Angular CLI Error The serve command requires to be run in an Angular project but a project definition could not be found

Question

When running the terminal commands ng server or ng serve --live-reload true  I m getting this issue      The serve command requires to be run in an Angular project  but a   project definition could not be found

User · Answer

I came across the same error  The reason is that new angular cli update makes angular-cli json redundant  and it is replaced with angular json instead  My previous Angular Cli version is 1 7 4  so to make the change  I ran the following command  it will make the conversion for you   ng update  angular cli --migrate-only --from 1 7 4

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This error occurs when the project you are running is not an angular project  Though you have downloaded an angular project but have not installed all the dependencies thats why the ng serve command is not available to you   Just navigate to the path where the project is stored and use the command  npm install    Note - Node js should be installed in your system and if you are using Angular 2 or above angular cli should also be installed in your system before you run this command  To check if the node js is installed n your system 1  Open cmd  any path- as node should be globally installed in your system  2  use command  node -v npm -v   to get node and npm version   One more important thing  The angular cli version won t make a difference if the version installed in your system is higher than the version required by the project  It will give a warning but you can ignore the warning

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I am using ionciv1  in the file ionic config json delete the angular type key and it worked correctly   example          name    nombre      integrations          cordova              type    angular      delete    gulpStartupTasks          sass        templatecache        ng annotate        useref        watch          watchPatterns          www              www lib               browsers                  platform    android          browser    crosswalk          version    12 41 296 5                id    0 1      solved                name    nombre          integrations              cordova                      gulpStartupTasks              sass            templatecache            ng annotate            useref            watch                  watchPatterns              www                  www lib                       browsers                          platform    android              browser    crosswalk              version    12 41 296 5                            id    0 1

User · Answer

Tried all the above But for me it was solved by  npm start

User · Answer

This error usually can be traced back to an update to our global or local CLI runtime   To check if this is the problem  we need to review the package json file  There  we should look for the  angular cli dependency  This should indicate the CLI version that was used to create our project  Lets make a note of this value  as we need to use it to migrate our project later on   We should now compare to the current CLI runtime by entering the following command on the terminal window   ng v        If you get error An unhandled exception occurred  ENOENT  no such   file or directory  scandir    your-app node modules   then you forgot   to run npm install   The console should display the current CLI version  If the versions are different  we need to migrate the project to the new CLI version by running the command below   Note that the from version parameter should set to the value found for the  angular cli setting   ng update  angular cli --migrate-only --from 1 6 7   We should now take a look at our project and should notice changes to the CLI dependency version in the package json file  Also depending on your CLI version  the  angular-cli json file is deleted  and a new angular json file is created  This is the project file that the new CLI is looking for and thus the source of the error of no project found  By adding this file  we should be able to be back on track on run our project again   We should be able to enter the following command and the project should be loading fine   ng server   Thanks to ozkary

User · Answer

The same problem I came across  but I solved by following these steps of code    Step 1  npm install -g  angular cli Step 2  ng new my-angular-project Step 3  cd my-angular-project Step 4  ng serve --open

User · Answer

Make sure you have created angular App using below command  then running ng serve in created Project folder   ng new Project Name

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It was silly me but need to leave comment maybe I save someone else some hassle  Same message happens if you multitask and have multiple projects so some of project is nested inside project folder like projectFolder subProject projectOne so I was in projectFolder subProject trying to run command ng serve    Make sure you are in correct folder because same error will occur if you are in wrong folder and conf and build is missing

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Finally  the command below fixed the issue for me   ng update --all --force

User · Answer

Happened to me when didn t install angular core   Angular CLI  9 0 0-rc 0 Node  11 12 0 OS  darwin x64 Angular  undefined       So I run   npm i  angular core   which gave me ng -v  Angular CLI  9 0 0-rc 0 Node  11 12 0 OS  darwin x64 Angular  8 2 13     core   Then I run  ng update  angular cli --migrate-only --from 8 2 13   removed node modules  npm install cd  lt project name gt  ng serve   And it worked         Angular Live Development Server is listening on localhost 4200  open your browser on http   localhost 4200        wdm   Compiled   successfully

User · Answer

This happens when you try to run the Angular command  ng s  or  ng serve  on the other folder instead of the root folder of the Angular application   Also upgrade the Angular using the following command   ng update  angular cli --migrate-only --from 1 7 4   This will sort it out

