Definitelytyped: chai definitions break tsx

[arolson101]

• [X] I tried using the latest chai/chai.d.ts file in this repo and had problems.
• [X] I tried using the latest stable version of tsc. https://www.npmjs.com/package/typescript
• [X] I have a question that is inappropriate for StackOverflow. (Please ask any appropriate questions there).
• [X] I want to talk about chai/chai.d.ts.
  
  
  
  • The authors of that type definition are cc/ @Bartvds
  
  

The bit at the end of chai.d.ts:

interface Object {
    should: Chai.Assertion;
}

breaks tsx support because it thinks that all objects must have a should property (specifically, " Property 'should' is missing in type 'IntrinsicAttributes & IntrinsicClassAttributes

interface Object {
    should?: Chai.Assertion;
}

[nikolaymatrosov]

This Object interface expansion also cause another bug. Typescript compiler adds
/// <reference types="chai"> to all d.ts generated based on sources containing Object. (E.g. https://github.com/angular-redux/ng2-redux/pull/209/files)
I think it is better to eliminate polution Object interface with should property and make separate version of typings for those who need should assertion syntax.

[villasv]

It also breaks my compilation process because I have typings for Elasticsearch Search body requests. It has an internal interface

export interface Bool {
  should?: Query | Query[];
  filter?: Query | Query[];
  must?: Query | Query[];
  must_not?: Query | Query[];
}

And when I try to build an object with

const b: Bool = { should: query }

I get a type error saying that Query and Assertion are incompatible.

[villasv]

I agree with @nikolaymatrosov that we should not pollute the Object interface by default and I'm going to make a PR removing that last bit.

[villasv]

I couldn't manage a feasible PR because I tried to make it happen in the existing @types/chai package, but now I think we should instead create an alternatives types library that is exactly the same but doesn't contain the Object declaration.

[bevacqua]

Related issue https://github.com/DefinitelyTyped/DefinitelyTyped/issues/43744