'type' folder layout changed and unable to import type for ethers.

[code-brewer]

I use this template, it compile and test ok without modification.

After that, I installed '"@openzeppelin/contracts": "^4.9.2"' , and add my empty contact that inherit from openzeppelin's Ownable

contract DataStore is Ownable{
}

Then, the vscode IDE prompt unable to import types, such as Cannot find module 'hardhat' or its corresponding type declarations.

I notice that the 'type' folder layout changed.

Origianl was:

types
├── common.ts
├── factories
│   ├── Greeter__factory.ts
│   └── index.ts
├── Greeter.ts
├── hardhat.d.ts
└── index.ts

now the layout is:

types
├── @openzeppelin
│   ├── contracts
│   │   ├── access
│   │   │   ├── Ownable.ts
│   │   │   └── index.ts
│   │   └── index.ts
│   └── index.ts
├── common.ts
├── contracts
│   ├── DataStore.ts
│   ├── Greeter.ts
│   └── index.ts
├── factories
│   ├── @openzeppelin
│   │   ├── contracts
│   │   │   ├── access
│   │   │   │   ├── Ownable__factory.ts
│   │   │   │   └── index.ts
│   │   │   └── index.ts
│   │   └── index.ts
│   ├── contracts
│   │   ├── DataStore__factory.ts
│   │   ├── Greeter__factory.ts
│   │   └── index.ts
│   └── index.ts
├── hardhat.d.ts
└── index.ts

After fix Greeter/Greeter__factory import path , as:

import type { Greeter } from "../../types/contracts/Greeter";
import type { Greeter__factory } from "../../types/factories/contracts/Greeter__factory";

there still error for import { ethers } from "hardhat";

So, I thought about two question:

1. why the 'type' folder layout changed ? is there configuration parameter to keep original layout?
2. how to fix type import problem for 'ethers'?

Thanks.

[PaulRBerg]

Hello @code-brewer! Thanks for taking the time to write such a detailed question.

Unfortunately, I am no longer using this template on a regular basis (I am using Foundry now), so I don't know how to answer your question. You might have better luck looking for help in the Hardhat Discord server.

[SvenMeyer]

@code-brewer thanks for decumenting what I also experienced.

I just created a new project with the template from hardhat. That is pretty minimalistic in its configuration.

hardhat.config.ts

import { HardhatUserConfig } from "hardhat/config";
import "@nomicfoundation/hardhat-toolbox";

const config: HardhatUserConfig = {
  solidity: "0.8.19",
};

export default config;

... and looks like it does not show that (new ?) behavior.

@PaulRBerg maybe behaviours is (now) different if paths are specified explicitly ? 🤔
Do we even still need that ?
... and another question is, what behaviour do we even want ?

[SvenMeyer]

Update: even more confusing, I started with a fresh now template yesterday, replaced Greeter with my contract ... and it did not put the *.ts files in subfolders.

Then I added another contract, also straight into the contracts folder. Now this ends up in subdirectories like described by @code-brewer above, but the first contract not.
Doing a fresh re-creation of type files with pnpm clean also does not change anything 🤔

$ tree  -L 3 types/
types/
├── common.ts
├── contracts
│   ├── AccessControlToken.sol
│   │   ├── index.ts
│   │   └── TestERC20.ts
│   ├── index.ts
│   └── FirstContract.ts
├── factories
│   ├── contracts
│   │   ├── AccessControlToken.sol
│   │   ├── index.ts
│   │   └── FirstContract__factory.ts
│   ├── index.ts
│   └── @openzeppelin
│       ├── contracts
│       └── index.ts
├── hardhat.d.ts
├── index.ts
└── @openzeppelin
    ├── contracts
    │   ├── access
    │   ├── index.ts
    │   ├── interfaces
    │   ├── security
    │   ├── token
    │   └── utils
    └── index.ts

The standard hardhat template does not show the behaviour.

$ tree  -L 3 typechain-types/
typechain-types/
├── common.ts
├── factories
│   ├── index.ts
│   ├── LockCopy__factory.ts
│   └── Lock__factory.ts
├── hardhat.d.ts
├── index.ts
├── LockCopy.ts
└── Lock.ts

I looked if I could find some configuration somewhere which might cause the different behaviour, but could not find anything.