Updates docs when building a new command. Closes #5835

[SmitaNachan]

Updates docs when building a new command. Closes #5835

[milanholemans]

Thanks @SmitaNachan, we'l ltry to review it ASAP!

[Jwaegebaert]

Hey @SmitaNachan, thanks for the doc updates, but we need to take a different direction. Like Waldek mentioned here: #5835 (comment), the goal is to upgrade the current watch command to start with a new build before attaching the watcher. Sorry for any confusion.

[SmitaNachan]

Hi @Jwaegebaert
Sorry for the confusion, but is it just a documentation level update (as per issue description) or we need to make changes to the command?
Please suggest.

[Jwaegebaert]

@SmitaNachan, you shouldn't necessarily need to change any commands but rather make changes to the way that the npm run watch command works. Be sure to check out Waldeks comment on the issue: #5835 (comment)

[SmitaNachan]

Hi @Jwaegebaert
Will it be a good idea to propose to run npm run build && npm run watch as a command?
This will help us build the command as needed first and then npm can watch for further changes. Please suggest.

[Jwaegebaert]

@SmitaNachan, let's try some different approaches. Running npm run build && npm run watch isn't the most efficient, but we could run benchmark tests to get a clear picture.

I was thinking of exploring TypeScript CLI options more deeply. There's a section about the watcher with some interesting options we could use. https://www.typescriptlang.org/docs/handbook/compiler-options.html

Another idea is to focus on adding new commands during the watch session. Maybe we could include some of our pre-written scripts at the watch launch?

[SmitaNachan]

Hi @Jwaegebaert

I propose making below changes to the package.json:

"scripts": {
    "build": "tsc -p . && node scripts/write-all-commands.js && node scripts/copy-files.js",
    "watch": "tsc -w -p . && node scripts/write-all-commands.js && node scripts/copy-files.js",

Any opinions please?

[Jwaegebaert]

That seems like a good start. Although I'm not quite sure if we'll need the copy-files.js, you'll need to see what the results are if you include or exclude it. Maybe for tsc, it could be handy that we look into some different options as well. There is a --force flag you can use that sounds interesting to use for the watch command.

[SmitaNachan]

Hi @Jwaegebaert

Using --force option with watch gives below error:
error TS5093: Compiler option '--force' may only be used with '--build'

[Jwaegebaert]

Sorry for the late reply, @SmitaNachan.

I did some testing, and it seems that we just need to trigger the scripts/write-all-commands.js script whenever a new command is created. A simple solution could be running node scripts/write-all-commands.js && tsc -w -p ., which works fine and lets you find the new command, but it only works when executed initially. If the watcher is running and you add a new command, it won’t trigger anything.

What we really need is a watcher that focuses specifically on commands.ts files and triggers the write-all-commands script whenever there are changes. I tried using watchers like chokidar and onchange, but couldn't get them to run concurrently with tsc.

@pnp/cli-for-microsoft-365-maintainers, are there any alternatives you’d recommend for this use case? I’m wondering if it’s worth the effort to set up the watcher to build new commands when they're created, or if it’s sufficient to just run the write-all-commands script once when the watcher is first started.

[waldekmastykarz]

One thing that we could try is the following:

"watch": "concurrently \"tsc -w -p .\" \"nodemon --watch './src/**/commands.ts' --exec 'node scripts/write-all-commands.js'\"",

First, we run concurrently to run typescript and nodemon in parallel. Then, using nodemon, we setup a watcher for commands.ts files using a glob across all directories under src and if any is changed, we run the script. I haven't tested it, but in theory it should work. 🤞

[Jwaegebaert]

I think I remember testing concurrently with nodemon and having some trouble getting it to work. I also tried it with chokidar-cli, but honestly, I only spent about an hour on it and ran into some vague errors, so I didn’t dive too deep into it. It definitely wasn’t the easiest setup, but it could be worth giving it another shot! 😄

[waldekmastykarz]

@Jwaegebaert please let me know if I can help