When the definition is far from the use of auto, that's exactly the case where I think repeating the type is meaningful. Yes, it's noise to write: std::un

When the definition is far from the use of auto, that's exactly the case where I think repeating the type is meaningful. Yes, it's noise to write: std::unique_ptr<MyWidget> widget = std::make_unique<MyWidget>(); But I don't think it's so noisy in the case you've provided. If I encountered that code, I'd wonder whether that operator-> is safe, or if you're inadvertently dropping some qualifier (e.g. is it actually a raw pointer?). And as I suggested, it's not much harder to add a using decl: using UniqueWidget = std::unique_ptr<mynamespace::MyWidget>; // ... std::vector<UniqueWidget> objects; // ... auto it = std::find_if(objects.begin(), objects.end(), [](UniqueWidget&) { return widget->x == 1; }); (I also recognize that my opinion is very heavily flavored by the Google style guide: https://google.github.io/styleguide/cppguide.html#Type_deduction https://google.github.io/styleguide/cppguide.html#Type_deduc...)