Capacitor: Node modules removed after sync and open commands

[mircopz]

Describe the bug
This issue was already open in previous repository nxext/nx-extensions-ionic#6, I'm writing it here again for completeness. The bug is quite fixed, but in additional context section below I suggest how to improve this behavior.

When the nx run app-name:sync:android command is run, npm install is executed at the beginning, so it generates a node_modules folder in the application folder. Next, capacitor generates the capacitor.settings.gradle file in the Android project, which references the various capacitor packages in the application based on the node_modules folder in the application. Once the capacitor synchronisation command has been completed, nxext deletes the node_modules folder. This means that the relative paths in the capacitor.settings.gradle file refer to content which does not exist.

To Reproduce
At the root of your project, run :

• nx run app-name:sync:android
• nx run app-name:open:android
• In Android Studio, try to build your application, you will get this type of error :

Could not determine the dependencies of task ':app:compileDebugJavaWithJavac'.
> Could not resolve all task dependencies for configuration ':app:debugCompileClasspath'.
   > Could not resolve project :capacitor-android.
     Required by:
         project :app
      > No matching configuration of project :capacitor-android was found. The consumer was configured to find a component for use during compile-time, preferably optimized for Android, as well as attribute 'com.android.build.api.attributes.BuildTypeAttr' with value 'debug', attribute 'com.android.build.api.attributes.AgpVersionAttr' with value '8.0.0' but:
          - None of the consumable configurations have attributes.

If you look to the file capacitor.settings.gradle, you will have this :

include ':capacitor-android'
project(':capacitor-android').projectDir = new File('../node_modules/@capacitor/android/capacitor')

Expected behavior
The file capacitor.settings.gradle must refers paths to the node_modules folder of the root, like this :

include ':capacitor-android'
project(':capacitor-android').projectDir = new File('../../../node_modules/@capacitor/android/capacitor')

Additional context
I found the option --preserveProjectNodeModules=true which preserves the node_modules folder, but in my opinion it's no good having to add a parameter for the whole process to work. This option should be applied to the command nx run app-name:sync:android as well as nx run app-name:open:android, because on the open command, an npm install is also executed as well as the deletion of the node_modules folder.

You think this could become the default behavior? This way we don't have to set the flag preserveProjectNodeModules again for every new project created.

[pawel-twardziak]

Hi @mircopz thanks for reporting this issue and your suggestions. Great input. Will check on it. FIY @edbzn @DominikPieper - any thoughts about it?