Use top level imports to reference directives in standalone directives

[fireflysemantics]

Which @angular/* package(s) are relevant/related to the feature request?

core

Description

If I understand how signals are implemented correctly, the Angular compiler makes the signals work by compiling in the necessary scaffolding.

It would be nice to see the same feature / thinking applied to imports.

So instead of having to import in the component decorator like this:

@Component({
  // Import the `ProfilePhoto` component in
  // order to use it in this component's template.
  imports: [ProfilePhoto],
  /* ... */
})

The Angular compiler just reads the template or the class implementation of the component and scans for the imports being used and automatically scaffolds the code for the implementation.

Proposed solution

Use the compiler to "Understand" what imports are used in the implementation, so that the user can skip redeclaring imports within an @Directive ...

Alternatives considered

The way it's currently implemented ...

[JeanMeche]

This is an idea that has been in our minds with selectorless.

With selectorless you would have reference the symbol directly in the template, which woul drop the requirement for the second import.
I was inclined to think that this is a duplicate issue, but couldn't find one.

[alxhub]

There are two major reasons why it doesn't work this way:

• imports would appear unused to TypeScript and other tooling (eg linters) if the only reference to them was via their selector
• JIT compilation requires a real runtime reference and has no ability to see symbols in the imported scope

[alxhub]

I'll close this as not viable given the two constraints above.