🧸️ Lab 13 - Workspace Plugins and Generators - Intro

⏰ Estimated time: 20-25 minutes

📚 Learning outcomes:

• Understand what an internal plugin is
• Understanding generators in internal plugin, including:
  • How to create them
  • How to invoke them
  • How to use one to simplify usages of other, more powerful generators
    
    
    

🏋️‍♀️ Steps :

We just learned how important tags are. But we don't want to constantly and manually have to maintain them. In this workshop, we'll create an internal plugin called internal-plugin, and create a library generator for this plugin that knows about the folders in our workspace and automatically tags the new project with a correct scope and type tag.

1. Use the @nx/plugin:plugin generator to generate a new plugin called internal-plugin.
   Make sure that the minimal option is set.
   
   

2. Use the @nx/plugin:generator generator to generate a new generator called util-lib.
   
   

3. Inspect the files that got generated and then commit everything.
   
   

4. Try to run your generator (you can append --dry-run to avoid reverting using Git)

   🐳 Hint

   Run npx nx list to see your newly created plugin in the list of installed plugins:

   % npx nx list
   
   >  NX   Local workspace plugins:
   
       @bg-hoard/internal-plugin (generators)
   

   Run npx nx list @bg-hoard/internal-plugin to see our generator details:

   % npx nx list @bg-hoard/internal-plugin
   
   >  NX   Capabilities in @bg-hoard/internal-plugin:
   
     GENERATORS
   
     util-lib : util-lib generator
   

   You call generators from this local plugin using the same syntax you would with any plugin:

   nx generate <plugin name>:<generator name> [...options]
   

   ⚠️ The code we generated creates a very bare-bones new library, with only a project.json and a src/index.ts file; you will see these files created if you run it. You can use Git to undo those changes (hence why it's recommended to commit before running a generator).
   
   

5. We can call other generators inside of our custom generator. Import the @nx/js:library generator and call it inside of the default exported function of libs/internal-plugin/src/generators/util-lib/generator.ts

   🐳 Hint

   import { libraryGenerator } from '@nx/js';
   
   export default async function (tree: Tree, schema: UtilLibGeneratorSchema) {
     await libraryGenerator(tree, schema);
     // ...
   }
   

6. In libs/internal-plugin/src/generators/util-lib/generator.ts try to make it console.log() the value of the --name property you passed to it (can use --dry-run again to test it)
   
   

7. Now that we're more familiar with how command line options are passed to the generator, let's revert all locally generated files, as we're about to start making actually useful changes to the generator.
   
   

8. The generator should prefix any name you give to your lib with util-

   For example:

   • nx generate @bg-hoard/internal-plugin:util-lib dates
   • Should generate a lib with the name util-dates

   ⚠️ You can keep trying out your changes safely with the --dry-run flag.️
   
   

9. Add a new property to its schema called directory. It should have only 3 possible values: "store", "api", "shared". If you do not pass --directory as an option when invoking the schema it should prompt the user to select from the 3 different values (similar to when you got asked about which CSS framework to use when creating Angular libs).

   🐳 Hint

   Adding dynamic prompts

   
   

10. The generator should generate the lib in the directory you pass to it.
    
    

11. Because it's a util lib, it should automatically be generated with the type:util tags.

    🐳 Hint

    Consult the @nx/js:lib docs for possible options you can pass to it.

    
    

12. We also need to add scope tag to it. We can use the directory value for this, since it signifies our scope.
    
    

13. Before testing your changes, remember to commit them, in case you need to revert locally generated files again.
    
    

14. Invoke your generator and test if the above requirements work

    • Let's give it the name notifications
    • Select api as the directory
      
      

15. Let's add some functionality to the lib you just created:

    • In libs/api/util-notifications/src/lib/api-util-notifications.ts
    • Add:

      export function sendNotification(clientId: string) {
        console.log('sending notification to client: ', clientId);
      }
      

16. Now try to import the above function in apps/api/src/app/app.service.ts

    • Try to lint all the apps
    • It should work because everything is in the api scope
      
      

17. Try to import it in apps/store/src/app/app.component.ts

    • It should fail because it's not within the same scope
      
      

18. In libs/api/util-notifications/src/lib/api-util-notifications.ts

    • Try to import a feature lib
    • It should correctly fail because the type hierarchy is not respected
      
      

19. BONUS - A generator.spec.ts file was created when we ran our generator. Try writing some meaningful tests for this generator.
    
    

20. BONUS BONUS - try to create another similar generator, but for "feature" libs.
    
    

21. Commit everything before the next lab.
    
    

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🎓If you get stuck, check out the solution

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