Node Server 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 common tasks for each project.

Defining Targets

Here's the project.json file for the auth project:

/auth/project.json
{ "name": "auth", "$schema": "../node_modules/nx/schemas/project-schema.json", "sourceRoot": "auth/src", "projectType": "library", "targets": { "build": { "executor": "@nx/js:tsc", "outputs": ["{options.outputPath}"], "options": { "outputPath": "dist/./auth", "tsConfig": "auth/tsconfig.lib.json", "packageJson": "auth/package.json", "main": "auth/src/index.ts", "assets": ["auth/*.md"] } }, "lint": { "executor": "@nx/linter:eslint", "outputs": ["{options.outputFile}"], "options": { "lintFilePatterns": ["auth/**/*.ts"] } }, "test": { "executor": "@nx/jest:jest", "outputs": ["{workspaceRoot}/coverage/{projectRoot}"], "options": { "jestConfig": "auth/jest.config.ts", "passWithNoTests": true }, "configurations": { "ci": { "ci": true, "codeCoverage": true } } } }, "tags": [] }
Nx 15 and lower use @nrwl/ instead of @nx/

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

The properties of these targets are 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 - Task Pipelines).
  • 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 auth project:

Terminal

~/products-api❯

npx nx build auth

> nx run auth:build Compiling TypeScript files for project "auth"... Done compiling TypeScript files for project "auth". ——————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— > NX Successfully ran target build for project auth (1s)

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

Next, run a lint check on auth:

Terminal

~/products-api❯

npx nx lint auth

> nx run auth:lint Linting "auth"... All files pass linting. ——————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— > NX Successfully ran target lint for project products-api (777ms)

Run e2e Tests

To run the e2e tests, you first need to serve the root products-api project:

Terminal

~/products-api❯

npx nx serve products-api

> nx run products-api:serve Debugger listening on ws://localhost:9229/5ee3e454-1e38-4d9b-a5de-64a4cb1e21b9 Debugger listening on ws://localhost:9229/5ee3e454-1e38-4d9b-a5de-64a4cb1e21b9 For help, see: https://nodejs.org/en/docs/inspector [ ready ] http://localhost:3000 [ watch ] build succeeded, watching for changes...

Then you can run the e2e tests from the e2e project in a separate terminal:

Terminal

~/products-api❯

npx nx e2e e2e

> nx run e2e:e2e Determining test suites to run... Setting up... PASS e2e e2e/src/server/server.spec.ts GET / ✓ should return a message (39 ms) POST /auth ✓ should return a status and a name (19 ms) Test Suites: 1 passed, 1 total Tests: 2 passed, 2 total Snapshots: 0 total Time: 0.263 s, estimated 1 s Ran all test suites. Tearing down... ——————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— > NX Successfully ran target e2e for project e2e (2s)

What's Next