"Go to Definition" shows duplicate results

[RyotaUshio]

Hi, I've been fascinated by this project, thank you for the great work!

I'm encountering a problem where VSCode/Cursor's "Go to Definition" commands shows duplicate results for types produced by valibot.
For example:

import * as v from "valibot";

const Data = v.object({
  key: v.string(),
});

const data = v.parse(Data, { key: "hello" });
// Execute "Go to Definition" on the `key` property.
// VSCode/Cursor will show four definitions, but all of
// them points to the exact same location (the second line).
console.log(data.key);

(Full repro repo: https://github.com/RyotaUshio/valibot-repro)

Result:

• VSCode:
• Cursor:

Environment:

• valibot: 1.1.0
• typescript: 5.9.3
• VSCode: 1.105.1
• Cursor: 2.0.38
• macOS: 15.5

I would appreciate it if you could help me resolve this issue. Thank you 🙏

[dosubot]

Hi @RyotaUshio! I'm Dosu and I’m helping the valibot team.

This happens because valibot's type inference for object schemas uses several layers of mapped types, conditional types, and type aliases to produce precise TypeScript types. When you use "Go to Definition" on a property like key, the TypeScript language server traces through these layers, often resulting in multiple identical references to the same property definition. This is a side effect of how TypeScript resolves complex type compositions and is not unique to valibot—other schema libraries with advanced type inference can trigger similar IDE quirks.

There isn't a direct fix within valibot or your codebase, as this behavior comes from TypeScript's type system and how IDEs like VSCode or Cursor present type information. The valibot maintainers have noted that some IDE integration issues are outside the library's control and originate from the TypeScript language server itself. Flattening or simplifying type aliases in valibot could reduce this, but it would likely come at the cost of type safety or flexibility, so it's not generally recommended for most users.

If this is disruptive, you might want to follow TypeScript and VSCode issue trackers for improvements in how "Go to Definition" handles complex types, but for now, it's a known limitation of the current TypeScript tooling landscape. More details on valibot's type inference patterns can be found in its type definitions.

To reply, just mention @dosu.

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[fabian-hiller]

Do you know how this behaves with other schema libraries (e.g. Zod)? I wonder if this is something we can actually control via our source code.

[RyotaUshio]

@fabian-hiller Interestingly, zod does NOT have this problem. So there seems to be some factors controllable...

Screen.Recording.2025-10-31.at.10.48.43.mov

I've updated the repro repo to include both valibot & zod examples.