[Dev] Make the decorators type aware

[Michaelvll]

Fixes #4353

Note: this PR is mainly AI generated. Need to be refined.

Tested (run the relevant ones):

• Code formatting: bash format.sh
• Any manual or new tests for this PR (please specify below)
• All smoke tests: pytest tests/test_smoke.py
• Relevant individual smoke tests: pytest tests/test_smoke.py::test_fill_in_the_name
• Backward compatibility tests: conda deactivate; bash -i tests/backward_compatibility_tests.sh

[andylizf]

I attempted a similar change about 3 months ago. Adding type hints to decorators exposed numerous previously hidden type errors in the functions being decorated (which Pylint was ignoring before). This caused a cascade of new Pylint errors across the codebase, which is why I put it on hold at that time. Note that some of these type checks might require a newer version of Pylint to handle properly.

[Michaelvll]

I attempted a similar change about 3 months ago. Adding type hints to decorators exposed numerous previously hidden type errors in the functions being decorated (which Pylint was ignoring before). This caused a cascade of new Pylint errors across the codebase, which is why I put it on hold at that time. Note that some of these type checks might require a newer version of Pylint to handle properly.

Yea... we should fix this. Those additional errors could cause issues failed to be detected like #4770

[cg505]

I also tried this in like november haha. We should 100% do this and fix all the problems, though!

[Michaelvll]

@andylizf would you like to take over this PR if you got some time?

[andylizf]

Sure. Will take a look then.

[andylizf]

@Michaelvll By the way, I have another PR related to type issues that could use your review when you have some time. Would you be able to take a look at it?