nx/docs/react/guides/cli.md

Nx CLI

The Nx CLI is a command-line interface tool that helps you setup, develop, build, and maintain applications. It provides commands for:

• Generating new applications, and libraries with recommended defaults.
• Running a development webserver that rebuilds your app on changes.
• Generating a dependency graph for your application.
• Building, and running unit and E2E test for apps, and libraries affected by your changes.
• Formatting your source code to modern standards.

Installing the CLI

Install the Nx CLI globally on your system using your preferred package manager:

Using npm:

npm install -g @nrwl/cli

Using yarn:

yarn global add @nrwl/cli

Afer the Nx CLI is installed, you will have an nx executable you use to run commands in your workspace.

Basic workflow

Invoke the Nx CLI on the command-line using the nx executable. Help is available on the command-line for a short description, and example of available commands.

nx help

To create, build, and serve a new application, go to the root directory of your workspace and use the following commands below.

To generate a new application:

nx generate @nrwl/react:app myapp

Substitute myapp with the name of your application.

To start up a development web server:

nx serve myapp

In your browser, visit http://localhost:4200 to see the new app run. When you use the nx serve command to build the app and serve it locally, the app is rebuilt, and the page reloads when any of the source files are changed.

To run unit tests for your application:

nx test myapp

When you're ready to build your app for distribution:

nx build myapp --prod

The distributable application files are located in the dist/apps/ folder of your workspace.

Workspaces and project files

A single workspace configuration file, workspace.json, is created at the top level of the workspace. This is where you can set per-project defaults for CLI command options, and specify configurations to use when the CLI builds a project for different targets.

The workspace configuration file is updated when adding new applications, or libaries. You can also edit the workspace.json file directly.

Command overview

Command	Description
serve	Build the application, start up a development web server, and rebuild/reload on changes
build	Build and bundle the application for distribution
dep-graph	Generate a dependency graph for the project
lint	Run the lint checker for the workspace
e2e	Run all the E2E tests for the workspace
affected:apps	Display the list of apps affected by the current changes
affected:libs	Display the list of libs affected by the current changes
affected:build	Build the apps affected by the current changes
affected:e2e	Run the E2E tests for all projects affected by the current changes
affected:test	Run the unit tests for the projects affected by the current changes
affected:lint	Run the lint check for the projects affected by the current changes
affected:dep-graph	Generate a dependency graph for the affected projects
affected	Display the list of projects affected by the current changes
format:write	Run the code formatter across all the projects
format:check	Check the formatted code across all the projects
workspace-schematic	Run a workspace schematic
test	Run the unit tests for all projects
help	Display usage help for the Nx CLI