ProtoScript

A Protobuf runtime and code generation tool for JavaScript and TypeScript

What is this? 🧐

ProtoScript is a protocol buffers runtime and code generation tool for JavaScript, written in TypeScript.

Highlights 🛠

Isomorphic. ProtoScript's generated serializers/deserializers can be consumed in the browser or Node.js runtimes.
Small. ProtoScript's runtime and generated code are built with tree shaking to minimize bundle sizes. This results in a significantly smaller bundle size than google-protobuf.
In-editor API documentation. Comments in your .proto files become TSDoc comments in the generated code and will show inline documentation in supported editors.
Idiomatic JavaScript / TypeScript code. None of the Java idioms that protoc --js_out generates such as the List suffix naming for repeated fields, Map suffix for maps, or the various getter and setter methods. ProtoScript generates and consumes plain JavaScript objects over classes.
No runtime dependencies.

Installation 📦

Install the protocol buffers compiler:

MacOS: brew install protobuf

Linux: apt install -y protobuf-compiler

Windows: choco install protoc

Or install from a precompiled binary.
Add this package to your project: yarn add protoscript or npm install protoscript

Examples 🚀

yarn

yarn protoscript

cli

protoc \
  --plugin=protoc-gen-protoscript=./node_modules/protoscript/compiler.js
  --protoscript_out=. \
  --protoscript_opt=language=typescript \

Note: Windows users replace ./node_modules/protoscript/compiler.js above with ./node_modules/protoscript/compiler.cmd

Buf

ProtoScript can be used with Buf.

buf.gen.yaml

version: v1
plugins:
  - name: protoc-gen-protoscript
    path: ./node_modules/protoscript/compiler.js
    out: .
    opt:
      - language=typescript
    strategy: all

Working with other tools

TypeScript

As a design goal, ProtoScript should always work with the strictest TypeScript compiler settings. If your generated ProtoScript files are failing type checking, please open an issue.

Linters

ProtoScript does not make any guarantees for tools like linters and formatters such as prettier or eslint. It generally does not make sense to run these tools against code generation artifacts, like the .pb.ts or .pb.js files generated by ProtoScript. This is because:

The permutations of preferences and plugins for these tools quickly explode beyond what is feasible for a single tool to target. There are always new tools that could be added as well.
The code is generated automatically, and not all rules are auto fixable. This means there are cases that would always require manual intervention by the user.
Autogenerated code is readonly, and expected to be correct. Autogenerated code has a much difference maintenance cycle than code written by hand, and should generally be treated as a binary or a dependency. You don't lint your node_modules!

Configuration 🛠

ProtoScript aims to be zero config, but can be configured via the cli interface, or when using the yarn protoscript command, by creating a .protoscript.json file in your project root.

Name	Description	Type
root	The root directory. `.proto` files will be searched under this directory, and `proto` import paths will be resolved relative to this directory. ProtoScript will recursively search all subdirectories for `.proto` files. Defaults to the project root. Example: If we have the following project structure: `/src A.proto B.proto` Default: A.proto would `import` B.proto as follows: `import "src/B.proto";` Setting `root` to `src`: // .protoscript.json { "root": "src" } A.proto would `import` B.proto as follows: `import "B.proto";` TypeScript projects will generally want to set this value to match their `rootDir`, particularly when using Protocol Buffers Well-Known Types so that the generated well-known type files are under the `rootDir`.	string (filepath)
exclude	An array of patterns that should be skipped when searching for `.proto` files. Example: If we have the following project structure: /src /foo A.proto /bar B.proto Setting `exclude` to `["/bar/"]`: // .protoscript.json { "exclude": ["/bar/"] } Will only process A.proto (B.proto) will be excluded from ProtoScript's code generation.	string[] (RegExp pattern)
dest	The destination folder for generated files. Defaults to colocating generated files with the corresponding `proto` definition. If we have the following project structure: `/src A.proto B.proto` ProtoScript will generate the following: `/src A.proto A.pb.ts B.proto B.pb.ts` Setting `dest` to `out` will generate the following: // .protoscript.json { "dest": "out", } `/src A.proto B.proto /out /src A.pb.ts B.pb.ts` Note that the generated directory structure will mirror the `proto` paths exactly as is, only nested under the `dest` directory. If you want to change this, for instance, to omit `src` from the `out` directory above, you can set the `root`. Setting `root` to `src` (in addition to setting `dest` to `out`) will generate the following: // .protoscript.json { "root": "src", "dest": "out", } `/src A.proto B.proto /out A.pb.ts B.pb.ts`	string (filepath)
language	Whether to generate JavaScript or TypeScript. If omitted, ProtoScript will attempt to autodetect the language by looking for a `tsconfig.json` in the project root. If found, ProtoScript will generate TypeScript, otherwise JavaScript.	javascript \| typescript
json	JSON serializer options. `emitFieldsWithDefaultValues` - Fields with default values are omitted by default in proto3 JSON. Setting this to true will serialize fields with their default values. `useProtoFieldName` - Field names are converted to lowerCamelCase by default in proto3 JSON. Setting this to true will use the proto field name as the JSON key when serializing JSON. Either way, Proto3 JSON parsers are required to accept both the converted lowerCamelCase name and the proto field name. See https://developers.google.com/protocol-buffers/docs/proto3#json for more context.	{ emitFieldsWithDefaultValues?: boolean, useProtoFieldName?: boolean }
typecript	TypeScript options. `emitDeclarationOnly` - Only emit TypeScript type definitions.	{ emitDeclarationOnly?: boolean }

JSON

ProtoScript's JSON serialization/deserialization implements the proto3 specification. This is nearly complete, but still in progress.

ProtoScript will serialize JSON keys as lowerCamelCase versions of the proto field. Per the proto3 spec, the runtime will accept both lowerCamelCase and the original proto field name when deserializing. You can provide the json_name field option to specify an alternate key name. When doing so, the runtime will accept the json_name and the origin proto field name, but not lowerCamelCase.

Contributing 👫

PR's and issues welcomed! For more guidance check out CONTRIBUTING.md

Licensing 📃

See the project's MIT License.