When looking at the source code for a tslint rule, I came across the following statement:

if (node.parent!.kind === ts.SyntaxKind.ObjectLiteralExpression) {
    return;
}

Notice the ! operator after node.parent. Interesting!

I first tried compiling the file locally with my currently installed version of TS (1.5.3). The resulting error pointed to the exact location of the bang:

$ tsc --noImplicitAny memberAccessRule.ts 
noPublicModifierRule.ts(57,24): error TS1005: ')' expected.

Next, I upgraded to the latest TS (2.1.6), which compiled it without issue. So it seems to be a feature of TS 2.x. But, the transpilation ignored the bang completely, resulting in the following JS:

if (node.parent.kind === ts.SyntaxKind.ObjectLiteralExpression) {
    return;
}

My Google fu has thus far failed me.

What is TS's exclamation mark operator, and how does it work?