Introduction
Monorepo is a software development strategy that creates shared libraries and dependencies in a single repository. Monorepos offers a solution for crucial dependency management by centralizing codebases, improving collaboration, and streamlining dependency management.
This article aims to explain the process of creating monorepos using well-known tools and technologies like TypeScript, Turborepo, and Nx, allowing you to choose the best tool based on your requirements.
Why Monorepo?
Imagine managing three separate applications for a project: a Web App, a Mobile App, and an Admin Panel. Each resides in its git repository and shares a common UI component library. Now think, when you need to update a critical button component for accessibility.
The process becomes a headache:
- Update the component library and publish to NPM
- Update each application one by one
- Deal with version conflicts and dependencies
- Ensure consistency across all projects
Sounds frustrating, right? This is where monorepos comes in—a simpler approach where all your projects live under one roof, making it easier to coordinate changes and maintain consistency across your codebase.
Let’s start with monorepos…
In the following sections, we will create basic utils monorepo which can be used anywhere in the project.
Monorepo with Typescript
In this section, we will build a monorepo manually using just TypeScript and npm.
Initialize the Project
- Create a monorepo example directory and set the root project using the below commands,
npm init -y
npm install typescript
npm install --save-dev @types/node ts-node
Organize Packages
Create a packages folder and a utils directory within it to act as a shared library.
mkdir -p packages/utils
Init npm inside utils with scope /utils into the root file to verify the function works as expected. Yeah, You have created a basic monorepo setup. You can build as many as monorepos and use them like this. Monorepo’s with only typescript is useful for small, simple projects or experimental purposes without requiring third-party tooling. Next, let’s create monorepo with
npm install @monorepo/utils
import { multiply } from "@monorepo/utils";
const result = multiply(2, 3);
console.log(`result: ${result}`);
When to Use?
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