Node Tutorial - Part 3: Task-Running

Common tasks include:

Building an application
Serving an application locally for development purposes
Running your unit tests
Linting your code

When you ran your generators in Part 1, you already set up these more common tasks for each project.

Defining Targets

Here's the project.json file for your products-data-client project:

libs/products-data-client/project.json
{
  "name": "products-data-client",
  "$schema": "../../node_modules/nx/schemas/project-schema.json",
  "sourceRoot": "libs/products-data-client/src",
  "projectType": "library",
  "targets": {
    "build": {
      "executor": "@nrwl/js:tsc",
      "outputs": ["{options.outputPath}"],
      "options": {
        "outputPath": "dist/libs/products-data-client",
        "main": "libs/products-data-client/src/index.ts",
        "tsConfig": "libs/products-data-client/tsconfig.lib.json",
        "assets": ["libs/products-data-client/*.md"]
      }
    },
    "lint": {
      "executor": "@nrwl/linter:eslint",
      "outputs": ["{options.outputFile}"],
      "options": {
        "lintFilePatterns": ["libs/products-data-client/**/*.ts"]
      }
    },
    "test": {
      "executor": "@nrwl/jest:jest",
      "outputs": ["{workspaceRoot}/coverage/libs/products-data-client"],
      "options": {
        "jestConfig": "libs/products-data-client/jest.config.ts",
        "passWithNoTests": true
      }
    }
  },
  "tags": []
}

You can see that three targets are defined here: build, lint and test.

The properties inside each of these these targets is defined as follows:

executor - which Nx executor to run. The syntax here is: <plugin name>:<executor name>
outputs - this is an array of files that would be created by running this target. (This informs Nx on what to save for it's caching mechanisms you'll learn about in 4 - Workspace Optimizations).
options - this is an object defining which executor options to use for the given target. Every Nx executor allows for options as a way to parameterize it's functionality.

Running Tasks

Syntax for Running Tasks in Nx

Run the build target for your products-data-client project:

Terminal

~/my-products❯

npx nx build products-data-client


> nx run products-data-client:build

Compiling TypeScript files for project "products-data-client"...
Done compiling TypeScript files for project "products-data-client".

 ———————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

 >  NX   Successfully ran target build for project products-data-client (780ms)

You can now find your built products-data-client distributable in your dist/libs/products-data-client directory, as specified in the outputPath property of the build target options in your project.json file.

Next, run a lint check on products-data-client:

Terminal

~/my-products❯

npx nx lint products-data-client


> nx run products-data-client:lint


Linting "products-data-client"...

All files pass linting.


 ———————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

 >  NX   Successfully ran target lint for project products-data-client (777ms)

Next, add some tests to your data client in the products-data-client.spec.ts file:

libs/products-data-client/src/lib/products-data-client.spec.ts
import {
  createProductsDataClient,
  exampleProducts,
} from './products-data-client';

describe('productsDataClient', () => {
  it('should get all example products', async () => {
    const productsDataClient = createProductsDataClient();
    const products = await productsDataClient.getProducts();
    expect(products).toEqual(Object.values(exampleProducts));
  });

  it('should get example product by id', async () => {
    const productsDataClient = createProductsDataClient();
    const product = await productsDataClient.getProductById('1');
    expect(product).toEqual(exampleProducts['1']);
  });
});

And then run your test target:

Terminal

~/my-products❯

npx nx test products-data-client


> nx run products-data-client:test

 PASS   products-data-client  libs/products-data-client/src/lib/products-data-client.spec.ts
  productsDataClient
    ✓ should get all example products (1 ms)
    ✓ should get example product by id

Test Suites: 1 passed, 1 total
Tests:       2 passed, 2 total
Snapshots:   0 total
Time:        0.843 s
Ran all test suites.

 ———————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

 >  NX   Successfully ran target test for project products-data-client (2s)

What's Next

Continue to 4: Workspace Optimization