How to use tsconfig path aliases for libraries (Angular MonoRepo) without build

Question

I have an Angular MonoRepo. Within this is the main App project, which is supported by several libraries.

Currently, the above are using tsconfig paths dist/{library_name} for references. This setup requires building libraries when changes to their code occurs. For distribution, I appreciate this is needed.

For development, I would prefer to change tsconfig paths to the library source files, so that when changes are made the application ( ng serve ) auto-rebuilds. This would allow changes to be made more quickly.

I have tried to change the path to the library src files as follows:

"./projects/module-system/src"
"projects/module-system/src"
"../projects/module-system/src"
"../../projects/module-system/src"

The base URL is set to:

"baseUrl": "./"

All of these lead to "module not found" errors.

Is this possible in Angular? If so, what is the correct tsconfig setup?

Answer 1

Yes it is possible in Angular, on your tsconfig.json update your lib alias to:

      "module-system": [
        "projects/module-system/src/public-api.ts"
      ],