Obsidian Extended Typings

This repository contains TypeScript typings for undocumented Obsidian API methods and variables, including additional descriptions and example uses.

Be aware that the typings currently only cover a subset of the full API: while most of the App interface and its sub-interfaces are covered, this package does not yet provide typings for views like Graph, Canvas, ... — contributions for these would be very welcome!

Set-up

1. Installation

   Install using: npm install --save-dev obsidian-typings

2. Add obsidian-typings to types in tsconfig.json (recommended)

   If you want to have all overridden types of obsidian-typings available in your project without explicit imports, add the following to your tsconfig.json:

   {
       "compilerOptions": {
           "...": "...",
           "types": [
               "obsidian-typings"
           ]
       }
   }

[!WARNING]

If you added the types field to your tsconfig.json, and @types/some-package-name does not get recognized anymore, you may need to re-add it to types:

{
    "compilerOptions": {
        "...": "...",
        "types": [
            "obsidian-typings",
            "some-package-name"
        ]
    }
}

3. Explicit type importing

   If you prefer not to add obsidian-typings to your types, you can also add import 'obsidian-typings'; to any project file.

4. Using obsidian-typings/implementations

   Depending on how your project is set up, import { X } from 'obsidian-typings/implementations'; may not work straight out of the box, e.g., if you have "moduleResolution": "node" or "node10" in your tsconfig.json

   To solve this, you can add the following to your tsconfig.json:

   {
       "compilerOptions": {
           "...": "...",
           "paths": {
               "obsidian-typings/implementations": [
                   "./node_modules/obsidian-typings/dist/implementations.d.ts",
                   "./node_modules/obsidian-typings/dist/implementations.cjs"
               ]
           }
       }
   }

Usage

obsidian module internals

To access types from the obsidian module, the import syntax does not change:

import { App } from 'obsidian';

function printInternalPlugins(app: App): void {
  console.log(app.internalPlugins);
}

obsidian-typings additional interfaces

Additional interfaces added by this package (which do not exist in the official API), can be imported using:

import { InternalPlugins } from 'obsidian-typings';

const internalPlugins: InternalPlugins = this.app.internalPlugins;

obsidian-typings/implementations

Additional helper functions/types/... added by this package can be used by importing from obsidian-typings/implementations:

import { InternalPluginName } from 'obsidian-typings/implementations';

this.app.internalPlugins.getEnabledPluginById(InternalPluginName.FileExplorer);

(The list of all available implementations can be found in the implementations folder.)

Extend with your own typings

If you need to extend the typings provided by this package, add the following to any .d.ts file in your project:

export {}; // This is a very essential line. If you don't have any other top-level `import/export` statements, those typings will work not as expected.
declare module 'obsidian-typings' {
  interface PluginsPluginsRecord {
    myPlugin: MyPlugin;
  }
}

Disclaimer

[!WARNING]

Make sure to read below section in detail before using these typings.

Please be aware that there is a good reason why (some of) the functions and types defined here are not included with the official API definitions:

• The methods are not fully defined, and will be changed or removed in the near-future
• There is a high risk of the code behaving unexpectedly if used improperly
• The function was never meant to be used

Please use the functions and variables provided with caution. Be prepared to update your code if the API changes, and only use the functions if you are confident that you understand what they will do. Reference the official API first to see if your problem may be solved with a documented function, or search in the #plugin-dev channel of the Obsidian Discord server. Some functions will also contain @remark TSDoc tags that provide alternatives or better solutions.

Methods marked @internal are especially risky to use: these are either not fully typed yet, or are solely intended to be used internally by the Obsidian app.

Furthermore, there is a very high chance that there are mistakes in the typings, despite best efforts. All types had to be deduced from either context, manually running the function, or from the minified app code. You should verify that the code behaves as expected, both with regard to the expected (input/output)types, as well as what the function description promises.

With these scary disclaimers out of the way, hopefully these typings will help you in removing 90% of the @ts-ignores you have in your codebase, or discover solutions that didn't seem possible before.

[!NOTE]

TL;DR: Use at your own risk, verify that the code behaves as expected, and be prepared to update your code if the API changes.

@internal methods are especially risky to use.

@remark tags give some warnings about the inputs/outputs of the function, or provide better alternatives.

@tutorial gives additional information on how to use the function in your plugin.

Migration

If you were using a 1.x.x version of this package, you may need to follow the Migration guide after updating to 2.0.0 or newer.

Contributing

Feel free to start typing any part of the Obsidian API that is not yet typed, or fixing/adding additional descriptions to existing typings. If you are unsure about anything, don't hesitate to open an issue.

A brief tutorial is available on how you can get started with adding new typings, or fixing existing ones, see: CONTRIBUTING.md.