How do I dynamically assign properties to an object in TypeScript?

If I wanted to programatically assign a property to an object in Javascript, I would do it like this:

var obj = {};
obj.prop = "value";

But in TypeScript, this generates an error:

The property 'prop' does not exist on value of type '{}'

How am I supposed to assign any new property to an object in TypeScript?

Index types

It is possible to denote obj as any, but that defeats the whole purpose of using typescript. obj = {} implies obj is an Object. Marking it as any makes no sense. To accomplish the desired consistency an interface could be defined as follows.

interface LooseObject {
    [key: string]: any
}

var obj: LooseObject = {};

OR to make it compact:

var obj: {[k: string]: any} = {};

LooseObject can accept fields with any string as key and any type as value.

obj.prop = "value";
obj.prop2 = 88;

The real elegance of this solution is that you can include typesafe fields in the interface.

interface MyType {
    typesafeProp1?: number,
    requiredProp1: string,
    [key: string]: any
}

var obj: MyType ;
obj = { requiredProp1: "foo"}; // valid
obj = {} // error. 'requiredProp1' is missing
obj.typesafeProp1 = "bar" // error. typesafeProp1 should be a number

obj.prop = "value";
obj.prop2 = 88;

Record<Keys,Type> utility type

Update (August 2020): @transang brought this up in comments

Record<Keys,Type> is a Utility type in typescript. It is a much cleaner alternative for key-value pairs where property-names are not known. It's worth noting that Record<Keys,Type> is a named alias to {[k: Keys]: Type} where Keys and Type are generics. IMO, this makes it worth mentioning here

For comparison,

var obj: {[k: string]: any} = {};

becomes

var obj: Record<string,any> = {}

MyType can now be defined by extending Record type

interface MyType extends Record<string,any> {
    typesafeProp1?: number,
    requiredProp1: string,
}

While this answers the Original question, the answer here by @GreeneCreations might give another perspective on how to approach the problem.

Or all in one go:

  var obj:any = {}
  obj.prop = 5;

This solution is useful when your object has Specific Type. Like when obtaining the object to other source.

let user: User = new User();
(user as any).otherProperty = 'hello';
//user did not lose its type here.

I tend to put any on the other side i.e. var foo:IFoo = <any>{}; So something like this is still typesafe:

interface IFoo{
    bar:string;
    baz:string;
    boo:string;     
}

// How I tend to intialize 
var foo:IFoo = <any>{};

foo.bar = "asdf";
foo.baz = "boo";
foo.boo = "boo";

// the following is an error, 
// so you haven't lost type safety
foo.bar = 123; 

Alternatively you can mark these properties as optional:

interface IFoo{
    bar?:string;
    baz?:string;
    boo?:string;    
}

// Now your simple initialization works
var foo:IFoo = {};

Try it online