Vuejs typescript this.$refs.<refField>.value does not exist

You can do this:

class YourComponent extends Vue {
  $refs!: {
    checkboxElement: HTMLFormElement
  }

  someMethod () {
    this.$refs.checkboxElement.checked
  }
}

From this issue: https://github.com/vuejs/vue-class-component/issues/94

This worked for me: use (this.$refs.<refField> as any).value or (this.$refs.['refField'] as any).value

Edit - 2021-03 (Composition API)

Updating this answer because Vue 3 (or the composition API plugin if you're using Vue 2) has some new functions.

<template>
  <div ref="root">This is a root element</div>
</template>

<script lang="ts">
  import { ref, onMounted, defineComponent } from '@vue/composition-api'

  export default defineComponent({
    setup() {
      const root = ref(null)

      onMounted(() => {
        // the DOM element will be assigned to the ref after initial render
        console.log(root.value) // <div>This is a root element</div>
      })

      return {
        root
      }
    }
  })
</script>

Edit - 2020-04:

The vue-property-decorator library provides @Ref which I recommend instead of my original answer.

import { Vue, Component, Ref } from 'vue-property-decorator'

import AnotherComponent from '@/path/to/another-component.vue'

@Component
export default class YourComponent extends Vue {
  @Ref() readonly anotherComponent!: AnotherComponent
  @Ref('aButton') readonly button!: HTMLButtonElement
}

---

Original Answer

None of the above answers worked for what I was trying to do. Adding the following $refs property wound up fixing it and seemed to restore the expected properties. I found the solution linked on this github post.

class YourComponent extends Vue {
  $refs!: {
    vue: Vue,
    element: HTMLInputElement,
    vues: Vue[],
    elements: HTMLInputElement[]
  }

  someMethod () {
    this.$refs.<element>.<attribute>
  }
}