Use JSDoc to check and generate TypeScript typings

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+*   Start date: 2020-04-05
+*   Scope: collective
+*   RFC PR: <!-- leave this empty -->
+*   Implementation issue(s): <!-- leave this empty -->
+
+# Summary
+
+Generate TypeScript typings from JSDoc.
+
+## Basic example
+
+An example of this can be seen at <https://github.com/vfile/vfile-message/pull/8>.
+
+## Motivation
+
+Currently typings are hand generated based off reviewing the API documentation.
+As changes to the API are made, the typings need to be updated, but there is currently no mechanism in place that checks that the two still match.
+This can cause drift between what the API actually does and what the typings say the API does.
+
+The goal is to close the gap between the source, the API, and the typings keeping them in sync.
+
+## Detailed design
+
+TypeScript supports checking types and generating typings files based off [JSDoc comments](https://jsdoc.app). <https://www.typescriptlang.org/docs/handbook/type-checking-javascript-files.html>
+
+Using documentation comments with TypeScript has several advantages:
+1. It allows TypeScript to validate the typings match the source
+2. It keeps comments in the code in sync with comments in the typings (used by IDEs that support TypeScript)
+3. It keeps the source in JavaScript
+   1. Allowing the repository to be added as a dependency directly from git
+   2. Avoiding a rewrite in TypeScript ([Which has growing and significant adoption, but as of 2019, 42.5% of JavaScript developers are unfamiliar with it or don't use it](https://2019.stateofjs.com/javascript-flavors/typescript))
+
+## Drawbacks
+
+There are several drawbacks to this approach:
+1. TypeScript driven by JSDocs is a newer feature in TypeScript, not all TypeScript developers are familiar with the feature or it's syntax, there may be an additional learning curve.
+2. Not all JavaScript developers are familiar with JSDoc, or with type annotations, there may be an additional learning curve.
+3. It would require some refactoring, TypeScript discourages reassignment to a variable with different types (For example `foo` being a `number` the later a `string`). 
+4. Increased source code length, including detailed comments inline can increase number of lines in a file significantly.
+
+## Alternatives
+
+1. Rewrite the code in TypeScript
+2. Continue to maintain the types separate, but add a reminder in the PR template, and encourage maintainers to check types before merging changes
+
+## Adoption strategy
+
+> If we implement this proposal, how will existing unified developers adopt it?
+
+Many unified packages have typings, for these packages, the typings would get more accurate.
+For packages that previously did not have typings, typings would be natively provided.
+
+> Is this a breaking change?
+
+For packages which did not previously have typings, yes.
+For packages with existing typings, this could be considered minor or even patch.
+
+> Can we write a codemod?
+
+Maybe, <https://medium.com/fhinkel/runtime-type-information-for-javascript-b134faac3c0a> (<https://github.com/fhinkel/type-profile>) might be able to be used to extract full types from the source using the test suite as a runner.
+Since the conversion from type profile to TypeScript doesn't exist today, and because some types may not be able to be directly converted (see drawback 3).
+
+It may be easier to do some manual refactoring.
+
+> Should we coordinate with other projects or libraries?
+
+Potentially with:
+* <https://github.com/Microsoft/TypeScript>
+* <https://github.com/open-wc/open-wc> who have also taken the [TypeScript with JSDoc approach](https://dev.to/open-wc/generating-typescript-definition-files-from-javascript-5bp2), and also are using [Remark](https://github.com/open-wc/open-wc/tree/master/packages/mdjs)
+* <https://github.com/BoostIO/Boostnote> another project with leverages both TypeScript and Remark, and has members who are also a part of the collective.
+* <https://github.com/mdx-js/eslint-mdx> an MDX and collective project using Remark with TypeScript.
+
+## Unresolved questions
+
+None