parcel-fullstack-poc VS rules_nodejs

> I’m still searching for a zero-conf full-stack pipeline which could manage both frontend and backend in a single project under a single watch command

I did create a proof of concept how this could be done in parcel https://github.com/mochicode/parcel-fullstack-poc.

The /src folder contains:

1. /api => backend

2. /app => react frontend

3. /shared => shared code

Once everything is installed, just run "npm start" and it will:

1. build and watch your src folder

2. react hmr/fast-refresh works

3. nodemon will reload your node server when things change

Not zero-config, but it almost gets you there.

Bazel is just the infrastructure to run webpack. You'd need to do some work to make webpack's state be cacheable (I dunno what options and such it has for this, maybe it's already there as an option). But if you're looking at Bazel for JS work you probably just want to use the existing and maintained rules for it: https://github.com/bazelbuild/rules_nodejs It's been a while since I last looked at it but I don't think it has any caching for webpack.

> Is Bazel designed in a way that make it impossible to do JS monorepos well?

Not impossible, but you really need to go all in with it and follow its conventions and practices. See this for the main docs: https://github.com/bazelbuild/rules_nodejs

One thing in particular that doesn't work well in the bazel world is doing your own stuff outside its BUILD.bazel files. If you're used to just npm install and jam some code in your package.json scripts... that doesn't usually work in the bazel world. If you have a lot of logic or tools in your build you'll likely need to go all in and make bazel starlark rules or macros that recreate that logic. Nothing is impossible, but expect to spend time getting up to speed and getting things working the bazel way.

I am using Bazel with rules_nodejs and Webpack. There's an example here.

It is probably possible to build Angular with ts_project(), however you'd need to manually manage the compiler (Angular has its own) and tsconfig (Angular needs special options). ts_library() does a lot of this for you, so I think it would probably be easier to use that than to force yourself onto ts_project(). The canonical Angular example uses ts_library() FWIW: https://github.com/bazelbuild/rules_nodejs/tree/master/examples/angular

https://github.com/bazelbuild/rules_nodejs

Nx is widely used in the Angular community. The Angular team at Google had plans to add Bazel support to the Angular CLI for many years, but the plans didn't materialize. The key folks (e.g., Alex Eagle) working on the effort left Google. Google employees no longer maintain rules_nodejs.