rules

.cursor/rules/luau/unsealed-table-literals.md

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+# Unsealed table literals
+
+**Status**: Implemented
+
+## Summary
+
+Currently the only way to create an unsealed table is as an empty table literal `{}`.
+This RFC proposes making all table literals unsealed.
+
+## Motivation
+
+Table types can be *sealed* or *unsealed*. These are different in that:
+
+* Unsealed table types are *precise*: if a table has unsealed type `{ p: number, q: string }`
+  then it is guaranteed to have only properties `p` and `q`.
+
+* Sealed tables support *width subtyping*: if a table has sealed type `{ p: number }`
+  then it is guaranteed to have at least property `p`, so we allow `{ p: number, q: string }`
+  to be treated as a subtype of `{ p: number }`
+
+* Unsealed tables can have properties added to them: if `t` has unsealed type
+  `{ p: number }` then after the assignment `t.q = "hi"`, `t`'s type is updated to be
+  `{ p: number, q: string }`.
+
+* Unsealed tables are subtypes of sealed tables.
+
+Currently the only way to create an unsealed table is using an empty table literal, so
+```luau
+  local t = {}
+  t.p = 5
+  t.q = "hi"
+```
+typechecks, but
+```luau
+  local t = { p = 5 }
+  t.q = "hi"
+```
+does not.
+
+This causes problems in examples, in particular developers
+may initialize properties but not methods:
+```luau
+  local t = { p = 5 }
+  function t.f() return t.p end
+```
+
+## Design
+
+The proposed change is straightforward: make all table literals unsealed.
+
+## Drawbacks
+
+Making all table literals unsealed is a conservative change, it only removes type errors.
+
+It does encourage developers to add new properties to tables during initialization, which
+may be considered poor style.
+
+It does mean that some spelling mistakes will not be caught, for example
+```luau
+local t = {x = 1, y = 2}
+if foo then
+  t.z = 3 -- is z a typo or intentional 2-vs-3 choice?
+end
+```
+
+In particular, we no longer warn about adding properties to array-like tables.
+```luau
+local a = {1,2,3}
+a.p = 5
+```
+
+## Alternatives
+
+We could introduce a new table state for unsealed-but-precise
+tables. The trade-off is that that would be more precise, at the cost
+of adding user-visible complexity to the type system.
+
+We could continue to treat array-like tables as sealed.