TypeScript

Auto-generate TypeScript types from your models and migrations

Overview

IlanaORM generates TypeScript types directly from your model files and migration definitions — no build step, no schema file, no manual maintenance.

Each model gets:

• A typed Attributes interface with the correct type per column (including enum union types)
• A declare class with relation method signatures
• A barrel index.d.ts for clean imports

Generating Types

npx ilana types

Types are written to a types/ directory by default:

types/
  User.d.ts
  Post.d.ts
  Comment.d.ts
  index.d.ts

Custom output directory

npx ilana types --out=src/types

Auto-generation on migrate

Types are regenerated automatically every time you run a migration:

npx ilana migrate      # runs migration + regenerates types
npx ilana migrate:rollback  # rolls back + regenerates types

Example Output

Given this model and migration:

// models/User.js
export default class User extends Model {
  static table = 'users';
  static softDeletes = true;
  static fillable = ['name', 'email', 'role'];
  static casts = { preferences: 'json' };

  static { this.register(); }

  posts() { return this.hasMany('Post', 'user_id'); }
}

// migrations/create_users_table.js
table.increments('id');
table.string('name').notNullable();
table.string('email').notNullable();
table.enum('role', ['user', 'admin', 'moderator']).defaultTo('user');
table.json('preferences').nullable();
table.timestamps(true, true);
table.timestamp('deleted_at').nullable();

IlanaORM generates:

// types/User.d.ts — auto-generated by `npx ilana types` — do not edit manually
import { Model, HasMany } from 'ilana-orm';
import type { Post } from './index';

export interface UserAttributes {
  id: number;
  name?: string;
  email?: string;
  role?: 'user' | 'admin' | 'moderator';  // ← union type from enum values
  preferences?: Record<string, any> | null;
  created_at?: Date;
  updated_at?: Date;
  deleted_at?: Date | null;
  posts?: Post[];
}

declare class User extends Model<UserAttributes> {
  posts(): HasMany;
}

export default User;

// types/index.d.ts
export { default as User, type UserAttributes } from './User';
export { default as Post, type PostAttributes } from './Post';

Using the Generated Types

import type { UserAttributes } from './types';
import User from './models/User';

// Attributes interface for type-safe objects
const data: UserAttributes = {
  name: 'Alice',
  email: '[e-mail]',
  role: 'admin', // ✓ — TypeScript validates against 'user' | 'admin' | 'moderator'
};

// Model instance is fully typed
const user = await User.find(1);
user.name;    // string | undefined
user.role;    // 'user' | 'admin' | 'moderator' | undefined
user.posts;   // Post[] | undefined (if eager loaded)

What Gets Inferred

Source	What it generates
Migration string, text	string
Migration integer, float, decimal	number
Migration boolean	boolean
Migration date, datetime, timestamp	Date
Migration json, jsonb	Record<string, any>
Migration enum('col', ['a','b'])	'a' | 'b'
static casts = { col: 'json' }	Record<string, any>
static casts = { col: 'array' }	any[]
static casts = { col: 'boolean' }	boolean
.nullable() in migration	Type | null
static softDeletes = true	adds deleted_at?: Date | null
Relation methods	typed return (Post[], User | null, etc.)

Notes

• Types are only generated for TypeScript projects (detected by the presence of tsconfig.json)
• The types/ directory should be added to .gitignore — regenerate it from migrations instead
• Do not edit generated files — they will be overwritten on the next migrate or types run
• For custom cast classes, the column falls back to any — add a manual override if needed