Dynamically Generated State Objects Not Recognized by XState

[oeooo12312]

Issue: Dynamically Generated State Objects Not Recognized by XState

Description

XState fails to correctly interpret state objects generated by a function, even when they are deeply equal to objects defined directly within the states configuration. This results in the state machine not transitioning as expected.

Reproduction

import { createMachine } from 'xstate';
import { isEqual } from 'lodash';

const createState = (target) => ({
  on: {
    NEXT: { target },
  },
});

const machine = createMachine({
  id: 'test',
  initial: 'one',
  states: {
    one: createState('two'),
    two: { type: 'final' },
  },
});

machine.start();
const nextState = machine.transition('one', { type: 'NEXT' });
console.log('Next State:', nextState.value);

console.log('isEqual:', isEqual(machine.states.one, { on: { NEXT: { target: 'two' } } })); // Logs: isEqual: true

Expected Behavior
The state machine should transition from one to two when the NEXT event is sent. The console.log statement should output:

Next State: two

Actual Behavior
Undefined , state 'one' not found.

Requirements

Requirement	Details
Operating System	MacOS
Browser	Chrome
XState Version	5.19.2
Node.js Version	23.0

---

Additional Context

isEqual from lodash confirms that the dynamically generated object is deeply equal to a directly defined object.
The issue persists even in a minimal reproducible example, suggesting it's not related to complex state machine configurations.
This problem occurs when using machine.transition programmatically, and not only when using the XState visualizer.

Possible Causes

XState might be performing a strict reference check (using ===) on the state object, rather than just a deep equality check.
Internal metadata added by XState during parsing might be missing from dynamically generated objects.
There could be subtle differences in object properties or prototypes that are not detected by isEqual.

Thank you for your time and assistance in resolving this issue!