[BUG]: Octokit is just an alias for any, when using TypeScript and CommonJS.

[codiophile]

What happened?

I use Octokit in a NestJS project, meaning that I have no choice but to use CommonJS. Now that you can simply require ES modules, the experience has improved, but it's still not great. My biggest issue right now is that

import { Octokit, App } from "octokit";

just makes Octokit an alias for any. I do get a full Octokit instance from the App that is fully usable, but I get no auto-completion and I can't assign it to anything without the linter complaining (no-unsafe-assignment).

I found one workaround that makes the linter happy, but makes the compiler block me from using most of its APIs:

import { Octokit } from "@octokit/core";

octokit.rest does not exist in core, so the compiler will not let you use any of the convenience APIs, which seems like a higher cost than disabling the linting rule.

I haven't tried it in ESM and I'm assuming that it has to do with CommonJS compatibility, but I don't know.

Versions

Octokit v5.0.3, Node v22.17.0, TypeScript v5.7.3, NestJS v11.0.1

Relevant log output

Code of Conduct

• I agree to follow this project's Code of Conduct

[github-actions]

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[wolfy1339]

Can you please share your tsconfig.json?

We don't specifically test for require(esm).
I personally use ESM and never have any issues.

[wolfy1339]

TypeScript 5.8.3
Using ES-style imports that TS transforms into require() works fine
index.cts:

import { Octokit } from 'octokit';
import { retry } from '@octokit/plugin-retry';
import { throttling } from '@octokit/plugin-throttling';

const CustomOctokit = Octokit.plugin(retry, throttling);
const octokit = new CustomOctokit();
type CustomOctokit = InstanceType<typeof CustomOctokit>;

/**
 *
 * @param octokit
 */
async function foo(octokit: CustomOctokit) {
  await octokit.request('GET /');
  await octokit.rest.actions.listRepoWorkflows({ owner: 'octokit', repo: 'rest.js' });
}
foo(octokit);
export = foo;

tsconfig.json:

{
  "compilerOptions": {
    /* Language and Environment */
    "target": "es2022",                                  /* Set the JavaScript language version for emitted JavaScript and include compatible library declarations. */
    "lib": ["es2023"],                                   /* Specify a set of bundled library declaration files that describe the target runtime environment. */
    /* Modules */
    "module": "nodenext",                                  /* Specify what module code is generated. */
    "moduleResolution": "nodenext",                        /* Specify how TypeScript looks up a file from a given module specifier. */
    "resolvePackageJsonExports": true,                /* Use the package.json 'exports' field when resolving package imports. */
    "esModuleInterop": true,                             /* Emit additional JavaScript to ease support for importing CommonJS modules. This enables 'allowSyntheticDefaultImports' for type compatibility. */
    // "preserveSymlinks": true,                         /* Disable resolving symlinks to their realpath. This correlates to the same flag in node. */
    "forceConsistentCasingInFileNames": true,            /* Ensure that casing is correct in imports. */

    /* Type Checking */
    "strict": true,                                      /* Enable all strict type-checking options. */
  },
  "files": ["index.ts", "index.cts"]
}

[codiophile]

tsconfig.json:

{
  "compilerOptions": {
    "module": "commonjs",
    "declaration": true,
    "removeComments": true,
    "emitDecoratorMetadata": true,
    "experimentalDecorators": true,
    "allowSyntheticDefaultImports": true,
    "target": "ES2023",
    "sourceMap": true,
    "outDir": "./dist",
    "baseUrl": "./",
    "incremental": true,
    "skipLibCheck": true,
    "strictNullChecks": true,
    "forceConsistentCasingInFileNames": true,
    "noImplicitAny": false,
    "strictBindCallApply": false,
    "noFallthroughCasesInSwitch": false
  }
}

This is the default config that you get when you create a new NestJS project:

$ npm i -g @nestjs/cli
$ nest new project-name

It only works with CommonJS, so there is no option to switch to ESM.

[wolfy1339]

NestJS needs to update their templates for require(esm) support...

You need to upgrade TypeScript to 5.8 for require(esm) support

You need to use module: nodenext for require(esm) support in TypeScript
https://www.typescriptlang.org/tsconfig/#node16node18nodenext

TypeScript should automatically infer that this is CommonJS based on the type property in your package.json