nx:run-commands

Run any custom commands with Nx.

Options can be configured in project.json when defining the executor, or when invoking it. Read more about how to configure targets and executors here: https://nx.dev/configuration/projectjson#targets.

workspace.json:

1//...
2"frontend": {
3    "targets": {
4        //...
5        "ls-project-root": {
6            "executor": "nx:run-commands",
7            "options": {
8                "command": "ls apps/frontend/src"
9            }
10        }
11    }
12}
13

nx run frontend:ls-project-root

Chaining commands, interpolating args and setting the cwd

Let's say each of our workspace projects has some custom bash scripts in a scripts folder. We want a simple way to create empty bash script files for a given project, that have the execute permissions already set.

Given that Nx knows our workspace structure, we should be able to give it a project and the name of our script, and it should take care of the rest.

The commands option accepts as many commands as you want. By default, they all run in parallel. You can run them sequentially by setting parallel: false:

1"create-script": {
2    "executor": "nx:run-commands",
3    "options": {
4        "commands": [
5          "mkdir -p scripts",
6          "touch scripts/{args.name}.sh",
7          "chmod +x scripts/{args.name}.sh"
8        ],
9        "cwd": "apps/frontend",
10        "parallel": false
11    }
12}
13

By setting the cwd option, each command will run in the apps/frontend folder.

We run the above with:

nx run frontend:create-script --args="--name=example"

or simply with:

nx run frontend:create-script --name=example

Arguments forwarding

When interpolation is not present in the command, all arguments are forwarded to the command by default.

This is useful when you need to pass raw argument strings to your command.

For example, when you run:

nx run frontend:webpack --args="--config=example.config.js"

1"webpack": {
2    "executor": "nx:run-commands",
3    "options": {
4        "command": "webpack"
5    }
6}
7

The above command will execute: webpack --config=example.config.js

This functionality can be disabled by using commands and expanding each command into an object that sets the forwardAllArgs option to false as shown below:

1"webpack": {
2    "executor": "nx:run-commands",
3    "options": {
4        "commands": [
5            {
6                "command": "webpack",
7                "forwardAllArgs": false
8            }
9        ]
10    }
11}
12

Custom done conditions

Normally, run-commands considers the commands done when all of them have finished running. If you don't need to wait until they're all done, you can set a special string that considers the commands finished the moment the string appears in stdout or stderr:

1"finish-when-ready": {
2    "executor": "nx:run-commands",
3    "options": {
4        "commands": [
5            "sleep 5 && echo 'FINISHED'",
6            "echo 'READY'"
7        ],
8        "readyWhen": "READY",
9        "parallel": true
10    }
11}
12

nx run frontend:finish-when-ready

The above commands will finish immediately, instead of waiting for 5 seconds.

Nx Affected

The true power of run-commands comes from the fact that it runs through nx, which knows about your project graph. So you can run custom commands only for the projects that have been affected by a change.

We can create some configurations to generate docs, and if run using nx affected, it will only generate documentation for the projects that have been changed:

nx affected --target=generate-docs

1//...
2"frontend": {
3    "targets": {
4        //...
5        "generate-docs": {
6            "executor": "nx:run-commands",
7            "options": {
8                "command": "npx compodoc -p apps/frontend/tsconfig.app.json"
9            }
10        }
11    }
12},
13"api": {
14    "targets": {
15        //...
16        "generate-docs": {
17            "executor": "nx:run-commands",
18            "options": {
19                "command":  "npx compodoc -p apps/api/tsconfig.app.json"
20            }
21        }
22    }
23}
24