Create JSDoc Comments for JavaScript IntelliSense

Note

This article applies to Visual Studio 2015. If you're looking for the latest Visual Studio documentation, see Visual Studio documentation. We recommend upgrading to the latest version of Visual Studio. Download it here

IntelliSense in Visual Studio displays information that you add to a script using standard JSDoc comments. You can use JSDoc comments to provide information about code elements such as functions, fields, and variables.

JSDoc Comment Tags

The following standard JSDoc comment tags are used by IntelliSense to display information about your code.

JSDoc tag	Syntax	Notes
@deprecated	@deprecated description	Specifies a deprecated function or method.
@description	@description description	Specifies the description for a function or method.
@param	@param {type} parameterNamedescription	Specifies information for a parameter in a function or method. TypeScript also supports @paramTag.
@property	@property {type} propertyName	Specifies information, including a description, for either a field or member that's defined on an object.
@returns	@returns {type}	Specifies a return value. For TypeScript, use @returnType instead of @returns.
@summary	@summary description	Specifies the description for a function or method (same as @description).
@type	@type {type}	Specifies the type for a constant or a variable.
@typedef	@typedef {type} customTypeName	Specifies a custom type.

Examples

The following example shows the use of the @description, @param, and @return JSDoc tags for a function named getArea.

/** @description Determines the area of a circle that has the specified radius parameter.
 * @param {number} radius The radius of the circle.
 * @return {number}
 */
function getArea(radius) {
    var areaVal;
    areaVal = Math.PI * radius * radius;
    return areaVal;
}

In the preceding example, IntelliSense shows the description, parameter, and return information when you type the opening parenthesis for getArea.

The following example shows how to use the @typedef tag with the @property tag.

/**
  * @typedef {object} Weather
  * @property {string} current The current weather.
  */
function getForecast(Weather) {
}

var w = new Weather();

The following example shows the use of the @type JSDoc tags. As shown in this example, single asterisks (*) that follow the initial asterisk pair (**) are not required.

/**
    @type {string}
*/
const RED = 'FF0000';

The following example shows how to use the @deprecated JSDoc tag.

/**
 * @deprecated since version 2.0
 */
function old() {
}