feat(core): add support for --exclude-files and --include-files to nx watch - #37084
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Adds two new CLI options to `nx watch` that let users filter which changed file paths re-trigger the watched command using glob patterns. - `--include`: CSV/space-delimited patterns; a file must match at least one pattern to count. Omit to include all files (existing behaviour). - `--exclude`: CSV/space-delimited patterns; a file matching any pattern is always ignored even if it also matched `--include`. Filtering is applied daemon-side in `notifyFileWatcherSockets` so a project is only reported as changed when at least one of its files survives the glob filter. A pure `fileMatchesGlobFilter` helper and its unit tests are added in the file-watching folder. Example: nx watch --all --include="**/*.ts" --exclude="**/*.spec.ts" -- echo \$NX_FILE_CHANGES
…st, precompiled matchers)
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Every failure mode of `--include`/`--exclude` looked identical from the terminal: the command silently stops re-running and `nx watch` appears to hang. Four separate causes, addressed at the point each one goes wrong. Negated patterns are now rejected. Minimatch implements `!` by inverting that one pattern's own result, and both filters OR their patterns together, so a negated pattern could only ever widen the set it lived in — the gitignore/eslint idiom `--include "**/*.ts" "!**/*.spec.ts"` *kept* the spec files, and `--exclude "!**/*.spec.ts"` meant "drop everything that is not a spec", leaving the watch firing only on spec edits. Both read as the exact opposite of what they did, and negation already has a first-class spelling here: the other flag. Empty patterns (what an unset shell variable expands to) are rejected for the same reason, a leading `./` is stripped rather than matching nothing, and a flag passed with no patterns at all now errors instead of quietly disabling the filter. The active patterns are echoed once at startup, unconditionally rather than behind `--verbose`, next to the root-anchoring rule — that is what turns "nx watch is hung" into "I typed `*.ts`". When a filter drops an entire batch of changed files, the notice now reaches the terminal of the watch that owns the filter, over its own socket, rather than only `daemon.log` — a file the person who typed the pattern has no reason to open, and which the previous comment claimed was enough. It is sent once per subscription, since a filter doing its job hits this on every save, and the daemon log still keeps the full record. `REGISTER_FILE_WATCHER` was the one `handleMessage` branch with no error handling, which was fine while it was an array push but not once it compiles globs. An invalid pattern rejected unhandled and took the workspace-wide daemon down with no explanation; it now responds with the error, so it surfaces in the terminal of the client that sent it. The watch socket therefore has to tell a file-change notification apart from a log line or an error response, which it now does. Also fixes the ordering regression from building watched-project files in a plain object (integer-like keys hoist, so a project named `2024` moved), and replaces a `--include` test that passed with the feature deleted, since yargs collects repeated undeclared flags into an array on its own. Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01LsFgrnFJPfpqf9X7qfAXtW
The workspace watching guide is the only prose home for `nx watch` and had nothing on the two new flags, so the rule the whole feature turns on — that patterns are anchored at the workspace root, which is what separates `**/*.ts` from `*.ts` — was written down nowhere a user would look. Also calls out that `nx watch --exclude` filters files while the `--exclude=my-app` in the example above it belongs to the inner `run-many` and filters projects. The example is correct as written, but a reader who moves that flag left of the `--` gets a glob. Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01LsFgrnFJPfpqf9X7qfAXtW
`nx watch`'s `--exclude` collided with the workspace-wide `--exclude` that `run-many`/`affected` take, which is a comma-separated list of *project names* rather than space-delimited file globs. `nx watch` never called `withExcludeOption`, so nothing shadowed anything at the yargs level, but a user arriving with `nx affected --exclude=my-app` muscle memory got a glob matching a file literally named `my-app` — a filter that silently excluded nothing. The collision was worse than ambiguity. `rewriteTargetsAndProjects` in `bin/init-local.ts` collapses the space-delimited values of `--projects` / `--exclude` / `--files` / `--target(s)` into one comma-joined value, keyed off the flag spelling alone, for every command. So the real `nx` binary turned `nx watch --all --exclude "**/*.spec.ts" "**/*.md"` into the single pattern `**/*.spec.ts,**/*.md`, which matches nothing. The existing specs parse argv straight through yargs and never saw it. Both flags are introduced by this PR and have never shipped, so this is a clean rename with no alias or deprecation. They are declared camelCase like their `includeGlobalWorkspaceFiles` / `includeDependencies` siblings, so yargs exposes `--include-files` and `--includeFiles` alike. Renamed through the daemon config, the validation error messages (the negation rejection named the opposite flag by name), and the docs. The docs callout about `--exclude` belonging to `run-many` now says `nx watch` has no `--exclude` of its own rather than describing a second one.
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Current Behavior
nx watchre-runs the given command for every file change in the watched projects. There is no way to narrow the trigger to specific file types or paths — e.g. watching only**/*.tschanges while ignoring spec files — so commands re-run on irrelevant changes.Expected Behavior
nx watchaccepts two new options:--include: comma/space-delimited glob patterns; a changed file must match at least one to re-trigger the command (defaults to everything).--exclude: comma/space-delimited glob patterns; a changed file matching any of these never triggers, even if it matched an include.Filtering happens daemon-side in
notifyFileWatcherSockets, where the project→files mapping exists, so a project only counts as changed (and only re-triggers a$NX_PROJECT_NAMEcommand) when at least one of its changed files survives the filter. Matching usesminimatchwithdot: true; global workspace files are filtered the same way. When neither flag is passed there is zero overhead (fast-path returns the original arrays).Includes 16 unit tests for the new
glob-filterhelper (include-only, exclude-only, combined, dotfiles, project dropped when all its files are filtered out).Related Issue(s)
N/A — feature work coordinated via Polygraph session
watch-filter-d1d4fdda.View session information ↗