Parse, Don't Guess: Why Schema-Aware Deserialization Beats Regex Hacks in TypeScript

Parse, Don't Guess: Schema-Aware Deserialization in TypeScript

TLDR: A global regex hack for converting JSON strings to bigints caused CPU freezes in a Node.js event store and document database. The fix was not a better regex but a fundamental shift: moving type conversion from the database driver layer to an explicit upcast/downcast pattern where the schema lives, which also unlocked schema versioning for free.

Parse, Don't Guess