Unable to define recursive definitions

[roman-mazur]

What version of CUE are you using (cue version)?

$ cue version
cue version v0.11.0-alpha.3

go version go1.23.1
      -buildmode exe
       -compiler gc
  DefaultGODEBUG asynctimerchan=1,gotypesalias=0,httpservecontentkeepheaders=1,tls3des=1,tlskyber=0,x509keypairleaf=0,x509negativeserial=1
     CGO_ENABLED 1
          GOARCH amd64
            GOOS darwin
         GOAMD64 v1
cue.lang.version v0.11.0

Does this issue reproduce with the latest stable release?

yes

What did you do?

I'm trying to write a convertor from Terraform schema document to a JSON schema. Bellow is an extract from this convertor that does not seem to behave as it should when I have a mix of nested list and object definitions. If you try to remove the top-level list, it works.

testscript << EOF
exec cue def

-- x.cue --
package x

#jsonSchema & {
  #type: ["list",
    ["object", {foo: ["list", ["list", "string"]]}]
  ]
}

#jsonSchema: {
    #type: #primitive
    type: #type
} | {
    #type: ["list", _]

    _child: #type[1]
    type: "array"
    items: #jsonSchema & {#type: _child}
} | {
        #type: ["object", _]
        type: "object"
        additionalProperties: false
        _child: #type[1]
        properties: {
                for fName, fType in _child {
                        (fName): #jsonSchema & {#type: fType}
                }
        }
}

#primitive: "string" | "bool" | "number"
EOF

What did you expect to see?

{
	type: "array"
	items: {
		type:                 "object"
		additionalProperties: false
		properties: {
			foo: {
				type: "array"
				items: {
					type: "array"
					items: {
						type: "string"
					}
				}
			}
		}
	}
}

What did you see instead?

5 errors in empty disjunction:
#type: 3 errors in empty disjunction:
#type: conflicting values "bool" and ["list",["object",{foo:["list",["list","string"]]}]] (mismatched types string and list):
    -:1:1
    -:2:10
    -:28:24
#type: conflicting values "number" and ["list",["object",{foo:["list",["list","string"]]}]] (mismatched types string and list):
    -:1:1
    -:2:10
    -:28:33
#type: conflicting values "string" and ["list",["object",{foo:["list",["list","string"]]}]] (mismatched types string and list):
    -:1:1
    -:2:10
    -:28:13
#type.0: conflicting values "object" and "list":
    -:1:1
    -:2:11
    -:17:10