GeezerVison

Summary

instanceof FeathersError fails when an error comes from a different copy of feathers (multiple installed versions, mixed CJS/ESM, other realms). Errors are now branded with a global symbol, and the error classes check that brand in Symbol.hasInstance.

 const FEATHERS_ERROR = Symbol.for('feathers.error')

 class FeathersError extends Error {
+  static [Symbol.hasInstance]<T>(this: abstract new (...args: any[]) => T, value: unknown): value is T
+    prototype chain matches          → true
+    no string brand on value         → false
+    this === FeathersError           → true
+    this === built-in class for brand → true   // NotFound only matches 'NotFound'
   constructor(...)
     ...
+    Object.defineProperty(this, FEATHERS_ERROR, { value: name })   // non-enumerable
 }

Plus an explicit, typed guard:

isFeathersError(error)             // error is FeathersError
isFeathersError(error, 'NotFound') // error is NotFound
isFeathersError(error, 404)        // error is NotFound
isFeathersError(error, 418)        // type error

• Symbol instead of a ~type string: payloads can't spoof it, and it is not copied by spread/Object.assign or emitted by toJSON.
• instanceof still narrows to the specific class, including user subclasses. User subclasses only match by prototype chain, so new BadRequest() instanceof MyError stays false.
• The HTTP error middleware now uses isFeathersError.
• Adds the missing Gone entries to errors and the Errors interface. Before this, convert({ name: 'Gone' }) returned a plain Error.
• Docs: new "Checking errors" section in api/errors.md.

Evidence

The new test loads a second module instance via vi.resetModules():

const duplicate = await import('../src/errors.js')
const error = new duplicate.NotFound()

error instanceof errors.FeathersError      // true
error instanceof errors.NotFound           // true
error instanceof errors.BadRequest         // false
errors.isFeathersError(error, 404)         // true

• Before (errors.ts from v6): × recognizes errors from a duplicate module instance, AssertionError: The expression evaluated to a falsy value
  After: ✓ and the full feathers package suite passes (504 passed, 1 skipped)
• Type narrowing (instanceof, isFeathersError by name and code, @ts-expect-error for unknown names and codes) was checked with tsc --noEmit.

Merge Danger

Door: two-way

The change adds to the public API (isFeathersError, errors.Gone). It is easy to revert as long as no one depends on it yet.

Blast Radius: low

instanceof checks against Feathers error classes can now return true for branded errors from another module copy. That is the intent. Behaviour for errors that were already recognized does not change. Errors from v5 @feathersjs/errors have no brand and are still not recognized.

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