@angular/cli could not be found.

[rhclayto]

Upon installing this extension, when I start VSCode, I get the following error message from Angular Evergreen:

@angular/cli could not be found.

I have angular-cli installed globally. I do not have any angular projects set up yet. Does this only work with local angular-cli installations?

[duluca]

@rhclayto I just pushed out version 0.7.0, I'd appreciate it if you could retest it. But yes our initial focus is on local installations, as having a global installation doesn't really lend itself to keeping the project you're working on evergreen, while potentially leaving behind other projects that you're developing on your system.

If you can avoid it, I would recommend switching to local installations, otherwise, we will discuss what it'll take to support global installations and see if we can add support for it.

[rcarrico]

Was this ever discussed? I just installed the v1.0.1 extension into VSCode with no project opened and I get the message "@angular/cli could not be found" was well.

This particular computer has a version of angular that is a couple years old.

Angular CLI: 7.3.3
Node: 10.15.1
OS: win32 x64
Angular:
...

Package Version

@angular-devkit/architect 0.13.3
@angular-devkit/core 7.3.3
@angular-devkit/schematics 7.3.3
@schematics/angular 7.3.3
@schematics/update 0.13.3
rxjs 6.3.3
typescript 3.2.4

[bampakoa]

Hey all,

I managed to reproduce this problem. It actually happens when you open any folder that contains a package.json and a node_modules folder but it is not an Angular project or an Angular CLI workspace. That is, it does not contain @angular/cli in the devDependencies and @angular/core in the dependencies section.

[duluca]

@bampakoa Currently the extension is configured to activate if angular.json exists in the workspace, using https://code.visualstudio.com/api/references/activation-events#workspaceContains. This is configured in package.json. I know that the extension doesn't support nested angular.json files and I'm unsure how reliable of a method it is to look for angular.json files. We'll need to come up with a better mechanism

[bampakoa]

AFAIKU, in the reported cases, @angular/cli is not either in devDependencies or dependencies of the package.json file. The same error message may appear if @angular/core is not in either place (try to load the angular repo and you will see that message).
A solution that I would like to propose is do not display an error message when core or cli packages are not found. Instead, we could add an option in the VERSIONS pane and prompt the user to select the Angular project or Angular CLI workspace just as Nx Console does (see attached image below) when it is opened in a non-Angular workspace.