What is nx?
The nx npm package is a suite of powerful, extensible dev tools to help you architect, test, build, and develop your software projects. It is particularly well-suited for monorepo development, where multiple projects coexist in a single repository. Nx provides tools for project scaffolding, dependency graph analysis, affected change analysis, and more.
What are nx's main functionalities?
Project Scaffolding
This command sets up a new workspace. Nx supports many presets to scaffold applications using various frameworks like Angular, React, or Node.js.
npx create-nx-workspace@latest myworkspace
Generating Components
Generates a new component within a specified project in the workspace. This helps maintain consistency and follows best practices.
nx generate component my-component --project=my-app
Running Tasks
Executes a specific task, such as building a project. Nx uses an executor to run tasks which can be configured for different environments.
nx run my-app:build
Affected Change Analysis
Determines which apps and libs are affected by changes to the current git branch, and performs the build task only for those.
nx affected:build
Dependency Graph
Visualizes the dependency graph of the workspace, showing how projects depend on one another. This is useful for understanding the structure and ensuring that changes do not have unintended consequences.
nx dep-graph
Other packages similar to nx
lerna
Lerna is a tool for managing JavaScript projects with multiple packages, optimizing the workflow around managing multi-package repositories with git and npm. Compared to Nx, Lerna focuses more on the versioning and publishing of multi-package repositories, whereas Nx provides a broader range of tools for development and build optimization.
Nx: Smart, Fast and Extensible Build System
Nx is a next generation build system with first class monorepo support and powerful integrations.
Getting Started
Creating an Nx Workspace
Using npx
npx create-nx-workspace
Using npm init
npm init nx-workspace
Using yarn create
yarn create nx-workspace
The create-nx-workspace
command will ask you to select a preset, which will configure some plugins and create your applications to help you get started.
? What to create in the new workspace (Use arrow keys)
❯ apps [an empty workspace with no plugins with a layout that works best for building apps]
core [an empty workspace with no plugins set up to publish npm packages (similar to yarn workspaces)]
ts [an empty workspace with the JS/TS plugin preinstalled]
react [a workspace with a single React application]
angular [a workspace with a single Angular application]
next.js [a workspace with a single Next.js application]
nest [a workspace with a single Nest application]
express [a workspace with a single Express application]
web components [a workspace with a single app built using web components]
react-native [a workspace with a single React Native application]
react-express [a workspace with a full stack application (React + Express)]
Select the preset that works best for you
Adding Nx to an Existing Monorepo
Run:
npx add-nx-to-monorepo@latest
Documentation & Resources
A few links to help you get started: