Bug: [explicit-function-return-type] false positive when returning an object with a typed function property about typescript-eslint HOT 2 OPEN

IIRC this getting to be a "working as intended" scenario. You can probably dig up some old issues asking about this behaviour.
The reason being that part of the motivation behind this rule is to make it easier to review code without type analysis turned on.

But when you've got a function that has a type, and that function returns an object and that object has properties and those properties might have a strict function return type..... well there's so much indirection there that we consider the rule violated.
Also imagine code like this:

function foo(): ReturnType {
  // ...
  // 300 lines
  // ...

  return {
    prop: () => {}
  };
}

It's just so far removed from the explicitness that it's no longer really clear what it is any more.

from typescript-eslint.

@bradzacher
Interesting. Yeah, it looks like maybe it's this code that controls it?

Whereas my mental model was assuming something like

 function isTypedParent( 
   parent: TSESTree.Node, 
   callee?: FunctionExpression, 
 ): boolean { 
   return ( 
     isTypeAssertion(parent) || 
     isVariableDeclaratorWithTypeAnnotation(parent) || 
     isPropertyDefinitionWithTypeAnnotation(parent) || 
     isFunctionArgument(parent, callee) || 
+    // checks if return statement is constrained by an explicit return type
+    isTypedReturnStatement(parent) ||
     isTypedJSX(parent) 
   ); 
 } 

from typescript-eslint.