How to import types from module without qualified name?

Question

In a React web app I have a typescript module from which I'm exporting a series of types, and I want to import some of them into my App.tsx. The module exporting the types looks like this:

// poker_messages.ts
export type Card = { suit: string; rank: string };
//...
export type IncomingPokerMessage = General | PlaceBet | Error;

In App.tsx I can import them like this:

import * as PM from './poker_messages';

Then refer to the types as PM.Card etc. But if I try

import { Card, IncomingPokerMessage } from './poker_messages';

I get an error that the module does not export those names. What's the right way to import only those things I need and without the qualified name?

import type { Card, IncomingPokerMessage } from './poker_messages'; or try { "compilerOptions": { "isolatedModules": false } } — Alexander Nenashev
– Alexander Nenashev, Commented Nov 10 at 11:55

Ssword · Accepted Answer · 2025-11-10 12:15:04Z

instead of

import { Card, IncomingPokerMessage } from './poker_messages';

do

import type { Card, IncomingPokerMessage } from './poker_messages';

notice the added type after the import. since the types do not exist at runtime, typescript requires types and interfaces to be explicitly imported as so:
import type { A } from './foo';
or
import { type A } from './foo';

the first one is preferred here since there is more than 1 type import.

however if you would like to just do import { A } from './foo'; you could enable verbatimModuleSyntax in your tsconfig.json. (i do not recommend doing this since it is implicit).

why `

import * as PM from './poker_messages';

worked was because this is a namespaced import, it states that 'i would like to import from poker_messages.ts as namespace named PM.' and yes, that includes exported types from the module too.

here is the documentation for typescript modules:
https://www.typescriptlang.org/docs/handbook/modules/reference.html

here are the documentation for verbatimModuleSyntax:
https://www.typescriptlang.org/tsconfig/#verbatimModuleSyntax

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