Disallow usage of the implicit any type in catch clauses (no-implicit-any-catch)

TypeScript 4.0 added support for adding an explicit any or unknown type annotation on a catch clause variable.

By default, TypeScript will type a catch clause variable as any, so explicitly annotating it as unknown can add a lot of safety to your codebase.

The noImplicitAny flag in TypeScript does not cover this for backwards compatibility reasons.

Rule Details

This rule requires an explicit type to be declared on a catch clause variable.

The following pattern is considered a warning:

try {
  // ...
} catch (e) {
  // ...
}

The following pattern is not considered a warning:

try {
  // ...
} catch (e: unknown) {
  // ...
}

Options

The rule accepts an options object with the following properties:

type Options = {
  // if false, disallow specifying `: any` as the error type as well. See also `no-explicit-any`
  allowExplicitAny: boolean;
};

const defaults = {
  allowExplicitAny: false,
};

allowExplicitAny

The follow is is not considered a warning with { allowExplicitAny: true }

try {
  // ...
} catch (e: any) {
  // ...
}

When Not To Use It

If you are not using TypeScript 4.0 (or greater), then you will not be able to use this rule, annotations on catch clauses is not supported.

Further Reading