Use Nx As Your Framework CLI

Nx makes it easy to provide executors so that devs using your framework don't have to create their own build and test scripts. You can also create generators that make it simple to add in the building basic blocks. With Nx 16, you can also make the initial set up process straight forward.

With a few simple commands, you can allow your users to run something like npx create-my-plugin and they'll have a workspace set up in the best way for your plugin.

Generate the create-package

If you don't already have a plugin, see the create a local plugin tutorial.

To make the create-package script, run this generator:

nx generate @nx/plugin:create-package create-package --project=my-plugin

This will set up create-my-plugin and create-my-plugin-e2e projects. It will also add a generator named preset.

my-plugin/
├── create-my-plugin/
│   └── bin/
├── create-my-plugin-e2e/
├── src/
│   └── generators/
│       └── preset/
├── nx.json
├── package.json
├── README.md
└── tsconfig.base.json

The create-my-plugin package will execute the create-nx-workspace command and then run the preset generator on the newly created workspace.

The preset generator is where you will manipulate the file system in whatever way you need to set up the new workspace.

Publish create-my-plugin

Once you're happy with the preset generator, build and publish the create-my-plugin project:

nx build create-my-plugin
nx publish create-my-plugin --ver=1.0.0

Use create-my-plugin

Now that the package has been published, you can run

npx create-my-plugin

And you'll have a new workspace set up by your preset generator.