Purpose

Example project for nx issue nrwl/nx#14067

Steps to Reproduce

git clone https://github.com/ryangrahamnc/symlinked-nx-projs-issue
cd symlinked-nx-projs-issue/blog
npm i
npx nx serve blog-ui

Problem description

I have two nx monorepos:

npms-nx: list of npm packages I want to use in any of my projects
  packages/
    utils/ <-- [aka @my/utils] contains basic functions I use a lot
    react-utils/ <-- [aka @my/react-utils] contains react comps/hooks I use a lot

blog-nx: 
  apps/
    blog-ui/

I want to use @my/utils and @my/react-utils in the blog-ui app. But since its a separate nx project, I need to publish those packages every time I want to test a change.

So instead, I tried adding a blog-nx/packages folder, and symlinked npms-nx/packages/utils to it. So now I have:

blog-nx: 
  apps/
    blog-ui/
  packages/
    utils/ <-- symlink to ../../npms-nx/packages/utils
    react-utils/ <-- symlink to ../../npms-nx/packages/react-utils

And added path aliases to my blog-nx/tsconfig.base.json to link everything up:

"paths":{
  "@my/react-utils": ["packages/react-utils/src/index.ts"],
  "@my/utils": ["packages/utils/src/index.ts"]
}

This sets the path naming to match exactly what was used in the npms-nx repo. So the project.json's are always happy. Overall its exactly the same as a regular project structure. The only difference is the packages names are symlinks rather than folders.

Initially, that works amazingly. I can edit the files in @my/utils, and the changes automatically show up in my UI without having to do manual builds or publishing.

But, I start getting errors if I use a symlinked package that imports another symlinked package.

For instance, if I make @my/react-utils import a function from @my/utils, I start getting this error: Failed to resolve import "@my/utils" from "../npms-nx/packages/react-utils/src/lib/react-utils.tsx". Does the file exist?

Running npx nx graph for both identifies the problem:

npms-nx:

blog:

npms-nx properly identifies the link between react-utils and utils. The blog graph does not.

I believe this is caused by the symlink paths getting resolved, so it sees the ../../ and believes the dir doesnt exist in the repo. And therefore assumes its an external package.

Any advice on how to fix this? And/or maybe theres another way to do what I want? I cant tell if this symlink structure was designed to be a feature or not. But I find it useful, given I like to work on multiple projects and use common libs between them.