Codables – Swift-inspired, declarative JSON serialization • Hacker News Board

Codables – Swift-inspired, declarative JSON serialization

#1

Post by pie6k » Tue, Nov 04, 2025, 1:34 PM UTC

Codables – Swift-inspired, declarative JSON serialization
github.com

Re: Codables – Swift-inspired, declarative JSON serialization

#2

Post by pie6k » Tue, Nov 04, 2025, 1:34 PM UTC

Hey! Why yet another JSON serialization library? We already have SuperJSON, right?

Yes. And SuperJSON is great; I use it a lot. However, things got tricky for me when I had really complex data types, covered with many model classes, often deeply nested and referencing each other, where I needed to serialize it all from/to JSON and save it on the disk. I had to essentially maintain two formats of my data - "serializable data" and TypeScript classes matching this data. It was quite a pain.

I've tried to solve it with modern decorators, making the entire process more declarative and having way less boilerplate.

Happy to hear your feedback!

Interactive playground - https://codableslib.com/playground Github: https://github.com/pie6k/codables

Re: Codables – Swift-inspired, declarative JSON serialization

#3

Post by jb1991 » Fri, Nov 14, 2025, 7:03 AM UTC

Since it’s your own project, would probably benefit from the “Show HN” title.

Re: Codables – Swift-inspired, declarative JSON serialization

#4

Post by boxed » Fri, Nov 14, 2025, 7:13 AM UTC

"for typescript" in the title would have been a good idea

Re: Codables – Swift-inspired, declarative JSON serialization

#5

Post by trymas » Fri, Nov 14, 2025, 7:17 AM UTC

boxed wrote: post #4

"for typescript" in the title would have been a good idea

Also - what's so "Swift-inspired"? There's not a single mention of Swift in README.

Re: Codables – Swift-inspired, declarative JSON serialization

#6

Post by secretsatan » Fri, Nov 14, 2025, 11:32 AM UTC

trymas wrote: post #5

boxed wrote: post #4

"for typescript" in the title would have been a good idea

Also - what's so "Swift-inspired"? There's not a single mention of Swift in README.

It’s based on Swift’s codable protocol: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/swift/codable

Re: Codables – Swift-inspired, declarative JSON serialization

#7

Post by happytoexplain » Fri, Nov 14, 2025, 12:31 PM UTC

Capturing types in the JSON means you need this tool at both ends. E.g. you couldn't use this to serialize data to send to a typical web API. Is there no way to use TS to declare the type at decode time, like you would in Swift and other strongly typed languages? I'm not super familiar with TS.

Re: Codables – Swift-inspired, declarative JSON serialization

#8

Post by boxed » Fri, Nov 14, 2025, 12:52 PM UTC

secretsatan wrote: post #6

trymas wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also - what's so "Swift-inspired"? There's not a single mention of Swift in README.

It’s based on Swift’s codable protocol: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/swift/codable

Very loosely. Swift Codable doesn't require you to annotate every field for example.