What import alias would you like configured?

Justin Dwyer — Wed, 01 Mar 2023 18:02:04 +0000

I'm building my personal website with Next.js and I came across this question after running yarn create next-app --typescript:

? What import alias would you like configured? › @/*

I'm familiar with the concept of import aliases, but I didn't know how Next expected this question to be answered. Usually, I use multiple import aliases. I might use @styles, @components, @hooks, etc.

So I decided to experiment. I typed @components into the prompt, and I got this response back:

› Import alias must follow the pattern <prefix>/*

Got it. So then I tried @components/*, and my app was created. I checked my tsconfig.json (or jsconfig.json) and compared it to an app that used the default @/*.

// tsconfig.json with default (@/*)
{
  "compilerOptions": {
    ...
    "baseUrl": ".",
    "paths": {
      "@/*": ["./*"]
    }
  },
  ...
}

// tsconfig.json with test (@components/*)
{
  "compilerOptions": {
    ...
    "baseUrl": ".",
    "paths": {
      "@components/*": ["./*"]
    }
  },
  ...
}

What came out of the test is not what I wanted. In the past, I've used a pattern like this:

// tsconfig.json
{
  "compilerOptions": {
    ...
    "baseUrl": ".",
    "paths": {
      "@components/*": ["components/*"],
      "@styles/*": ["styles/*"],
      "@hooks/*": ["hooks/*"]
    }
  },
  ...
}

Which allowed me to reference imports like this:

import Button from '@components/Button';

Using the default ("@/*": ["./*"]) provided by the Next.js setup wizard allows me to do the same thing without having to explicitly set each path in my tsconfig.json — I just need to add an extra / after the @ to my import path, like so:

import Button from '@/components/Button';

This keeps my tsconfig.json from getting bloated and hard to maintain (compared to the pattern I used to use). Cool!

The only use case I can think of for modifying this default is if you are using an src/ folder.

Do you have a use case I'm not thinking of? Leave a comment if so!

DEV Community: Justin Dwyer

What import alias would you like configured?