# Auto-accessors in TypeScript

Ever heard of auto-accessors? Know what that feature does? Let's dig into how it works.

- URL: https://blog.lsantos.dev/en/auto-accessors-in-typescript/
- Published: 2024-03-20
- Updated: 2026-07-16
- Section: typescript
- Tags: typescript
- Language: en
- Author: Lucas Santos

---
TypeScript has a bunch of really interesting features that few people know about, one of them is [auto-accessors in classes](https://devblogs.microsoft.com/typescript/announcing-typescript-4-9/#auto-accessors-in-classes).

Available since TypeScript 4.9, it's also a feature described in the [original decorators proposal](https://github.com/tc39/proposal-decorators).We've actually talked about decorators [here](/javascript-decorators/).

So here's how it works. When you have an accessor, you typically have a `get` method that retrieves an internal class variable. For example:

```ts
class Pessoa {
    #__nome: string;

    get name() {
        return this.#__nome;
    }
    set name(val: string) {
        this.#__nome = val;
    }

    constructor(nome: string) {
        this.nome = nome;
    }
}
```

See how that's not one or two lines, but seven just to create an accessor that sets and gets the internal `#__nome` variable? It would be so much better if you could do all that at once, and that's exactly what auto-accessors are for. All that code I just wrote can become this:

```ts
class Person {
    accessor nome: string;

    constructor(nome: string) {
        this.nome = nome;
    }
}
```

Under the hood, auto-accessors do exactly what we did in that first example. They expand `nome` into an internal private variable and an external variable you can only access through a getter and a setter.

All in all, this feature isn't about logic, it's about quality of life. Especially when you're creating decorators that need a bunch of getters and setters.