mongoose-zod

A library which allows to author mongoose ("a MongoDB object modeling tool") schemas using zod ("a TypeScript-first schema declaration and validation library").

Purpose

Declaring mongoose schemas in TypeScript environment has always been tricky in terms of getting the most out of type safety:

• You either have to first declare an interface representing a document in MongoDB and then create a schema corresponding to that interface (you get no type safety at all - even the offical mongoose documentation says that "you as the developer are responsible for ensuring that your document interface lines up with your Mongoose schema")
• Or reverse things by using mongoose.InferSchemaType<typeof schema> which is far from ideal (impossible to narrow types, doesn't support TS enums, doesn't know about virtuals, has problems with fields named type, ...)
• Finally, you can use typegoose which is based on legacy decorators proposal and generally poorly infers types.

This library aims to solve many of the aforementioned problems utilizing zod as a schema authoring tool.

Usage

⚠️ Please do not forget to read the caveats section when you're done with the main documentation.

Install the package from npm:

npm i mongoose-zod

⚠️ You also need to install peer dependencies being zod and mongoose:

npm i mongoose zod

Then, define a schema and use it as follows:

import {z} from 'zod';
import {genTimestampsSchema, toMongooseSchema, mongooseZodCustomType} from 'mongoose-zod';

export const userZodSchema = z
  .object({
    // Sub schema
    info: z.object({
      // Define type options like this (NOT recommended - better to use `typeOptions` passed to `.mongoose()` - see FAQ)
      nickname: z.string().min(1).mongooseTypeOptions({unique: true}),
      birthday: z.tuple([
        z.number().int().min(1900),
        z.number().int().min(1).max(12),
        z.number().int().min(1).max(31),
      ]),
      // Unlike mongoose, arrays won't have an empty array `[]` as a default value!
      friends: z.number().int().min(1).array().optional(),
      // Making the field optional
      status: z.enum(['😊', '😔', '🤔']).optional(),
      // Use this function to use special (Buffer, ObjectId, ...) and custom (Long, ...) types
      avatar: mongooseZodCustomType('Buffer'),
    }),
    // Default values set with zod's .default() are respected
    regDate: z.date().default(new Date()),
  })
  // Schema merging supported natively by zod. We make use of this feature
  // by providing a schema generator for creating type-safe timestamp fields
  .merge(genTimestampsSchema('crAt', 'upAt'))
  // Define schema options here:
  .mongoose({
    schemaOptions: {
      collection: 'users',

      // Full type safety in virtuals, as well as in statics, methods and query methods
      virtuals: {
        bday: {
          get() {
            const [y, m, d] = this.info.birthday;
            return new Date(y, m - 1, d);
          },
          set(d: Date) {
            this.info.birthday = [d.getFullYear(), d.getMonth() + 1, d.getDate()];
          },
        },
      },

      statics: { ... },
      methods: { ... },
      query: { ... },
    },

    // Ability to override type schema options
    typeOptions: {
      upAt: {
        index: false,
      },
    },
  });

const UserSchema = toMongooseSchema(userZodSchema);

const User = M.model('User', UserSchema);

const user = new User().toJSON();

Result:

Additional safety measures

Since the overarching goal of this library is to simplify working with mongoose schemas, one way to accomplish that is to also get rid of non-obvious, too permissive or annoying behaviour of mongoose. That's why by default:

• Arrays won't have an empty array [] set as a default value (it is undefined instead, but you will be able to override it).
• Root schema won't have an id virtual.
• Empty objects won't be removed from documents upon saving (minimize is set to false).
• Sub schemas (which are automatically created for fields with ZodObject type) won't be set an _id property.
• All array field will not allow casting of non-array values to arrays.
• Casting is also disabled for types like number, string, boolean and date and cannot be re-enabled.

But that's not all.

Type-safe validate and required options

You can use special validate and required type options alternatives we provide, mzValidate and mzRequired respectively. In contrast to their vanilla counterparts, they not only guarantee type safety, but their runtime behaviour matches the declared types. They will actually have this set to undefined when run during update operation (click here for mongoose docs on this) and mzValidate will have a proper type of its argument.

⚠️ Some warnings:

• this type is still going to be any when used with .mongooseTypeOptions. See the FAQ for more info on the best way of defining type options in general.
• You can't define validate and mzValidate (and the other one) simultaneously. The error will be thrown upon schema creation if both say required and mzRequired are present.
• Schema.validate() calls that register additional validators won't be type safe.

