Encapsulated Nx
Available since Nx v15.8.0Support for --encapsulated was added in Nx v15.8.0. To ensure that it is available, specify the version of nx when running your command so that npx doesn't accept an older version that is in the cache. (e.g. npx nx@latest init --encapsulated or npx nx@15.8.0 init --encapsulated)
nx init accepts a flag called --encapsulated. When this flag is passed, Nx manages its own installation within a .nx directory. This allows Nx to be used without a node_modules folder or root package.json.
To manage the local Nx installation, and invoke Nx, a total of 4 files are created.
Nx Wrapper
After running nx init --encapsulated, a file is created called .nx/nxw.js. This javascript file is responsible for ensuring that your local installation of Nx is up to date with what the repository expects, and then invoking Nx. We refer to this as the "Nx Wrapper".
Nx and nx bat
nx and nx.bat perform the same function, with nx working under the bash shell and nx.bat working for windows users. Each script simply checks that node and npm are available, and then invokes the nx wrapper. They should each be committed to your repository, so that developers on any operating system are able to use Nx.
To invoke an Nx command, you would use:
./nx build my-project
./nx generate application
./nx graph
Nx Json
This is the configuration file for Nx. A full description of nx.json, and the possible configuration options, is located in the nx.json reference documentation.
When Nx is encapsulated, an installation key is added to nx.json. This property tracks the currently installed version of Nx and plugins.