Huge missed opportunity: Routes type safety should be inferred with file-based routing

[newsve]

Which project does this relate to?

Router

Describe the bug

I file this as bug because this was my expectation when I got into this project, it has been my initial understand about its type safety, I do not think this should be a new feature but the baseline, so please feel free to close this issue if I miss something.

I find the current way and the need to type the route myself in addition to the file naming and location with file-based routing tedious and not DRY:

export const Route = createFileRoute("/")({
  component: Home,
  ...
});

routeTree.gen.ts gets autogenerated all the time anyway and it could also read the file and folder structure and generate typing right from that structure with file-based routing.

I mean, the reason file-based routing got again so popular is that it is dead-simple, it isn't always the best but it is easy, intuitive and gets out of the way. And, it is less work, because you need to name files and folders anyway.

Now we have to do both, naming and decide on the location of a file + declare its route, this is more work while we could just infer the type safety from the file and folder structure.

Also fire-and-forget refactoring is not straight-forward because of the non-DRY nature, you have to manually sync route declaration and file naming and location.

Your Example Website or App

not applicable

Steps to Reproduce the Bug or Issue

not applicable

Expected behavior

Routes type safety should be automatically inferred from the real file and folder structure with file-based routing with the option to manually override typing.

Screenshots or Videos

No response

Platform

not applicable

Additional context

No response

[schiller-manuel]

typescript unfortunately does not know in which file you are currently in, so we need to tell it.
the identifier is automatically updated via router-generator (cli or plugin), so you don't need care about updating that.

[newsve]

Two questions:

1. Why did you close this so fast? Don't you want to check with other contributors about their opinion and technical feasibility? /cc @tannerlinsley
2. Not sure what you mean: When the dev server is running, something like Chokidar or any other filer watcher (you guys use nx) could check changes in the files structure and then a custom script could autogenerate routeTree.gen.ts, so this isn't about Typescript

Looking forward to your reply.

[schiller-manuel]

we got the question "why do we need to have an identifier in the route file" repeatedly, so you got the canned response for that :D
believe me, if there was a way to not have an identifier in the route file while still having fully inferred types, we had implemented it.

routeTree.gen.ts is updated automatically when you either use one of our bundler plugins and have the dev server running or when you use our CLI in watch mode.