Add a New Express Project

Supported Features

Because we are using an Nx plugin for Express, all the features of Nx are available.

✅ Run Tasks ✅ Cache Task Results ✅ Share Your Cache ✅ Explore the Graph ✅ Distribute Task Execution ✅ Integrate with Editors ✅ Automate Updating Nx ✅ Enforce Module Boundaries ✅ Use Task Executors ✅ Use Code Generators ✅ Automate Updating Framework Dependencies

Install the Express Plugin

❯

npm i --save-dev @nx/express

Nx 15 and lower use @nrwl/ instead of @nx/

Create an Application

Use the app generator to create a new Express app.

Directory Flag Behavior Changes

The command below uses the as-provided directory flag behavior, which is the default in Nx 16.8.0. If you're on an earlier version of Nx or using the derived option, omit the --directory flag. See the workspace layout documentation for more details.

❯

nx g @nx/express:app my-express-api --directory=apps/my-express-api

Nx 15 and lower use @nrwl/ instead of @nx/

Serve the API by running

❯

nx serve my-express-api

This starts the application on localhost:3333/api by default.

Create a Library

The @nx/express plugin does not have a library generator, but we can use the library generator from the @nx/js plugin. To create a new library, install the @nx/js package and run:

Directory Flag Behavior Changes

The command below uses the as-provided directory flag behavior, which is the default in Nx 16.8.0. If you're on an earlier version of Nx or using the derived option, omit the --directory flag. See the workspace layout documentation for more details.

❯

nx g @nx/js:lib my-lib --directory=libs/my-lib

Nx 15 and lower use @nrwl/ instead of @nx/

Once the library is created, update the following files.

libs/my-lib/src/lib/my-lib.ts
1export function someFunction(): string { 2 return 'some function'; 3} 4
apps/my-express-app/src/main.ts
1/** 2 * This is not a production server yet! 3 * This is only a minimal backend to get started. 4 */ 5 6import express from 'express'; 7import * as path from 'path'; 8 9const app = express(); 10 11app.use('/assets', express.static(path.join(__dirname, 'assets'))); 12 13app.get('/api', (req, res) => { 14 res.send({ message: 'Welcome to my-express-app!' }); 15}); 16 17const port = process.env.PORT || 3333; 18const server = app.listen(port, () => { 19 console.log(`Listening at http://localhost:${port}/api`); 20}); 21server.on('error', console.error); 22

Now when you serve your API, you'll see the content from the library being displayed.

More Documentation