Nest-cli: [Feature Request] Add --entrypoint option to nest start action

[AntonioAngelino]

I'm submitting a...

[ ] Regression 
[ ] Bug report
[ X ] Feature request
[ ] Documentation issue or request

Current behavior

nest start runs the project using src/main as the entry-point file.

Refs:

• https://github.com/nestjs/nest-cli/blob/698c460f332f2b884854ae1dc87b7e8ae790ed49/lib/configuration/defaults.ts#L7
• https://github.com/nestjs/nest-cli/blob/0e7799480c0204a7b65b09823e15ca45ae15dc80/actions/start.action.ts#L67

Expected behavior

nest start --entry-point cli runs the project using src/cli as the entry-point file.

What is the motivation / use case for changing the behavior?

Thanks to NestFactory.createApplicationContext is really easy to build custom CLIs for Nestjs projects.

Prior to nest v6, We used ts-node -r tsconfig-paths/register src/cli.ts to run our CLI in dev machines, now we would like to move to nest start.

[kamilmysliwiec]

You can simply set entryFile configuration option in your nest-cli.json ("entryFile": "cli")

[AntonioAngelino]

Hi @kamilmysliwiec,

We have both main.ts (the entry-point of our backend app) and cli.ts.

It's not possible to specify a different nest-cli config file via env vars. The config filename is static according to https://github.com/nestjs/nest-cli/blob/6eabf61faa5c0e4d34edf2140a113ac259eddc83/lib/configuration/nest-configuration.loader.ts#L11.

I'm thinking to create a new nest-cli config file for our cli.ts, and then pass it via envvar.

nest-cli.cli.config.js (horrible name, I know...):

{
  "language": "ts",
  "collection": "@nestjs/schematics",
  "sourceRoot": "src",
  "entryFile": "cli"
}

And then in package.json:
"cli": "NEST_CLI_CONFIG=nest-cli.cli.config.js nest start",
"cli:prod": "node dist/cli",

What do you think?

[kamilmysliwiec]

Perhaps we should just allow passing --config option to nest to let the CLI know we want to use either nest.json or, for instance, nest.prod.json. Then, you could simply create 2 separate scripts for building for dev and prod.

[AntonioAngelino]

That would be great!

[kamilmysliwiec]

Would you be interested in creating a PR? :)

[AntonioAngelino]

Yes, I or one of my teammates can do it and open a pr. 👍

[kamilmysliwiec]

Great! That would be awesome

[AntonioAngelino]

@kamilmysliwiec done!

[kamilmysliwiec]

Added in the latest release :)

[yusufkhan07]

Do we also have an extend option in nest-cli.json like tsconfig has?
I have 2 nest-cli.json files, 1 for production and 1 for development.
Whenever I added a nest library, I've to add it to both the config files, it'll be great if I can add all the libs to a single json file and then extend from that file the other 2 config files.