Sure, now make it work without having to type "\\w"

Yes, there are limits on what string literals can precisely represent, but we've tried to be pragmatic about trade offs around clarity, concision and performance.

Subexpressions like `\\w` or `[a-Z]` would just be inferred as `${string}`, but that doesn't mean the inference won't be useful. For example:

expression: regex("^\\w+@\\w+\\.\\w+$") type: Regex<`${string}@${string}.${string}`>

Can't you use tagged literals to do something similar?

Not sure exactly what you mean by "something similar".

The issue is not being able to type actual regexes: /\w+[a-z]$/ becomes something different when enclosed in double quotes.