nx-workspace

name

nx-workspace

description

Explore and understand Nx workspaces. USE WHEN answering questions about the workspace, projects, or tasks. ALSO USE WHEN an nx command fails or you need to check available targets/configuration before running a task. EXAMPLES: 'What projects are in this workspace?', 'How is project X configured?', 'What depends on library Y?', 'What targets can I run?', 'Cannot find configuration for task', 'debug nx task failure'.

Nx Workspace Exploration

This skill provides read-only exploration of Nx workspaces. Use it to understand workspace structure, project configuration, available targets, and dependencies.

Run all commands via pnpm nx (Hedgehog workspaces are pnpm-only).

Listing Projects

Use pnpm nx show projects to list projects in the workspace.

The project filtering syntax (-p/--projects) works across many Nx commands including nx run-many, nx release, nx show projects, and more. Filters support explicit names, glob patterns, tag references (e.g. tag:name), directories, and negation (e.g. !project-name).

# List all projects
pnpm nx show projects

# Filter by pattern (glob)
pnpm nx show projects --projects "apps/*"
pnpm nx show projects --projects "shared-*"

# Filter by tag
pnpm nx show projects --projects "tag:publishable"
pnpm nx show projects -p 'tag:publishable,!tag:internal'

# Filter by target (projects that have a specific target)
pnpm nx show projects --withTarget build

# Combine filters
pnpm nx show projects --type lib --withTarget test
pnpm nx show projects --affected --exclude="*-e2e"
pnpm nx show projects -p "tag:scope:client,packages/*"

# Negate patterns
pnpm nx show projects -p '!tag:private'
pnpm nx show projects -p '!*-e2e'

# Output as JSON
pnpm nx show projects --json

Project Configuration

Use pnpm nx show project <name> --json to get the full resolved configuration for a project.

Important: Do NOT read project.json directly - it only contains partial configuration. The nx show project --json command returns the full resolved config including inferred targets from plugins.

You can read the full project schema at node_modules/nx/schemas/project-schema.json to understand nx project configuration options.

# Get full project configuration
pnpm nx show project my-app --json

# Extract specific parts from the JSON
pnpm nx show project my-app --json | jq '.targets'
pnpm nx show project my-app --json | jq '.targets.build'
pnpm nx show project my-app --json | jq '.targets | keys'

# Check project metadata
pnpm nx show project my-app --json | jq '{name, root, sourceRoot, projectType, tags}'

Target Information

Targets define what tasks can be run on a project.

# List all targets for a project
pnpm nx show project my-app --json | jq '.targets | keys'

# Get full target configuration
pnpm nx show project my-app --json | jq '.targets.build'

# Check target executor/command
pnpm nx show project my-app --json | jq '.targets.build.executor'
pnpm nx show project my-app --json | jq '.targets.build.command'

# View target options
pnpm nx show project my-app --json | jq '.targets.build.options'

# Check target inputs/outputs (for caching)
pnpm nx show project my-app --json | jq '.targets.build.inputs'
pnpm nx show project my-app --json | jq '.targets.build.outputs'

# Find projects with a specific target
pnpm nx show projects --withTarget serve
pnpm nx show projects --withTarget e2e

Workspace Configuration

Read nx.json directly for workspace-level configuration. You can read the full project schema at node_modules/nx/schemas/nx-schema.json to understand nx project configuration options.

# Read the full nx.json
cat nx.json

# Or use jq for specific sections
cat nx.json | jq '.targetDefaults'
cat nx.json | jq '.namedInputs'
cat nx.json | jq '.plugins'
cat nx.json | jq '.generators'

Key nx.json sections:

• targetDefaults - Default configuration applied to all targets of a given name
• namedInputs - Reusable input definitions for caching
• plugins - Nx plugins and their configuration
• ...and much more, read the schema or nx.json for details

Affected Projects

If the user is asking about affected projects, read the affected projects reference for detailed commands and examples.

Common Exploration Patterns

"What's in this workspace?"

pnpm nx show projects
pnpm nx show projects --type app
pnpm nx show projects --type lib

"How do I build/test/lint project X?"

pnpm nx show project X --json | jq '.targets | keys'
pnpm nx show project X --json | jq '.targets.build'

"What depends on library Y?"

# Use the project graph to find dependents
pnpm nx graph --print | jq '.graph.dependencies | to_entries[] | select(.value[].target == "Y") | .key'

Programmatic Answers

When processing nx CLI results, use command-line tools to compute the answer programmatically rather than counting or parsing output manually. Always use --json flags to get structured output that can be processed with jq, grep, or other tools you have installed locally.

Listing Projects

pnpm nx show projects --json

Example output:

["my-app", "my-app-e2e", "shared-ui", "shared-utils", "api"]

Common operations:

# Count projects
pnpm nx show projects --json | jq 'length'

# Filter by pattern
pnpm nx show projects --json | jq '.[] | select(startswith("shared-"))'

# Get affected projects as array
pnpm nx show projects --affected --json | jq '.'

Project Details

pnpm nx show project my-app --json

Example output:

{
  "root": "apps/my-app",
  "name": "my-app",
  "sourceRoot": "apps/my-app/src",
  "projectType": "application",
  "tags": ["type:app", "scope:client"],
  "targets": {
    "build": {
      "executor": "@nx/vite:build",
      "options": { "outputPath": "dist/apps/my-app" }
    },
    "serve": {
      "executor": "@nx/vite:dev-server",
      "options": { "buildTarget": "my-app:build" }
    },
    "test": {
      "executor": "@nx/vite:test",
      "options": {}
    }
  },
  "implicitDependencies": []
}

Common operations:

# Get target names
pnpm nx show project my-app --json | jq '.targets | keys'

# Get specific target config
pnpm nx show project my-app --json | jq '.targets.build'

# Get tags
pnpm nx show project my-app --json | jq '.tags'

# Get project root
pnpm nx show project my-app --json | jq -r '.root'

Project Graph

pnpm nx graph --print

Example output:

{
  "graph": {
    "nodes": {
      "my-app": {
        "name": "my-app",
        "type": "app",
        "data": { "root": "apps/my-app", "tags": ["type:app"] }
      },
      "shared-ui": {
        "name": "shared-ui",
        "type": "lib",
        "data": { "root": "libs/shared-ui", "tags": ["type:ui"] }
      }
    },
    "dependencies": {
      "my-app": [
        { "source": "my-app", "target": "shared-ui", "type": "static" }
      ],
      "shared-ui": []
    }
  }
}

Common operations:

# Get all project names from graph
pnpm nx graph --print | jq '.graph.nodes | keys'

# Find dependencies of a project
pnpm nx graph --print | jq '.graph.dependencies["my-app"]'

# Find projects that depend on a library
pnpm nx graph --print | jq '.graph.dependencies | to_entries[] | select(.value[].target == "shared-ui") | .key'

Troubleshooting

"Cannot find configuration for task X:target"

# Check what targets exist on the project
pnpm nx show project X --json | jq '.targets | keys'

# Check if any projects have that target
pnpm nx show projects --withTarget target

"The workspace is out of sync"

pnpm nx sync
pnpm nx reset  # if sync doesn't fix stale cache