Nx is a suite of powerful, extensible dev tools to help you architect, test, and build at any scale — integrating seamlessly with modern technologies and libraries while providing a robust CLI, caching, dependency management, and more.
It has first-class support for many frontend and backend technologies, so its documentation comes in multiple flavours.
Below is the sample folder structure for Nx with NestJS and Angular. Our principles are:
- SCAMs (single component Angular modules) for tree-shakable components, meaning each component will have a respective module. For example, a
RegisterComponentwill have a correspondingRegisterModule, we won't declareRegisterComponentas part ofAuthModulefor example. - Mostly everything will stay in the
libsfolder. New modules, new models, new configurations, new components etc... are in libs. libs should be separated into different directories based on existing apps. We won't put them inside theappsfolder. For example in an Angular, it contains themain.ts,app.component.tsandapp.module.ts
.
└── root
├── apps
│ ├── api <-- nestjs
│ └── client <-- angular
└── libs (1)
├── api <-- grouping folder (dir)
│ ├── core <-- grouping folder (dir)
│ │ └── feature <-- nest:lib (2)
│ ├── feature-1 <-- grouping folder (dir)
│ │ ├── data-access <-- nest:lib, service + entities
│ │ ├── feature <-- nest:lib, module + controller
│ │ └── utils <-- nest:lib, things like interceptors, guards, pipes etc...
│ └── feature-2 <-- grouping folder (dir)
│ ├── data-access <-- nest:lib, service + entities
│ ├── feature <-- nest:lib, module + controller
│ └── utils <-- nest:lib, things like interceptors, guards, pipes etc...
├── client <-- grouping folder (dir)
│ ├── shell <-- grouping folder (dir)
│ │ └── feature <-- angular:lib (3)
│ ├── feature-1 <-- grouping folder (dir)
│ │ ├── data-access <-- angular:lib, service, API calls, state management)
│ │ ├── feature <-- grouping folder (dir) or lib (4)
│ │ │ ├── list <-- angular:lib e.g. ProductList
│ │ │ └── detail <-- angular:lib e.g. ProductDetail
│ │ └── ui <-- grouping folder (dir)
│ │ ├── comp-1 <-- angular:lib, SCAM for Component
│ │ └── pipe-1 <-- angular:lib, SCAM for Pipe
│ └── shared <-- grouping folder (dir)
│ ├── data-access <-- angular:lib, any Service or State management to share across the Client app)
│ ├── ui <-- grouping folder (dir) (5)
│ └── utils <-- angular:lib, usually shared Guards, Interceptors, Validators...)
└── shared <-- grouping folder (dir), most libs in here are buildable @nrwl/angular:lib)
├── data-access <-- my shared data-access is usually models, so it is a lib
├── ui <-- optional grouping folder (dir), if I have multiple client apps
└── utils <-- optional grouping folder (dir), usually validation logic or shared utilities
├── util1 <-- lib
└── util2 <-- lib
- lib vs grouping folder (dir)
- a dir is just a directory.
- a lib is generated by using Nx schematics
api-core-feature: this is the CoreModule that will include all initial setups like Config and Database Connection etc... and importing other Modules. CoreModule will be imported by AppModuleclient-shell-feature: Same idea as NestJS's CoreModule. This Shell includesRouterModule.forRoot()client-feature-1-feature: This can either a dir or a lib.
- If this feature only has one Routable component, it is a lib.
- If it has multiple Routable components, then it should be a dir. For example:
└── feature
├── list (angular:lib e.g ProductList)
└── detail (angular:lib e.g. ProductDetail)
feature usually contains the ContainerComponent and the RouterModule.forChild()
client-shared-uiis a little tricky. The general recommendation is to NOT grouped stuffs by type likecomponents,pipesetc... into a single module but because these are shared, it is easy to get quite messy if not grouped by type. This is your call. We prefer to have a Single Component Per Module (SCAM) for each angular library.
This structure is proposed by my friend Chau Tran and I am applying it for my latest project!
Following the above structure will bring three advantages:
- Consistency: eliminate mental overhead when we don't have to think about where to put what in a big repo having from two apps and above.
- Promote Single Component Per Module (SCAM) + Buildable libraries to get the benefits from the nx affected commands.
- Prevent circular dependencies issue.
data-access:data-accesscan import otherdata-access. But never import itsfeature. For example:user/data-accesscan import fromproduct/data-accessbut it will never import fromuser/featurefeature: can only import its owndata-accessor the globalshared/data-access. For example:user/featurecan import fromuser/data-accessbut never fromproduct/data-access.util: Utils can be shared acrossdata-access,util.