Reference

Reference pages cover exact generated shapes, plugin options, runtime types, and edge cases. Use them when you need a specific behavior. For end-to-end workflows, see Getting started and the guide pages in the sidebar.

Code generation

• Generated code: file names, message shapes, enum generation, extension descriptors, and service schemas.
• Field types: scalar mappings, message fields, enum fields, repeated fields, map fields, and well-known type field shapes.
• Generated features: oneofs, proto2 groups, required fields, optional fields, services, reserved names, nested types, comments, and packages.
• Plugin options: target, import extensions, CommonJS output, empty files, ts_nocheck, plugin version elision, JSON types, and Valid types.

Runtime

• Working with messages: create(), initializer objects, isMessage(), $typeName, field presence, equals(), and clone().
• Serialization: binary and JSON helpers, options, unknown fields, low-level wire APIs, text encoding, Base64, and size-delimited streams.
• Extensions: defining, setting, reading, mutating, clearing, and serializing extensions.
• Reflection: overview and typed dynamic message patterns.
• Descriptors: descriptor hierarchy, schema traversal, field descriptors, and traversal helpers.
• Registries: descriptor lookup, mutable registries, and file registries from descriptor sets.
• Custom options: defining, using, and reading schema annotations.
• Dynamic messages: ReflectMessage, ReflectList, and ReflectMap.
• Well-known types: precompiled google.protobuf exports and convenience helpers for Timestamp, Duration, Any, Struct, wrappers, descriptors, and compiler types.

Plugin authors

• Writing plugins: plugin structure and a minimal runnable plugin.
• Generating files: output files, preambles, printing, imports, exports, name collisions, and CommonJS adaptation.
• Plugin options and release: custom option parsing, transpilation, publishing, and testing.

Type helpers

• JSON types: generated JSON types, enum JSON types, MessageJsonType, EnumJsonType, and plugin imports.
• Valid types: experimental generated Valid types for required message-field guarantees.

Migration and troubleshooting

• Migrating from v1: package updates, changed plugin defaults, schema-based runtime calls, and notable v2 behavior changes.
• FAQ: enum design, 64-bit integers, plugin-option philosophy, resolver issues, generated imports, and determinism.