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Francisco Moretti
Francisco Moretti

Posted on • Originally published at franciscomoretti.com

Avoiding Mistakes in Next.js using the TypeScript Plugin

What is the TypeScript Plugin? 🧩

The TypeScript plugin is a powerful tool included in Next.js that provides advanced type-checking and auto-completion for your TypeScript code. It integrates seamlessly with code editors like Visual Studio Code (VS Code), making it easier to catch errors and write more reliable code.

Enabling the TypeScript Plugin in VS Code βš™οΈ

To take advantage of the TypeScript plugin in VS Code in your Next.js project, follow these simple steps:

  1. Open the command palette (Ctrl/⌘ + Shift + P) in VS Code.
  2. Search for "TypeScript: Select TypeScript Version."
  3. Select "Use Workspace Version."

This enables the plugin when editing files and also when building with next build.

Benefits of the TypeScript Plugin ✨

The TypeScript plugin in Next.js offers several key benefits:

  1. Type Safety and Error Prevention: The plugin performs advanced type checking, catching errors at compile time and ensuring the use of correct types. It warns against invalid segment config options.
  2. Intelligent Suggestions and Documentation: With the plugin, you receive intelligent suggestions and in-context documentation. It helps you discover options, understand the "use client" directive, and provides insights for Next.js APIs.
  3. Client-side Component Validation: The TypeScript plugin ensures proper usage of client-side hooks, like useState, in Client Components, promoting best practices.
  4. Future-Proofing: The plugin continues to evolve, with more planned features. Adopting it keeps you up to date and enables you to build modern, scalable web applications.

By leveraging the TypeScript plugin, you improve code quality, catch errors early, and enjoy a smoother development process.

More info in the official documentation.

πŸš€ Happy coding

Top comments (3)

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dsaga profile image
Dusan Petkovic

Why call it a "plugin" ? its a language on top of javascript, I think support comes natively with VisualStudio code

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franciscomoretti profile image
Francisco Moretti

Next.js comes with its own "Typescript Plugin", which makes Next.js and Typescript play nice together. Check out the docs mentioned in the article.

This video also explains it well youtube.com/watch?v=pqMqn9fKEf8

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dsaga profile image
Dusan Petkovic

For me typescript works out of the box, haven't needed to select the version of typescript, it works only by the fact that there is a tsconfig file and ts files in the repo, this plugin may be useful if you need to select a specific version of typescript.

Oh I guess its useful to check nextjs specific things like client and server component features...