The TypeScript `satisfies` Operator in 2026: Patterns You're Probably Missing

The TypeScript satisfies Operator in 2026: Patterns You're Probably Missing Most TypeScript codebases still treat satisfies as syntactic sugar for type annotations. The distinction between satisfies and type annotations appears subtle at first—both ensure type safety, both catch errors at compile time. The failure mode here is subtle but expensive: teams lose literal type inference, widen discriminated unions unintentionally, and write defensive runtime checks that TypeScript could have prevente