Node "serve" target does not build dependencies that are buildable, or watch for changes

Current Behavior

If you set up an NodeJS application which has a lib dependency in the workspace which is “buildable” then when you run nx serve your-app the lib will not be automatically built, and the serve will fail because its expecting to find the built output of the lib in the `dist/ directory.

If you nx build your-app it will build the dependency properly.

If you are “serving” the app after building the lib manually, it will not rebuild or restart the app if the lib is changed

Expected Behavior

I would expect that the lib is automatically built by running nx serve on the node app. I would also expect it to be watching for changes to the lib and automatically re-running the server.

Steps to Reproduce

The issue is reproduced in my public Nx repo here: https://github.com/devcyclehq/js-sdks

If you run nx serve example-nodejs-cloud-typescript then it will fail, because it can’t find the built output of the dependency in the dist/ directory.

Failure Logs

Environment

 NX   Report complete - copy this into the issue template

   Node : 16.13.2
   OS   : darwin x64
   yarn : 3.2.0

   nx : 14.0.5
   @nrwl/angular : Not Found
   @nrwl/cypress : 14.0.5
   @nrwl/detox : 14.0.5
   @nrwl/devkit : 14.0.5
   @nrwl/eslint-plugin-nx : 14.0.5
   @nrwl/express : Not Found
   @nrwl/jest : 14.0.5
   @nrwl/js : 14.0.5
   @nrwl/linter : 14.0.5
   @nrwl/nest : Not Found
   @nrwl/next : 14.0.5
   @nrwl/node : 14.0.5
   @nrwl/nx-cloud : Not Found
   @nrwl/nx-plugin : Not Found
   @nrwl/react : 14.0.5
   @nrwl/react-native : 14.0.5
   @nrwl/schematics : Not Found
   @nrwl/storybook : 14.0.5
   @nrwl/web : 14.0.5
   @nrwl/workspace : 14.0.5
   typescript : 4.6.3
   rxjs : 6.6.7

[ajwootto]

I’m on Mac OS and experiencing the issue, so I don’t think that’s the culprit

[wolfie82]

I ran into this and was able to solve it by updating my nx.json. Now if one of my apps depends on my library that has a generate target, it will automatically run on serve and build. I hope this helps someone.

"tasksRunnerOptions": {
  "default": {
    "runner": "nx/tasks-runners/default",
    "options": {
      "cacheableOperations": ["build", "lint", "test", "e2e", "generate"]
    }
  }
},
...
"targetDefaults": {
    "build": {
      "dependsOn": ["^generate", "^build"],
      "inputs": ["production", "^production"]
    },
    "serve": {
      "dependsOn": ["^generate"]
    },
    "test": {
      "inputs": ["default", "^production", "{workspaceRoot}/jest.preset.js"]
    },
    "e2e": {
      "inputs": ["default", "^production"]
    },
    "lint": {
      "inputs": ["default", "{workspaceRoot}/.eslintrc.json"]
    }
  },