Class-based Listener not triggering using documentation example

[mrnadaara]

I'm a little confused by the documentation; it mentions that you can pass in the listener class from the barrel file into the emitter.

Register the listener by importing it from the #generated/listeners [barrel file](https://docs.adonisjs.com/guides/concepts/barrel-files).

# start/events.ts
import emitter from '@adonisjs/core/services/emitter'
import { events } from '#generated/events'
import { listeners } from '#generated/listeners'

emitter.on(events.UserRegistered, listeners.SendVerificationEmail)

However, using this approach does not trigger the listener at all

# start/events.ts
import emitter from "@adonisjs/core/services/emitter";
import { events } from "#generated/events";
import { listeners } from "#generated/listeners";
import SendOtpSms from "#listeners/send_otp_sms";

emitter.on(events.OtpRequested, listeners.SendOtpSms); // Does not trigger
emitter.on(events.OtpRequested, async function (event) {
  const listen = new SendOtpSms();
  listen.handle(event); // Does trigger
});

// working code abbreviated
emitter.on(events.OtpRequested, new SendOtpSms().handle); // Does trigger

# events/otp_requested
import { BaseEvent } from "@adonisjs/core/events";

export default class OtpRequested extends BaseEvent {
  constructor(
    public readonly phoneNumber: string,
    public readonly code: string
  ) {
    super();
  }
}

# listeners/send_otp_sms.ts
import type OtpRequested from "#events/otp_requested";

export default class SendOtpSms {
  async handle(event: OtpRequested) {
    const { phoneNumber, code } = event;

    // Swap for Twilio / AWS SNS / Termii / Africa's Talking etc.
    // Example with Twilio:
    //
    // await twilioClient.messages.create({
    //   to: phoneNumber,
    //   from: env.get('TWILIO_PHONE_NUMBER'),
    //   body: `Your code: ${code}. Valid for 5 minutes.`,
    // })

    // Dev fallback — remove in production
    console.log(`[SMS] ${phoneNumber} → ${code}`);
  }
}

# service/otp_service
....
// logic to create code
...
events.OtpRequested.dispatch(phoneNumber, code);

[MILLERMARRU]

This is a docs inconsistency, and it lines up exactly with the working/non-working cases you found. The emitter guide's "listen for class-based events" example registers the listener wrapped in an array:

emitter.on(events.UserRegistered, [listeners.SendVerificationEmail])

but the off() example elsewhere in the same guide shows the unwrapped form:

emitter.on(events.UserRegistered, listeners.SendVerificationEmail)
emitter.off(events.UserRegistered, listeners.SendVerificationEmail)

Your code followed the second (unwrapped) shape, emitter.on(events.OtpRequested, listeners.SendOtpSms), which is exactly why it silently did nothing: without the array, the emitter doesn't know to treat that value as a lazily-resolved class-based listener, it's handled as a different registration path than the one the barrel-file/class-listener feature actually uses. Wrapping it fixes it with no other changes:

emitter.on(events.OtpRequested, [listeners.SendOtpSms])

Your two workarounds (constructing the instance and passing a bound handle, or passing new SendOtpSms().handle directly) both work because they sidestep the class-listener resolution path entirely, you're just handing the emitter a plain callable, which is the "works with any function" case that doesn't need the array convention at all.

Worth filing the off() example as a docs bug since it'll trip up the next person the same way, that snippet should also use [listeners.SendVerificationEmail] to match the registration example above it.