Type error when adding an already expanded ReverseNavigationResource in the $select list

[barribarrier]

Expected Behavior

No type error

Actual Behavior

With strictNullChecks set to true, selecting 'device_tag' field results in type error.
This is not specific to only 'device_tag' field. Any field that has a type ReverseNavigationResource<T> fails.

Type '"device_tag"' is not assignable to type '"id" | "actor" | "created_at" | "modified_at" | "custom_latitude" | "custom_longitude" | "device_name" | "download_progress" | "ip_address" | "public_address" | "mac_address" | ... 43 more ... | "should_be_managed_by__supervisor_release"'. ts(2322)

With strictNullChecks set to false, there's no error.

Steps to Reproduce the Problem

git clone https://github.com/barribarrier/strictNullChecks-balena-sdk-issue.git
cd strictNullChecks-balena-sdk-issue
npm install
npm run build

OR

1. tsconfig.json

{
  "compilerOptions": {
    "strictNullChecks": true
  }
}

2. index.ts

import { getSdk } from 'balena-sdk';

const balena = getSdk();

balena.models.device.getAllByApplication(
  '123456',
  {
    $select: ['uuid', 'device_tag', 'device_environment_variable', 'created_at'],
    $expand: {
      device_tag: {
        $select: ['tag_key', 'value'],
      },
    },
  },
);

3. Run

tsc

Specifications

• SDK version: 17.1.2
• Browser:
• Node version: v19.3.0
• Npm version: 9.2.0
• Typescript version: 5.0.4
• OS: Ubuntu

References

[thgreasi]

Hi,
Thanks for raising this and for the POC repo.
I think this is actually the intended behavior, since ReverseNavigationResource properties in $select have no effect and they normally are supposed to be provided in $expands.
The query that you provided above will actually throw a 500 error when running against balenaCloud, because of having the device_environment_variable ReverseNavigationResource in the $select.

The part that this becomes a bit weird though is that having the device_tag in the $select happens to be fine by the backend as long as it is also part of an $expand.
The SDK's typings are trying to be slightly stricter on this and block ReverseNavigationResource properties in $selects completely (rather than checking whether they also show up in the $expand) to protect the user in the common case.
The typings are explicitly handling this case here:

balena-sdk/typings/pinejs-client-core.d.ts

Line 53 in 8bc6c44

: Exclude<StringKeyof<T>, PropsOfType<T, ReverseNavigationResource<{}>>>; // This is the normal typed case

Let us know your thoughts on this.

[barribarrier]

Oh, I didn't know that. I just assumed specifying them in $select was mandatory.
Thanks.