Nest.js is a framework designed for building scalable server-side applications. In many ways, Nest is familiar to Angular developers:
- It has excellent TypeScript support.
- Its dependency injection system is similar to the one in Angular.
- It emphasises testability.
- Its configuration APIs are similar to Angular as well.
Many conventions and best practices used in Angular applications can be also be used in Nest.
Setting Up Nest
To create a new workspace with Nest, run the following command:
npx create-nx-workspace my-workspace --preset=nest
Yarn users can use the following command instead:
yarn create nx-workspace my-workspace --preset=nest
To add the Nest plugin to an existing workspace, run one the following commands:
npm install -D @nrwl/nest
yarn add -D @nrwl/nest
Create Applications
You can add a new Nest application with the following command:
nx g @nrwl/nest:app my-nest-app
Application Proxies
Generating Nest applications has an option to configure other projects in the workspace to proxy API requests. This can be done by passing the --frontendProject
with the project name you wish to enable proxy support for.
nx g @nrwl/nest:app my-nest-app --frontendProject my-angular-app
Create Libraries
You can add a new Nest library with the following command:
nx g @nrwl/nest:lib my-nest-lib
To make the library buildable
, use the following command:
nx g @nrwl/nest:lib my-nest-lib --buildable
To make the library publishable
, use the following command:
nx g @nrwl/nest:lib my-nest-lib --publishable --importPath=@my-workspace/my-nest-lib
Read more about building and publishing libraries here.
Nest Generators
The Nest plugin for Nx extends the generators provided by Nest. Any commands that can be used with the Nest CLI can also be used with the nx
command. The --project
flag should be used for all Nest generators.
--project
is used to infer the root of the project where the generators will generate the files.
Using Nest
Build
You can build an application with the following command:
nx build my-nest-app
This applies to buildable
libraries as well
nx build my-nest-lib
Waiting for other builds
Setting the waitUntilTargets
option with an array of projects (with the following format: "project:architect"
) will execute those commands before serving the Nest application.
Serve
You can serve an application with the following command:
nx serve my-nest-app
The serve
command runs the build
target, and executes the application.
By default, the serve command will run in watch
mode. This allows code to be changed, and the Nest application to be rebuilt automatically.
Debugging
Nest applications also have the inspect
flag set, so you can attach your debugger to the running instance.
Debugging is set to use a random port that is available on the system. The port can be changed by setting the port option in the serve
target in the project.json
. Or by running the serve command with --port <number>
.
For additional information on how to debug Node applications, see the Node.js debugging getting started guide.
Lint
You can lint an application with the following command:
nx lint my-nest-app
You can lint a library with the following command:
nx lint my-nest-lib
Unit Test
You can run unit test for an application with the following command:
nx test my-nest-app
You can run unit test for a library with the following command:
nx test my-nest-lib