bufaker — generate Faker-backed mock data for any Protobuf message from its protobuf-es descriptor

[pret-a-porter]

I kept hand-writing test fixtures for Protobuf messages and getting bored, so I
built something to stop doing that: bufaker.

import { mock, mockList } from "@pret-a-porter/bufaker";
import { PersonSchema } from "./gen/person_pb.js";

const person = mock(PersonSchema);        // fully typed as `Person`
const people = mockList(PersonSchema, 5, { seed: 42 });

No per-message mapping code. It walks the runtime DescMessage that
protoc-gen-es emits and drives generation entirely off field.fieldKind, so
it works for any message you've generated — including ones it has never seen.

mock(PersonSchema) gives you a UUID in id, a real address in email, a city
in address.city, and exactly one branch of your oneof populated. Return type
is inferred as MessageShape<Desc>, so nothing needs casting.

What's covered:

• All 15 scalar types, enums (skipping *_UNSPECIFIED by default), nested
  messages, repeated fields, maps, and oneofs
• Timestamp, Duration, the *Value wrappers, Struct/Value/ListValue,
  Empty
• A maxDepth guard, so self-referential and mutually recursive messages
  terminate instead of blowing the stack
• Overrides by field name, by path from the root, or by declaring type
• seed for reproducible snapshots — including a pinned date reference, so a
  generated Timestamp doesn't drift with the wall clock

Scope, honestly: protobuf-es only, and that's deliberate rather than a TODO.
ts-proto and friends emit plain interfaces with no descriptor to reflect over,
so there's nothing for this approach to walk. Tested against proto3.
google.protobuf.Any and FieldMask are left unset — Any needs a type
registry to pick and pack a payload, and a random FieldMask carries no meaning.

It's 0.1.0, so the API may still move. Feedback very welcome, especially on the
override matching rules and whether the field-name heuristics being on by
default is the right call.

• Repo: https://github.com/pret-a-porter/bufaker
• npm: https://www.npmjs.com/package/@pret-a-porter/bufaker