Node Server Tutorial - Part 4: Task Pipelines

Running Dependent Tasks

Let's build the products-api application:

~/products-api❯

npx nx build products-api

1
2   ✔    1/1 dependent project tasks succeeded [0 read from cache]
3
4   Hint: you can run the command with --verbose to see the full dependent project outputs
5
6 —————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————
7
8
9> nx run products-api:build:production
10
11✔ Browser application bundle generation complete.
12✔ Copying assets complete.
13✔ Index html generation complete.
14
15Initial Chunk Files           | Names         |  Raw Size | Estimated Transfer Size
16main.dc68f58360ec52f7.js      | main          | 203.69 kB |                55.81 kB
17polyfills.19459ef8805e51da.js | polyfills     |  33.04 kB |                10.64 kB
18runtime.639feb9584ec9047.js   | runtime       |   2.62 kB |                 1.23 kB
19styles.ef46db3751d8e999.css   | styles        |   0 bytes |                       -
20
21                              | Initial Total | 239.35 kB |                67.68 kB
22
23Lazy Chunk Files              | Names         |  Raw Size | Estimated Transfer Size
24967.25ab9a0a8950995f.js       | store-cart    | 719 bytes |               395 bytes
25
26Build at: 2022-11-30T16:44:43.171Z - Hash: 9850ece7cc7c6b7c - Time: 6527ms
27
28 —————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————
29
30  NX   Successfully ran target build for project products-api and 1 task(s) they depend on (9s)
31
32

Notice this line:

❯

✔ 1/1 dependent project tasks succeeded [0 read from cache]

When you run a task, Nx will run all the task's dependencies before running the task you specified. This ensures all the needed artifacts are in place before the task is run.

Configuring Task Pipelines

Nx can infer how projects depend on each other by examining the source code, but Nx doesn't know which tasks depend on each other.

In the nx.json file you can see the default set up:

{
  "targetDefaults": {
    "build": {
      "dependsOn": ["^build"],
      "inputs": ["production", "^production"]
    }
  }
}

The "dependsOn": ["^build"] line says that every build task depends on the build tasks for its project dependencies. You can override the dependsOn setting for individual projects in the project.json files.

Skip Repeated Tasks

Why does Nx always run the dependent tasks? Doesn't that waste time repeating the same work?

It would, if Nx didn't have a robust caching mechanism to take care of that problem for you. Let's build the products-api app again.

~/products-api❯

npx nx build products-api

1
2   ✔    1/1 dependent project tasks succeeded [1 read from cache]
3
4   Hint: you can run the command with --verbose to see the full dependent project outputs
5
6 ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————
7
8
9> nx run store:build:production  [existing outputs match the cache, left as is]
10
11
12Initial Chunk Files           | Names         |  Raw Size | Estimated Transfer Size
13main.dc68f58360ec52f7.js      | main          | 203.69 kB |                55.81 kB
14polyfills.19459ef8805e51da.js | polyfills     |  33.04 kB |                10.64 kB
15runtime.639feb9584ec9047.js   | runtime       |   2.62 kB |                 1.23 kB
16styles.ef46db3751d8e999.css   | styles        |   0 bytes |                       -
17
18                              | Initial Total | 239.35 kB |                67.68 kB
19
20Lazy Chunk Files              | Names         |  Raw Size | Estimated Transfer Size
21967.25ab9a0a8950995f.js       | store-cart    | 719 bytes |               395 bytes
22
23Build at: 2022-11-30T16:44:43.171Z - Hash: 9850ece7cc7c6b7c - Time: 6527ms
24
25 ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————
26
27  NX   Successfully ran target build for project store and 1 task(s) they depend on (13ms)
28
29   Nx read the output from the cache instead of running the command for 2 out of 2 tasks.
30

This time the build only took 13 ms. Also, if you delete the dist folder and run the command again, the build output will be recreated.

More Task Caching Details

See the documentation for more information on caching.

Cache Inputs and Outputs

How does Nx know when to replace a cached task result? And how does Nx know what should be cached?

Nx determines if a project has been modified by looking at the task's defined inputs. And then when the task is completed, it caches the terminal output and all the defined file outputs.

Inputs

When you run a task, Nx uses the inputs for your task to create a hash that is used as an index for the task results. If the task has already been run with the same inputs, Nx replays the results stored in the cache.

If this index does not exist, Nx runs the command and if the command succeeds, it stores the result in the cache.

Outputs

Outputs of the cache include the terminal output created by the task, as well as any files created by the task - for example: the artifact created by running a build task.

Here are the outputs defined for the auth project:

auth/project.json
{
  "name": "auth",
  "targets": {
    "build": {
      "executor": "@nx/js:tsc",
      "outputs": ["{options.outputPath}"],
      "options": {
        "outputPath": "dist/auth"
      }
    },
    "lint": {
      "executor": "@nx/eslint:lint",
      "outputs": ["{options.outputFile}"],
      "options": {
        "outputFile": "dist/auth/lint-report.txt"
      }
    },
    "test": {
      "executor": "@nx/jest:jest",
      "outputs": ["{workspaceRoot}/coverage/{projectRoot}"],
      "options": {}
    }
  },
  "tags": []
}
Nx 15 and lower use @nrwl/ instead of @nx/

Outputs are stored in the cache so that terminal output can be replayed, and any created files can be pulled from your cache, and placed where they were created the original time the task was run.

Testing Affected Projects

Another way that Nx saves you from unnecessary work is the affected command. affected is a mechanism that relies on your git metadata to determine the projects in your workspace that were affected by a given commit.

Run the command:

❯

git add . ; git commit -m "commiting to test affected"

Then make a change to an endpoint of your products-api project:

src/main.ts
import express from 'express';
import { doAuth } from 'auth';

const host = process.env.HOST ?? 'localhost';
const port = process.env.PORT ? Number(process.env.PORT) : 3000;

const app = express();

app.get('/', (req, res) => {
  res.send({ message: 'Hello modified API' });
});

app.post('/auth', (req, res) => {
  res.send(doAuth());
});

app.listen(port, host, () => {
  console.log(`[ ready ] http://${host}:${port}`);
});

You can visualize how our workspace is affected by this change using the command:

❯

npx nx affected:graph

The change made to the products-api project is also affecting the e2e project. This can be leveraged to run tasks only on the projects that were affected by this commit.

To run the lint targets only for affected projects, run the command:

❯

npx nx affected -t lint

This can be particularly helpful in CI pipelines for larger repos, where most commits only affect a small subset of the entire workspace.

Affected Documentation

Checkout Affected documentation for more details

What's Next

Continue to 5: Docker Target