How do I check if an std::variant can hold a certain type

Edit: I actually dig your std::disjunction idea, and it absolutely works. You just have to extract the type list using template specialization.

My entire old-school recursive mess becomes simply:

template<typename T, typename VARIANT_T>
struct isVariantMember;

template<typename T, typename... ALL_T>
struct isVariantMember<T, std::variant<ALL_T...>> 
  : public std::disjunction<std::is_same<T, ALL_T>...> {};

Original answer: Here’s a simple template that accomplishes this. It works by returning false for empty type lists. For non-empty lists, it returns true if the first type passes std::is_same<>, and recursively invokes itself with all but the first type otherwise.

#include <vector>
#include <tuple>
#include <variant>

// Main lookup logic of looking up a type in a list.
template<typename T, typename... ALL_T>
struct isOneOf : public std::false_type {};

template<typename T, typename FRONT_T, typename... REST_T>
struct isOneOf<T, FRONT_T, REST_T...> : public 
  std::conditional<
    std::is_same<T, FRONT_T>::value,
    std::true_type,
    isOneOf<T, REST_T...>
  >::type {};

// Convenience wrapper for std::variant<>.
template<typename T, typename VARIANT_T>
struct isVariantMember;

template<typename T, typename... ALL_T>
struct isVariantMember<T, std::variant<ALL_T...>> : public isOneOf<T, ALL_T...> {};

// Example:
int main() {
  using var_t = std::variant<int, float>;

  bool x = isVariantMember<int, var_t>::value; // x == true
  bool y = isVariantMember<double, var_t>::value; // y == false

  return 0;
}

N.B. Make sure you strip cv and reference qualifiers from T before invoking this (or add the stripping to the template itself). It depends on your needs, really.