Workspace Layout and projectNameAndRootFormat

As of Nx 16.8.0, generating a project will prompt you to choose how Nx will calculate where the project should be located. You can choose between as-provided and derived. as-provided will be the default in Nx 18.

as-provided

This setting makes app or lib generators behave in the following way:

• nx g app my-app creates a new application named my-app in the /my-app folder
• nx g lib my-lib creates a new library named my-lib in the /my-lib folder
• nx g app my-app --directory=apps/nested/my-app creates a new application named my-app in the /apps/nested/my-app folder
• nx g lib my-lib --directory=libs/shared/ui/my-lib creates a new library named my-lib in the /libs/shared/ui/my-lib folder

derived

Choosing derived makes Nx behave the way it did before version 16.8.0. Nx will check the workspaceLayout property in nx.json to determine how it should calculate the path to the new project.

These settings would store apps in /demos/ and libraries in /packages/. The paths specified are relative to the workspace root.

This makes app or lib generators behave in the following way:

• nx g app my-app creates a new application named my-app in the /demos/my-app folder
• nx g lib my-lib creates a new library named my-lib in the /packages/my-lib folder
• nx g app my-app --directory=nested creates a new application named nested-my-app in the /demos/nested/my-app folder
• nx g lib my-lib --directory=shared/ui creates a new library named shared-ui-my-lib in the /packages/shared/ui/my-lib folder

If you accidentally generate a project in the wrong folder, use the move generator to move it to the correct location.

Skipping the Prompt

You can skip the prompt in two ways:

1. Specify a flag directly in the terminal nx g app my-app --directory=apps/my-app --projectNameAndRootFormat=as-provided
2. Set a default value for that property for every generator that you use.