gincko VS zod

Leveraging type narrowing helper libraries like Zod or ArcType can significantly both reduce the type narrowing you need to do know parsing outside data, reduce lots of boilerplate type narrowing code, and increase type safety. Many of the type lies TypeScript tells are from JSON.parse, converting Errors typed as unknown, or when reading local configuration files. This is where Zod/ArcType can really make a huge positive impact.

While Speakeasy also includes unit tests, they're organized at the root of the /tests directory with less granular separation. Its approach emphasizes documentation and type definitions, with extensive model documentation in /docs/models/. The SDK uses runtime validation through zod, which requires developers to carefully handle error objects when the API returns invalid data. This creates a different balance between compile-time and runtime type safety.

I used zod-bird to integrate Tinybird APIs (pipes and events) with Next.js. It's a wrapper around the Tinybird APIs that validates pipe results using zod schemas.

One of the most basic applications of ReScript Schema is parsing - Accepting unknown JavaScript data, validating it, and returning the result of your desired type. There are dozens of such libraries, and the most popular ones are Zod, Valibot, Runtypes, Arktype, Typia, Superstruct, Effect Schema, and more. Also, even though this is slightly different, validation libraries like Ajv, Yup, and others also stand really close.

…but that’s a lot of no fun, dangerous work. Better to use a library that has already solved this problem like Zod or ArkType. It’ll ensure the types match up, and if not, give you an error response that _somewhat_ gives you a clue as to why the decoding went wrong, way more thorough and verbose than JSON.parse’s not so great runtime error messages.

As you can see, encoding and decoding in TypeScript can make your code safer, reduce the amount of type narrowing you need to do, especially if you use Zod. For consumers of your code and api’s, it gives them the flexibility of utilizing your API’s while providing their own types which includes their own encoders and decoders in a type-safe way. TypeScript can safely ensure all erros are typesafe, and those error scenarios are handled in developers who use your code.

🔗 https://zod.dev/

Zod is a TypeScript-first library for schema declaration and validation, offering a simple API to define, parse, and validate data structures with runtime type safety. It supports detailed error handling, and is ideal for validating inputs, APIs, and complex data in modern applications.

This feature is a game-changer because it guarantees that the AI's response will match your specified format. No more hoping the AI will format things correctly or writing complex parsing logic—you define a schema, and OpenAI ensures the output matches it exactly. This not only simplifies downstream processing but also allows you to use libraries like Zod to validate and enforce the schema of your output.