End-to-End Type Safety: Worth It or Cargo Cult?

End-to-end type safety from database to client is genuinely a productivity unlock for product teams that move fast and refactor often. It catches a class of bugs that integration tests usually do not catch and makes large-scale renames possible without a multi-day audit.

It is not free. It requires discipline about where types live, generated code in source control, and a willingness to feel friction every time a contract changes. Teams that adopt it half-heartedly tend to get the cost without the benefit.