@angular/cli

What is @angular/cli?

The @angular/cli package is a command-line interface tool that you can use to initialize, develop, scaffold, and maintain Angular applications directly from a command shell. It provides commands for creating new projects, generating application and library code, performing a variety of ongoing development tasks such as testing, bundling, and deployment.

What are @angular/cli's main functionalities?

Project Scaffolding

Creates a new Angular application with a default structure by running the 'ng new' command followed by the project name.

ng new my-angular-app

Generating Components, Services, and other features

Generates a new component and its associated files by using the 'ng generate' command followed by the feature type and name.

ng generate component my-component

Building and Serving the Application

Compiles the application and starts a web server, making the app accessible in a browser. The 'ng serve' command is used for this purpose.

ng serve

Running Unit Tests

Executes the unit tests defined in the application using the 'ng test' command.

ng test

Building for Production

Compiles the application for production deployment, optimizing the build for performance and size using the 'ng build' command with the '--prod' flag.

ng build --prod

Other packages similar to @angular/cli

create-react-app

Similar to @angular/cli, create-react-app is a command-line interface for setting up new React applications. It abstracts away build configuration to a pre-configured setup, allowing developers to focus on writing code. Unlike @angular/cli, it is tailored specifically for React and does not provide an extensive set of generation commands.

vue-cli

Vue CLI is a full system for rapid Vue.js development, similar to @angular/cli for Angular. It provides project scaffolding, a development server, build tools, and a set of plugins for common tasks. Vue CLI is designed for Vue.js and offers a similar level of functionality for Vue developers.

ember-cli

Ember CLI is a command-line utility for creating, developing, and building Ember.js applications. It provides a standardized development structure and build pipeline, much like @angular/cli does for Angular. Ember CLI focuses on Ember.js and has a strong emphasis on convention over configuration.

README

Angular CLI

CLI for Angular applications based on the ember-cli project.

Note

The CLI is now in 1.0. If you are updating from a beta or RC version, check out our 1.0 Update Guide.

If you wish to collaborate, check out our issue list.

Before submitting new issues, have a look at issues marked with the type: faq label.

Prerequisites

Both the CLI and generated project have dependencies that require Node 6.9.0 or higher, together with NPM 3 or higher.

Table of Contents

• Installation
• Usage
• Generating a New Project
• Generating Components, Directives, Pipes and Services
• Updating Angular CLI
• Development Hints for working on Angular CLI
• Documentation
• License

Installation

BEFORE YOU INSTALL: please read the prerequisites

npm install -g @angular/cli

Usage

ng help

Generating and serving an Angular project via a development server

ng new PROJECT-NAME
cd PROJECT-NAME
ng serve

Navigate to http://localhost:4200/. The app will automatically reload if you change any of the source files.

You can configure the default HTTP host and port used by the development server with two command-line options :

ng serve --host 0.0.0.0 --port 4201

Generating Components, Directives, Pipes and Services

You can use the ng generate (or just ng g) command to generate Angular components:

ng generate component my-new-component
ng g component my-new-component # using the alias

# components support relative path generation
# if in the directory src/app/feature/ and you run
ng g component new-cmp
# your component will be generated in src/app/feature/new-cmp
# but if you were to run
ng g component ../newer-cmp
# your component will be generated in src/app/newer-cmp
# if in the directory src/app you can also run
ng g component feature/new-cmp
# and your component will be generated in src/app/feature/new-cmp

You can find all possible blueprints in the table below:

Scaffold	Usage
Component	ng g component my-new-component
Directive	ng g directive my-new-directive
Pipe	ng g pipe my-new-pipe
Service	ng g service my-new-service
Class	ng g class my-new-class
Guard	ng g guard my-new-guard
Interface	ng g interface my-new-interface
Enum	ng g enum my-new-enum
Module	ng g module my-module

angular-cli will add reference to components, directives and pipes automatically in the app.module.ts. If you need to add this references to another custom module, follow this steps:

1. ng g module new-module to create a new module
2. call ng g component new-module/new-component

This should add the new component, directive or pipe reference to the new-module you've created.

Updating Angular CLI

If you're using Angular CLI 1.0.0-beta.28 or less, you need to uninstall angular-cli package. It should be done due to changing of package's name and scope from angular-cli to @angular/cli:

npm uninstall -g angular-cli
npm uninstall --save-dev angular-cli

To update Angular CLI to a new version, you must update both the global package and your project's local package.

Global package:

npm uninstall -g @angular/cli
npm cache clean
npm install -g @angular/cli@latest

Local project package:

rm -rf node_modules dist # use rmdir /S/Q node_modules dist in Windows Command Prompt; use rm -r -fo node_modules,dist in Windows PowerShell
npm install --save-dev @angular/cli@latest
npm install

If you are updating to 1.0 from a beta or RC version, check out our 1.0 Update Guide.

You can find more details about changes between versions in CHANGELOG.md.

Development Hints for working on Angular CLI

Working with master

git clone https://github.com/angular/angular-cli.git
cd angular-cli
npm link

npm link is very similar to npm install -g except that instead of downloading the package from the repo, the just cloned angular-cli/ folder becomes the global package. Additionally, this repository publishes several packages and we use special logic to load all of them on development setups.

Any changes to the files in the angular-cli/ folder will immediately affect the global @angular/cli package, allowing you to quickly test any changes you make to the cli project.

Now you can use @angular/cli via the command line:

ng new foo
cd foo
npm link @angular/cli
ng serve

npm link @angular/cli is needed because by default the globally installed @angular/cli just loads the local @angular/cli from the project which was fetched remotely from npm. npm link @angular/cli symlinks the global @angular/cli package to the local @angular/cli package. Now the angular-cli you cloned before is in three places: The folder you cloned it into, npm's folder where it stores global packages and the Angular CLI project you just created.

You can also use ng new foo --link-cli to automatically link the @angular/cli package.

Please read the official npm-link documentation and the npm-link cheatsheet for more information.

To run the Angular CLI test suite use the node tests/run_e2e.js command. It can also receive a filename to only run that test (e.g. node tests/run_e2e.js tests/e2e/tests/build/dev-build.ts).

As part of the test procedure, all packages will be built and linked. You will need to re-run npm link to re-link the development Angular CLI environment after tests finish.

Documentation

The documentation for the Angular CLI is located in this repo's wiki.

License

MIT