugin → YouTube (3 minutes)

New Projects

create-next-app now ships with TypeScript by default.

npx create-next-app@latest

Existing Projects

Add TypeScript to your project by renaming a file to .ts / .tsx. Run next dev and next build to automatically install the necessary dependencies and add a tsconfig.json file with the recommended config options.

If you already had a jsconfig.json file, copy the paths compiler option from the old jsconfig.json into the new tsconfig.json file, and delete the old jsconfig.json file.

TypeScript Plugin

Next.js includes a custom TypeScript plugin and type checker, which VSCode and other code editors can use for advanced type-checking and auto-completion.

You can enable the plugin in VS Code by:

1. Opening the command palette (Ctrl/⌘ + Shift + P)
2. Searching for "TypeScript: Select TypeScript Version"
3. Selecting "Use Workspace Version"

Now, when editing files, the custom plugin will be enabled. When running next build, the custom type checker will be used.

Plugin Features

The TypeScript plugin can help with:

• Warning if the invalid values for segment config options are passed.
• Showing available options and in-context documentation.
• Ensuring the use client directive is used correctly.
• Ensuring client hooks (like useState) are only used in Client Components.

Good to know: More features will be added in the future.

Minimum TypeScript Version

It is highly recommended to be on at least v4.5.2 of TypeScript to get syntax features such as type modifiers on import names and performance improvements.

Statically Typed Links

Next.js can statically type links to prevent typos and other errors when using next/link, improving type safety when navigating between pages.

To opt-into this feature, experimental.typedRoutes need to be enabled and the project needs to be using TypeScript.

/** @type {import('next').NextConfig} */
const nextConfig = {
  experimental: {
    typedRoutes: true,
  },
}
 
module.exports = nextConfig

Next.js will generate a link definition in .next/types that contains information about all existing routes in your application, which TypeScript can then use to provide feedback in your editor about invalid links.

Currently, experimental support includes any string literal, including dynamic segments. For non-literal strings, you currently need to manually cast the href with as Route:

import type { Route } from 'next';
import Link from 'next/link'
 
// No TypeScript errors if href is a valid route
<Link href="/about" />
<Link href="/blog/nextjs" />
<Link href={`/blog/${slug}`} />
<Link href={('/blog' + slug) as Route} />
 
// TypeScript errors if href is not a valid route
<Link href="/aboot" />

To accept href in a custom component wrapping next/link, use a generic:

import type { Route } from 'next'
import Link from 'next/link'
 
function Card<T extends string>({ href }: { href: Route<T> | URL }) {
  return (
    <Link href={href}>
      <div>My Card</div>
    </Link>
  )
}

How does it work?

When running next dev or next build, Next.js generates a hidden .d.ts file inside .next that contains information about all existing routes in your application (all valid routes as the href type of Link). This .d.ts file is included in tsconfig.json and the TypeScript compiler will check that .d.ts and provide feedback in your editor about invalid links.

End-to-End Type Safety

The Next.js App Router has enhanced type safety. This includes:

1. No serialization of data between fetching function and page: You can fetch directly in components, layouts, and pages on the server. This data does not need to be serialized (converted to a string) to be passed to the client side for consumption in React. Instead, since app uses Server Components by default, we can use values like Date, Map, Set, and more without any extra steps. Previously, you needed to manually type the boundary between server and client with Next.js-specific types.
2. Streamlined data flow between components: With the removal of _app in favor of root layouts, it is now easier to visualize the data flow between components and pages. Previously, data flowing between individual pages and _app were difficult to type and could introduce confusing bugs. With colocated data fetching in the App Router, this is no longer an issue.

Data Fetching in Next.js now provides as close to end-to-end type safety as possible without being prescriptive about your database or content provider selection.

We're able to type the response data as you would expect with normal TypeScript. For example:

async function getData() {
  const res = await fetch('https://api.example.com/...')
  // The return value is *not* serialized
  // You can return Date, Map, Set, etc.
  return res.json()
}
 
export default async function Page() {
  const name = await getData()
 
  return '...'
}

For complete end-to-end type safety, this also requires your database or content provider to support TypeScript. This could be through using an ORM or type-safe query builder.

Async Server Component TypeScript Error

To use an async Server Component with TypeScript, ensure you are using TypeScript 5.1.3 or higher and @types/react 18.2.8 or higher.

If you are using an older version of TypeScript, you may see a 'Promise<Element>' is not a valid JSX element type error. Updating to the latest version of TypeScript and @types/react should resolve this issue.

Passing Data Between Server & Client Components

When passing data between a Server and Client Component through props, the data is still serialized (converted to a string) for use in the browser. However, it does not need a special type. It’s typed the same as passing any other props between components.

Further, there is less code to be serialized, as un-rendered data does not cross between the server and client (it remains on the server). This is only now possible through support for Server Components.

Path aliases and baseUrl

Next.js automatically supports the tsconfig.json "paths" and "baseUrl" options.

You can learn more about this feature on the Module Path aliases documentation.

Type checking next.config.js

The next.config.js file must be a JavaScript file as it does not get parsed by Babel or TypeScript, however you can add some type checking in your IDE using JSDoc as below:

// @ts-check
 
/**
 * @type {import('next').NextConfig}
 **/
const nextConfig = {
  /* config options here */
}
 
module.exports = nextConfig

Incremental type checking

Since v10.2.1 Next.js supports incremental type checking when enabled in your tsconfig.json, this can help speed up type checking in larger applications.

Ignoring TypeScript Errors

Next.js fails your production build (next build) when TypeScript errors are present in your project.

If you'd like Next.js to dangerously produce production code even when your application has errors, you can disable the built-in type checking step.

If disabled, be sure you are running type checks as part of your build or deploy process, otherwise this can be very dangerous.

Open next.config.js and enable the ignoreBuildErrors option in the typescript config:

module.exports = {
  typescript: {
    // !! WARN !!
    // Dangerously allow production builds to successfully complete even if
    // your project has type errors.
    // !! WARN !!
    ignoreBuildErrors: true,
  },
}

Custom Type Declarations

When you need to declare custom types, you might be tempted to modify next-env.d.ts. However, this file is automatically generated, so any changes you make will be overwritten. Instead, you should create a new file, let's call it new-types.d.ts, and reference it in your tsconfig.json:

{
  "compilerOptions": {
    "skipLibCheck": true
    //...truncated...
  },
  "include": [
    "new-types.d.ts",
    "next-env.d.ts",
    ".next/types/**/*.ts",
    "**/*.ts",
    "**/*.tsx"
  ],
  "exclude": ["node_modules"]
}

Version Changes