[feat]: Make strapi client use types from `contentTypes.d.ts`

[mb21]

Unless I'm missing something this is currently not possible?

In the typescript example you're repeating the types, which were already generated here?

Why should this feature be included?

Because I don't want to copy over the generated types.

Please provide an example for how this would work

Ideally the strapi client construct would be generic, and we could pass it something exported by contentTypes.d.ts?

import type { API } from "../.strapi/types/generated/contentTypes.d.ts";
import { strapi } from "@strapi/client";

const client = strapi<API>({ baseURL: "http://localhost:1337/api" });

[nclsndr]

Thank you for raising this issue @mb21.
What you describe is almost exactly the state we'd like the client to be in plus runtime validation capabilities.
Our plan is to leverage the open API schema generation from Strapi and have it output both types and validators. The work on this is fairly advanced but we still need to figure out some Strapi specifics (namely, bridging open API and the queryParams spec which are not compatible out of the box).
If I can't commit to a definitive timeline, please be assured we're taking this flaw very seriously.

[Dearonski]

I've built strapi-typed-client that solves this. It works as a Strapi v5 plugin — exposes your schema via REST endpoint, then the CLI generates clean TypeScript types and a fully typed StrapiClient class from it. No manual type copying, no generics to pass — every collection method is already typed:

const strapi = new StrapiClient({ baseURL: 'http://localhost:1337' })

// articles is already typed as Article[], full autocomplete
const articles = await strapi.articles.find({
  filters: { title: { $contains: 'hello' } },
  populate: { category: true },
})

For Next.js there's also a withStrapiTypes wrapper for next.config.ts that auto-regenerates types when schema changes during next dev.

• GitHub: https://github.com/BoxLab-Ltd/strapi-typed-client
• npm: npm install strapi-typed-client

[atissedrescaleway]

This is amazing @Dearonski

I've just tested it in our Next.js app and it works really well, even for complex structures with nested dynamic zones.

Are you planning to maintain it ?

@nclsndr have you had the chance to test it out? does it tackle the specifics you were talking about?

[Dearonski]

@atissedrescaleway Yes, the plugin is actively maintained and I have no plans to drop support — it's used in production in my own project, so I'm invested in keeping it stable and up to date.

If you run into any issues, feel free to open an issue on the repo.