[Bug]: ProductEvents.PRODUCT_CATEGORY_DELETED does not trigger subscribers while "product-category.deleted" does

[giladv]

What happened?

When registering a Medusa subscriber for product category deletion events, using the exported ProductEvents.PRODUCT_CATEGORY_DELETED constant does not trigger the subscriber, but using the literal event name "product-category.deleted" does.

This is surprising because the exported event constant should be usable anywhere the corresponding literal event name is accepted.

Reproduction

Using Medusa 2.17.2, create a subscriber similar to this:

import type { SubscriberConfig } from "@medusajs/medusa"
import { ProductEvents } from "@medusajs/framework/utils"

export const config: SubscriberConfig = {
  event: [
    ProductEvents.PRODUCT_CATEGORY_DELETED, // does not trigger
    "product-category.deleted", // triggers
  ],
}

Delete a product category.

Expected behavior

A subscriber registered with ProductEvents.PRODUCT_CATEGORY_DELETED should be triggered for the product category deletion event, the same as when registering with the literal "product-category.deleted" event name.

Actual behavior

The subscriber is not triggered when only ProductEvents.PRODUCT_CATEGORY_DELETED is used. Adding "product-category.deleted" to the same subscriber config causes the subscriber to run.

Notes

The Medusa subscriber docs show SubscriberConfig.event accepting event names, including arrays of event names. Since constants such as ProductEvents are exported for these events, ProductEvents.PRODUCT_CATEGORY_DELETED should resolve to the emitted product category deletion event name.

[anaghroy]

"Hello! I'm interested in picking up this issue, and I am working on it

[medusa-os-bot]

Thanks for reporting this! We've labeled it as a bug and will investigate.

Confirmed event-name mismatch bug. The exported constant ProductEvents.PRODUCT_CATEGORY_DELETED is generated by buildEventNamesFromEntityName(..., Modules.PRODUCT), which prepends the 'product' module prefix and resolves to 'product.product-category.deleted'. The event that actually reaches subscribers is the unprefixed 'product-category.deleted', so subscribing with the literal string works while subscribing with the constant does not. This makes the exported constants unreliable for product-category (and likely other prefixed) events. A prior fix attempt (PR #16098, 'resolve incorrect event prefixes preventing subscribers from triggering') was closed without merging, so the issue remains. Fix requires team direction since it touches shared event-naming utils (packages/core/utils/src/event-bus/utils.ts, packages/core/utils/src/product/events.ts) and has backward-compatibility implications across modules. Reported on 2.17.2; workaround is to use the literal event name.

[shahednasser]

Thank you for opening this issue @giladv , but the issue is that you're using the wrong enum. You should be using ProductCategoryWorkflowEvents.DELETED imported from @medusajs/framework/utils, whose value is product-category.deleted. The enum you're using is for internal product events which aren't the ones you should be listening to.

Can you confirm whether using this enum works?

[giladv]

@shahednasser so just to verify, the enums for subscribers event types are ProductCategoryWorkflowEvents/ProductWorkflowEvents / .. ?

because i see that for instance ProductEvents.PRODUCT_CATEGORY_CREATED is the correct event and its not the same value as ProductCategoryWorkflowEvents.CREATED. so you sure it's not a bug?

Also, may i suggest changing the type for SubscriberConfig to something on the lines of:

type TProductCategoryWorkflowEvents = typeof ProductCategoryWorkflowEvents;
type Event =
  | TProductCategoryWorkflowEvents[keyof TProductCategoryWorkflowEvents]
  // ...other known events
  | (string & {});

export type SubscriberConfig = {
    event: Event | Event[];
   ...
};

the (string & {}); part will keep the autocomplete intact of known events while allowing to also use arbitrary custom events

[shahednasser]

Yes the enums are ProductCategoryWorkflowEvents / ProductWorkflowEvents / ... The enums you're referencing are internal events and shouldn't be used. Workflow events are more reliable, they're only triggered if the workflow succeeds. Also, if you check the enum values you'll notice that you're using the value of the workflow event, not of the ProductEvents.PRODUCT_CATEGORY_CREATED.

I think it would be a good idea to add autocomplete support. Feel free to open a PR if you're interested