Create a Custom Plugin Preset
When you create a new nx workspace, you run the command: npx create-nx-workspace. This command accepts a --preset option, for example: npx create-nx-workspace --preset=react-standalone. This preset option is pointing to a special generator function (remember, a generator is a function that simplifies an entire code generation script into a single function) that Nx will call when this npx create-nx-workspace command is run, that will generate your initial workspace.
What is a preset?
At its core, a preset is a special generator that is shipped as part of an Nx Plugin package.
All first-party Nx presets are built into Nx itself, but you can create your own plugin and create a generator with the magic name: preset. Once you've published your plugin on npm, you can now run the create-nx-workspace command with the preset option set to the name of your published package.
To use a concrete example, let's look at the qwik-nx Nx community plugin. They include a preset generator that you can use to create a new Nx workspace with Qwik support.
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npx create-nx-workspace --preset=qwik-nx
Create a new Nx plugin
If you don't have an existing plugin you can create one by running
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npx create-nx-plugin my-org --pluginName my-plugin
Creating a "Preset" generator
To create our preset inside of our plugin we can run
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nx generate @nx/plugin:generator --name=preset --project=happynrwl
The word preset is required for the name of this generator
You should have a similar structure to this:
1happynrwl/
2 ├── e2e
3 ├── jest.config.js
4 ├── jest.preset.js
5 ├── nx.json
6 ├── package-lock.json
7 ├── package.json
8 ├── packages
9 │ └── happynrwl
10 │ ├── src
11 │ │ ├── executors
12 │ │ ├── generators
13 │ │ │ ├── happynrwl
14 │ │ │ └── preset // <------------- Here
15 │ │ └── index.ts
16 ├── tools
17 └── tsconfig.base.json
18After the command is finished, the preset generator is created under the folder named preset. The generator.ts provides an entry point to the generator. This file contains a function that is called to perform manipulations on a tree that represents the file system. The schema.json provides a description of the generator, available options, validation information, and default values.
Here is the sample generator function which you can customize to meet your needs.
1export default async function (tree: Tree, options: PresetGeneratorSchema) {
2 const normalizedOptions = normalizeOptions(tree, options);
3 addProjectConfiguration(tree, normalizedOptions.projectName, {
4 root: normalizedOptions.projectRoot,
5 projectType: 'application',
6 sourceRoot: `${normalizedOptions.projectRoot}/src`,
7 targets: {
8 exec: {
9 executor: 'nx:run-commands',
10 options: {
11 command: `node ${projectRoot}/src/index.js`,
12 },
13 },
14 },
15 tags: normalizedOptions.parsedTags,
16 });
17 addFiles(tree, normalizedOptions);
18 await formatFiles(tree);
19}
20To get an in-depth guide on customizing/running or debugging your generator see local generators.
Usage
Before you are able to use your newly created preset you must package and publish it to a registry.
After you have published your plugin to a registry you can now use your preset when creating a new workspace
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npx create-nx-workspace my-workspace --preset=my-plugin-name