Svelte 5 - Relax Variable Naming Restrictions on $-Prefixed Variables about svelte HOT 7 OPEN

Here's a suggestion: warn (not error) on variable/import with name of rune, and disable the rune for the entire file. So you can do import $state from "somewhere" and it gives you a warning:

The import/variable name clashes with a Svelte rune. The $state rune cannot be used in this file unless the import/variable is renamed.

The warning should maybe be able to be suppressed.

This way new runes are not breaking changes. And the existing error for all $-prefixed variables should be removed, or at least changed to warnings (which should definitely be able to be suppressed).

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You can always import the package imports as a namespace. This is something we've been advocating for folks who have this exact problem, for example with Lexical:

import * as Lexical from 'lexical';

// ..

lexical.$insertNodes(…)

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@trueadm I don't think you understood my point, we have internal conventions and rules and all of our projects use $ and in case we WANT to use Svelte 5, we are FORCED to break those rules.

In my opinion, a framework should absolutely not break a company or even a developer code writing rules.

I saw the other issues related to the $ sign, they suggest the removal of the $ sign from the runes, but here I am asking to relax the restriction.

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@roonie007 I know, I was the author of Lexical that also had the convention of using $ prefixes on the APIs. However, like I said above, you're not removing the convention, you're just working around it. In the case of .svelte modules, we enforce that $ prefix isn't allowed as it enables us to use those for runes in the future. It would suck if we couldn't add a $db() or a $session() rune in the future to SvelteKit – for example.

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@trueadm That’s precisely my point. While svelte could introduce $db or $session in the future, in our codebase, we have the flexibility to rename variables as needed (e.g., $database, $mongo, $prisma, $userSession, etc...).

Having the choice is always preferable to being restricted. Allowing us to continue using $-prefixes for our internal functions without enforcing a blanket restriction would provide more flexibility and avoid unnecessary workarounds.

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@trueadm That’s precisely my point. While svelte could introduce $db or $session in the future, in our codebase, we have the flexibility to rename variables as needed (e.g., $database, $mongo, $prisma, $userSession, etc...).

Having the choice is always preferable to being restricted. Allowing us to continue using $-prefixes for our internal functions without enforcing a blanket restriction would provide more flexibility and avoid unnecessary workarounds.

The problem is semver: if you don't restrict $ variables whenever you want to add a new rune that's a breaking change. So while you absolutely can rename your variables svelte can't publish a new rune without bumping to svelte 6 (which would be kinda restrictive)

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@rChaoz suggestion is also an acceptable solution to relax the restriction.

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