Certain plugins are automatically added to schemas if found

If the following plugins are installed, they will be automatically registered on every schema you create with mongoose-zod:

• mongoose-lean-virtuals
• mongoose-lean-defaults
• mongoose-lean-getters

You can opt out of this behaviour when creating a schema in the following manner:

const Schema = toMongooseSchema( ... , {
  disablePlugins: {
    leanVirtuals: true,
    leanDefaults: true,
    leanGetters: true,
  },
});

The most intriguing thing is that you won't have to explicitly make them work on every .lean() call:

const user = await User.findOne({ ... }).lean();
// is equivalent to (if respective plugins are installed):
const user = await User.findOne({ ... }).lean({
  virtuals: true,
  defaults: true,
  getters: true,
  // Bonus: this is set regardless of plugins
  versionKey: false,
});

You can override certain options if you wish:

// If `mongoose-lean-getters` is installed, `getters: true` will still be implicitly set
const user = await User.findOne({ ... }).lean({ virtuals: false, anyOtherOption: true });

Note: if you pass to .lean() anything but an object or null, these options won't be set.

FAQ

What is the recommended way of defining type options?

The example above demonstrates that there are two ways of defining type options for the field: using .mongooseTypeOptions({ ... }) or .mongoose({typeOptions: { ... }}). There's a good reason why two options exist and here is the recipe for their correct usage:

• Use .mongooseTypeOptions in shared schemas you're planning to merge/extend/modify (because after you've used .mongoose() you won't be able to do any of these operations).
• Сonsequently, use .mongoose elsewhere. It's less verbose and this way you separate field type declarations from field metadata like indexes, custom validators, etc. Moreover, only here type safety is fully available for some custom type options we provide.
• Keep in mind that options defined in .mongoose override the ones defined in .mongooseTypeOptions.

How to obtain a schema type and what to do with it?

You have two options:

• Infer zod schema type as follows: type SchemaType = z.infer<typeof zodSchema>.
• Infer mongoose schema type as follows: type SchemaType = mongoose.InferSchemaType<typeof MongooseSchema>.

The good thing is they both should be equal! Then you can use it say in your frontend code by using TypeScript's type only import to make sure no actual code is imported, only types:

// user.model.ts (backend):
...
const userZodSchema = z.object({ ... }).mongoose();
const UserSchema = toMongooseSchema(userZodSchema);
...
export type IUser = z.infer<typeof userZodSchema>;
// OR
export type IUser = mongoose.InferSchemaType<typeof UserSchema>;
...

// somewhere on frontend, notice "import type":
import type {IUser} from '<...>/user.model';
...

How to use special types like Buffer, ObjectId, Decimal128 or custom ones like Long?

Use a stand-alone function called mongooseZodCustomType.

import {z} from 'zod';
import {mongooseZodCustomType} from 'mongoose-zod';

const zodSchema = z.object({
  refs: mongooseZodCustomType('ObjectId').array(),
  data: mongooseZodCustomType('Buffer').optional(),
}).mongoose();

Don't we still have type safety for options like alias and timestamps?

Yes, we don't. Instead timestamps, merge your schema with a timestamps schema generator exported under the genTimestampsSchema name.

Instead alias, simply use a virtual (which is what mongoose aliases actually are).

What zod types are supported and how are they mapped to mongoose types?

¹ Enums with mixed values, e.g. with both string and numbers. Also see TypeScript docs.
² Has nothing to do with mongoose discriminators.
³ A class provided with mongooseZodCustomType() or Mixed instead.

• Types named MongooseZodBaseClass are custom types inherited from BaseClass with the only function overloaded being cast which disables casting altogether.
• If the zod type is not supported, a MongooseZodError error will be thrown upon schema creation.
• The same error will be thrown when when the zod type as a whole is supported, but this specific case it describes is not. Some examples: Infinity number literal, bigint literal, empty enums.

⚠️ Caveats

I get the error: .mongooseTypeOptions/.mongoose is not a function

This error indicates that zod extensions this package adds have not been registered yet. This may happen when you've used either of these methods but haven't imported anything from mongoose-zod. In this case the best strategy would probably be to import the package at the entrypoint of your application like that:

import 'mongoose-zod';
...

License

See LICENSE.md.