ng serve removes /dist directory, but I would like to have it under version control

[stepanzarubin]

angular-cli@1.0.0-beta.28.3

[grizzm0]

This was done on purpose in #4293. Any reason why you would want dist in VCS?

Without a build before committing the build would be out of sync with the current revision anyhow.

[stepanzarubin]

@grizzm0 because dist is synonym of an actual build, and it is, ng serve serves the actual code base, but not the build, build is done once per week, month, etc. and has nothing to do with a current working directory. Another synonym of a dist is release, a lot of packages/libraries put their releases under dist directory and have it under version control.

Also, having dist under VCS allows us to keep everything in one place.

[stepanzarubin]

ng serve should accomplish its own task => serve actual code. And suddenly it starts to remove files from the outside? this is weird, the other developer was confused, to get rid of a confusion it is enough to understand that there is nothing under dist directory when ng serve is running, README can be updated to clarify this.

At least, removing dist should not be a default behavior, can be achieved by specific configuration option or a command argument.

Thanks.

[grizzm0]

It was changed as alot of people thought ng serve would serve the dist folder if present.

@filipesilva You got any input on this?

[stepanzarubin]

@grizzm0 then, why to have a dist folder at all? what is a purpose of it? temporary folder for temporary content? let`s take a look at scenario:

1. I make build: ng build --env prod which will write it under dist folder
2. Then I run ng serve and my build is gone... wow

Why do I stop ng serve at all to make a build?

[grizzm0]

Build is part of my deploy flow. I guess that's how most people use it.

[stepanzarubin]

@grizzm0 what will happen if build was not successful? for any reason, build can output files successfully, but they may not work (e.g. local build is ok, but there is something wrong with prod one).

[stepanzarubin]

I believe each command should remove/update only files this command is working with. ng build can clean build directory, but not other command.

[grizzm0]

If tests fail during deploy the deploy will be cancelled. If it builds successfully but something is wrong I would either store x releases on the prod machine or rollback by checking out a previous tag and build from that.

[stepanzarubin]

The world is not perfect, tests does not cover everything perfectly, some people do not write tests.

[grizzm0]

You could still rollback by tag or keep releases on your prod server. :p

[filipesilva]

I'm sorry this change disrupted your workflow. We're not looking at changing it back though.

dist/ had, at best your last ng build and was never reflective of ng serve.

My recommendation for your particular case is to do make a build using the --output-path (-op) flag and keep that one under version control.

ng build --output-path=last-build/

[mzeromski]

My solution for this:

After update Jan 2017 noticed new problem. Command ng serve remove /dist dir.

Solution:

File: package.json (new command prod-build)

"scripts": {
"ng": "ng",
"start": "ng serve",
"build": "ng build",
"prod-build": "ng build --output-path=last-build/ --env=prod",
"test": "ng test",
"lint": "ng lint",
"e2e": "ng e2e"
},
File: angular-cli.json (change ourDir)

"outDir": "/tmp/dist",

To build your prod version run: npm run prod-build

To serve: ng serve

In this configuration: ng server will create tmp dir, and your project directory will be clean, even when you commit changes without stop ng serve.