Getting started with Monorepo using NX

#webdev #javascript #development #productivity

In this Blog, I'm gonna talk about Monorepo, including its benefits and drawbacks, and how you can get started with this. I've been working on Monorepo for last one year and thought of sharing my knowledge with everyone of you.
Not so many developers are familiar with Monorepo or they might never got a chance to work with it.

Currently, Lot of companies are using monorepo for building the products and getting to know about this could be an advantage for you.

So, let's get started with this.

What's Monorepo?

In traditional development workflows, each project has its own repository. This approach can lead to many problems, such as duplication of code, inconsistent dependencies, and poor communication between teams.
Monorepo addresses these problems by storing all the projects in a single repository.
This approach can make it easier to manage and scale a large codebase, as it allows for better organization, collaboration, and reuse of code. Overall, monorepo can be a useful tool for developers who want to simplify their development workflows and improve their productivity.

Pros

Monorepo provides so many benefits such as:

Easier code sharing
Better collaboration between teams
Easier to maintain external packages/dependencies
Single store for code styles, formatting and linting across solutions
Test can be run across platform when a change is made to a shared service/feature/package

Cons

It may not be the best approach for all development workflows and has it's own set of cons, such as:

More complex for smaller projects
Longer build times (possible)
Repository Size
Managing dependency
Restricting access to apps/libs for certain teams/outsourcers

There are several tools available to help manage Monorepos, including:

NX
Lerna
Yarn Workspaces

I am gonna talk about NX and how can you get started with it as I have some expertise in that.😎

What is NX?

NX is a set of powerful tools and best practices for building and maintaining complex applications. NX provides a number of benefits:

A set of powerful command-line tools: NX provides a set of powerful command-line tools for building, testing, and deploying your applications.
A set of best practices: NX provides a set of best practices for developing applications in a Monorepo. These best practices help you to write better code, faster.
An extensible plugin system: NX provides an extensible plugin system that allows you to add new features and capabilities to your applications.

Getting Started with NX Monorepo

1️⃣ Install NX: To get started with NX, you'll need to install the NX CLI. You can do this by running the following command:

npm install -g nx

2️⃣ Create a new workspace: Once you have NX installed, you can create a new workspace by running the following command:

npx create-nx-workspace@latest my-app

This will create a new NX workspace with the name "my-app". You'll be prompted to choose a preset for your new workspace, such as "empty", "react", "next.js", "react-native", "nest" or "angular" and stylesheet format such as "CSS", "SCSS", "styled-components" etc.
I selected next.js monorepo.
After it's done you can see the below folders and files in your workspace.

3️⃣ Start the development server: To start the development server and view your next.js application, run the following command:

nx serve my-app

This will start the development server and launch your application in your default web browser.

4️⃣ Add additional projects: Once you have your next.js application up and running, you can add additional projects to your NX workspace. For example, you could add a backend API project, a shared library of components, or additional front-end applications.

By following these steps, you can quickly get started with NX using Next.JS and begin building scalable, maintainable applications using Monorepo architecture.

🚀That was it for today. Hope you got the idea about Monorepo now. Still have any doubt, comment down below or checkout the NX documentation.

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