Running `ng version` outside an Angular project has confusing output

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Assessment

Difficulty
3/5
Estimated time
1-2 days
Newbie friendliness
45/100
Issue type
Bug
Clarity
Mostly clear
Activity status
Stale
Tech stack
angular, typescript
Domain
cli

Research direction

Reproduce the two ng version commands from the issue, both inside and outside services/ng-frontend/, and trace the Angular CLI version command entry point. The change is done when output outside an Angular project clearly indicates that no project was detected and does not make global versions look like project versions.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Description

area: @angular/cli freq1: low severity1: confusing type: bug/fix

🐞 Bug report

Command
  • update
  • version
Is this a regression?

No

Description

I have a monorepo where I am adding an Angular project. As a result, it exists in a subdirectory. Since many tools (such as ng) expect the project to be the working directory, I often use the pattern (cd path/to/subproject/ && run some tool). The subshell means I'm returned back to my original directory.

This pattern does not play well with ng version and ng update. I was trying to update to version 9 prerelease and saw the following:

$ (cd services/ng-frontend/ && ng update @angular/cli @angular/core --next)
# Successful update...
$ ng version
     _                      _                 ____ _     ___                                            
    / \   _ __   __ _ _   _| | __ _ _ __     / ___| |   |_ _|                                           
   / △ \ | '_ \ / _` | | | | |/ _` | '__|   | |   | |    | |                                            
  / ___ \| | | | (_| | |_| | | (_| | |      | |___| |___ | |                                            
 /_/   \_\_| |_|\__, |\__,_|_|\__,_|_|       \____|_____|___|                                           
                |___/                                                                                   
                                                                                                        
                                                                                                        
Angular CLI: 8.3.21                                                                                     
Node: 13.5.0                                                                                            
OS: linux x64                                                                                           
Angular:                                                                                                
...                                                                                                     
                                                                                                        
Package                      Version                                                                    
------------------------------------------------------                                                  
@angular-devkit/architect    0.803.21                                                                   
@angular-devkit/core         8.3.21
@angular-devkit/schematics   8.3.21
@schematics/angular          8.3.21
@schematics/update           0.803.21
rxjs                         6.4.0

This was confusing and made me think the update failed, however the update was actually fine. My mistake here was running ng version in the root of my monorepo, rather than the Angular project. After noticing this I tried:

$ (cd services/ng-frontend/ && ng version)
     _                      _                 ____ _     ___
    / \   _ __   __ _ _   _| | __ _ _ __     / ___| |   |_ _|
   / △ \ | '_ \ / _` | | | | |/ _` | '__|   | |   | |    | |
  / ___ \| | | | (_| | |_| | | (_| | |      | |___| |___ | |
 /_/   \_\_| |_|\__, |\__,_|_|\__,_|_|       \____|_____|___|
                |___/
    

Angular CLI: 9.0.0-rc.7
Node: 13.5.0
OS: linux x64

Angular: 9.0.0-rc.7
... animations, cli, common, compiler, compiler-cli, core, forms
... language-service, platform-browser, platform-browser-dynamic
... router
Ivy Workspace: Yes

Package                           Version
-----------------------------------------------------------
@angular-devkit/architect         0.900.0-rc.7
@angular-devkit/build-angular     0.900.0-rc.7
@angular-devkit/build-optimizer   0.900.0-rc.7
@angular-devkit/build-webpack     0.900.0-rc.7
@angular-devkit/core              9.0.0-rc.7
@angular-devkit/schematics        9.0.0-rc.7
@ngtools/webpack                  9.0.0-rc.7
@schematics/angular               9.0.0-rc.7
@schematics/update                0.900.0-rc.7
rxjs                              6.5.4
typescript                        3.6.4
webpack                           4.41.2

Which is what I expected post-update.

IMHO this dichotomy is confusing. When the user is in an Angular project, it lists versions of that project. When outside an Angular project, it lists the global versions and it is very easy to look at the wrong one.

I'm not sure what the ideal solution to this problem would be. There could be two different commands, such as an ng global-version and ng project-version, but this might add too much additional complexity to be worth it. Maybe the output could simply be updated to be more clear? Such as having some big red text saying "No Angular project detected at $PWD"?

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