Type alias Simplify<T>

Useful to flatten the type output to improve type hints shown in editors. And also to transform an interface into a type to aide with assignability.

Example

import type {Simplify} from 'type-fest';

type PositionProps = {
    top: number;
    left: number;
};

type SizeProps = {
    width: number;
    height: number;
};

// In your editor, hovering over `Props` will show a flattened object with all the properties.
type Props = Simplify<PositionProps & SizeProps>;

Sometimes it is desired to pass a value as a function argument that has a different type. At first inspection it may seem assignable, and then you discover it is not because the value's type definition was defined as an interface. In the following example, fn requires an argument of type Record<string, unknown>. If the value is defined as a literal, then it is assignable. And if the value is defined as type using the Simplify utility the value is assignable. But if the value is defined as an interface, it is not assignable because the interface is not sealed and elsewhere a non-string property could be added to the interface.

If the type definition must be an interface (perhaps it was defined in a third-party npm package), then the value can be defined as const value: Simplify<SomeInterface> = .... Then value will be assignable to the fn argument. Or the value can be cast as Simplify<SomeInterface> if you can't re-declare the value.

Example

import type {Simplify} from 'type-fest';

interface SomeInterface {
    foo: number;
    bar?: string;
    baz: number | undefined;
}

type SomeType = {
    foo: number;
    bar?: string;
    baz: number | undefined;
};

const literal = {foo: 123, bar: 'hello', baz: 456};
const someType: SomeType = literal;
const someInterface: SomeInterface = literal;

function fn(object: Record<string, unknown>): void {}

fn(literal); // Good: literal object type is sealed
fn(someType); // Good: type is sealed
fn(someInterface); // Error: Index signature for type 'string' is missing in type 'someInterface'. Because `interface` can be re-opened
fn(someInterface as Simplify<SomeInterface>); // Good: transform an `interface` into a `type`

Link

https://github.com/microsoft/TypeScript/issues/15300