User · Answer

I faced the same issue when   I had created new angular project using old angular-cli version  1 4 7  I then updated angular-cli using below commands  DO NOT DO THE BELOW TO UPDATE CLI    npm uninstall -g  angular cli  npm cache clean --force  npm install -g   angular cli latest   Now when I tried ng serve  i was getting same error like you  Angular Cli Error  The serve command requires to be run in an Angular project  but a project definition could not be found   DO BELOW TO UPDATE CLI  ng update  angular cli --migrate-only --from 1 4 7

User · Answer

Solved  I was getting same issue on ubuntu 18 04 01 LTS  No above options worked as I was using NVM  Node Version manager   Solution is before creating project use command nvm use 10  my node version was 10 15 0  so I used  nvm use 10   It will show you output- Now using node v10 15 0  npm v6 4 1  Versions will vary as per individual systems  then create new project

User · Answer

In my case  I forgot to change my directory  so just after running the command        ng new AngularProject   execute another command        cd AngularProject   and ng serve worked for me

User · Answer

Even ng update --all --force doesn t work  It might be simply when you re performing Angular upgrade from version when  angular-cli json  for example Angular 4  has been used to one of the newer versions having angular json  In that case you might need to delete the  angular-cli json and replace with equivalent metadata angular json  After that  you ll be able to perform update from one command or step-by-step

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This project doesn t use the angular cli  it uses webpack directly  To start run the command  npm start

User · Answer

This fixed my problem   ng generate component nameComponent --module app module

User · Answer

This error may be occur when we are in wrong directory so use cd command to change your directory  It s not very evident from the above comment that which specific command is giving  this error so this answer is based on assumption that you are running ng serve  outside the root folder actual project folder  That s why it s giving error because  cli commands require conf  amp  build files to run the cli build   These should be the steps  npm install -g  angular cli    corrected from  angular-cli  ng new projectname cd projectname ng serve open http   localhost 4200

User · Answer

make sure that you are running the command in the application root folder

User · Answer

I was also getting this issue and solved by running below command  ng update  angular cli --migrate-only --from  lt WhateverVersionYouAreCurrentlyOn gt   e g  ng update  angular cli --migrate-only --from 1 7 3  getting ref from here

User · Answer

Change to your app folder  and run generate command again

User · Answer

You can update the angular with command  ng update --all   It will take time but make sure your all components are up to date

User · Answer

It was happening in my existing project as I tried to update to latest node and npm packages    Uninstall global  npm uninstall -g angular-cli Reset Cache  npm cache clean or npm cache verify  for npm version   5  Install latest  npm install -g  angular cli latest

User · Answer

to reinstall back freshly the application is way better rather than update or editing some config that is not recognize by npm due to missing config or we are not really sure what is wrong   I choose  Tinu solution is work  Step 1  npm install -g  angular cli  Step 2  ng new my-angular-project  Step 3  cd my-angular-project  Step 4  ng serve --open  just made backup for our current source code and put it back to new angular project that be created

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This happens because we are hitting ng serve command in some other path This can be solved by hitting ng serve or npm start command on the path where exactly the our project resides take path until the folder which contains src node modules etc     F  project AngularDemo AngularDemoapp  ng serve

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Please check whether you are inside your project folder or not and try the command ng serve again   I got the same error since I tried ng serve command outside of my project  Example     let s say you have a project with name  Ecommerce  traverse into the folder and try the command  ng serve open terminal  cd Ecommerce  ng serve

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In your Package Manager Console run the command   PM gt  cd NameofApp    then you can try to run the command there For instance   PM  gt  ng generate component Home

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I was having the same problem with VS Code  turns out that enabling detection of Angular Icons fixes the problem

User · Answer

Make sure you have set the new angular version configuration in your project  The new angular cli uses angular json and not  angular-cli json for its configuration    Follow migration guide

User · Answer

if you have downloaded a project do in the project     npm install

User · Answer

As Usman said  i had a lot of trouble first time  I was following a tutorial  I had not set my directory to the project directory hence got this error    I solved the issue by    Setting the correct root directory to where my project was cd myproject  Compile the app - ng serve   That was it

User · Answer

Also make sure if you are running ng serve that you stop it first

User · Answer

I would suggest to confirm if you are in the directory of the project

User · Answer

Angular Cli Error  The serve command requires to be run in an Angular project  but a project definition could not be found Problem was missing angular json files       ng update --all --force  Tested in Angular 7

User · Answer

I had the same issue with Angular7 because we need to go the root folder before run your application  Go to the root folder of your app and run the command  It works perfectly for me

[angular] Angular CLI Error: The serve command requires to be run in an Angular project, but a project definition could not be found

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