angular-cli server - how to specify default port

Question

Using angular-cli with the ng serve command, how can I specify a default port so I do not need to manually pass the --port flag every time?

Answer 1

Update for @angular/cli@9.x: and over

In angular.json you can specify a port per "project"

"projects": {
    "my-cool-project": {
        ... rest of project config omitted
        "architect": {
            "serve": {
                "options": {
                    "port": 1337
                }
            }
        }
    }
}

All options available:

https://angular.io/guide/workspace-config#project-tool-configuration-options

Alternatively, you may specify the port each time when running ng serve like this:

ng serve --port 1337

With this approach you may wish to put this into a script in your package.json to make it easier to run each time / share the config with others on your team:

"scripts": {
    "start": "ng serve --port 1337"
}

---

Legacy:

Update for @angular/cli final:

Inside angular-cli.json you can specify the port in the defaults:

"defaults": {
  "serve": {
    "port": 1337
  }
}

---

Legacy-er:

Tested in angular-cli@1.0.0-beta.22-1

The server in angular-cli comes from the ember-cli project. To configure the server, create an .ember-cli file in the project root. Add your JSON config in there:

{
   "port": 1337
}

Restart the server and it will serve on that port.

There are more options specified here: http://ember-cli.com/#runtime-configuration

{
  "skipGit" : true,
  "port" : 999,
  "host" : "0.1.0.1",
  "liveReload" : true,
  "environment" : "mock-development",
  "checkForUpdates" : false
}

Answer 2

There might be a situation when you want to use NodeJS environment variable to specify Angular CLI dev server port. One of the possible solution is to move CLI dev server running into a separate NodeJS script, which will read port value (e.g from .env file) and use it executing ng serve with port parameter:

// run-env.js
const dotenv = require('dotenv');
const child_process = require('child_process');

const config = dotenv.config()
const DEV_SERVER_PORT = process.env.DEV_SERVER_PORT || 4200;

const child = child_process.exec(`ng serve --port=${DEV_SERVER_PORT}`);
child.stdout.on('data', data => console.log(data.toString()));

Then you may a) run this script directly via node run-env, b) run it via npm by updating package.json, for example

"scripts": {
  "start": "node run-env"
}

run-env.js should be committed to the repo, .env should not. More details on the approach can be found in this post: How to change Angular CLI Development Server Port via .env.

Answer 3

Use npm scripts instead... Edit your package.json and add the command to script section.

{
  "name": "my new project",
  "version": "0.0.0",
  "license": "MIT",
  "angular-cli": {},
  "scripts": {
    "ng": "ng",
    "start": "ng serve --host 0.0.0.0 --port 8080",
    "lint": "tslint \"src/**/*.ts\" --project src/tsconfig.json --type-check && tslint \"e2e/**/*.ts\" --project e2e/tsconfig.json --type-check",
    "test": "ng test",
    "pree2e": "webdriver-manager update --standalone false --gecko false",
    "e2e": "protractor"
  },
  "private": true,
  "dependencies": {
    "@angular/common": "^2.3.1",
    "@angular/compiler": "^2.3.1",
    "@angular/core": "^2.3.1",
    "@angular/forms": "^2.3.1",
    "@angular/http": "^2.3.1",
    "@angular/platform-browser": "^2.3.1",
    "@angular/platform-browser-dynamic": "^2.3.1",
    "@angular/router": "^3.3.1",
    "core-js": "^2.4.1",
    "rxjs": "^5.0.1",
    "ts-helpers": "^1.1.1",
    "zone.js": "^0.7.2"
  },
  "devDependencies": {
    "@angular/compiler-cli": "^2.3.1",
    "@types/jasmine": "2.5.38",
    "@types/node": "^6.0.42",
    "angular-cli": "1.0.0-beta.26",
    "codelyzer": "~2.0.0-beta.1",
    "jasmine-core": "2.5.2",
    "jasmine-spec-reporter": "2.5.0",
    "karma": "1.2.0",
    "karma-chrome-launcher": "^2.0.0",
    "karma-cli": "^1.0.1",
    "karma-jasmine": "^1.0.2",
    "karma-remap-istanbul": "^0.2.1",
    "protractor": "~4.0.13",
    "ts-node": "1.2.1",
    "tslint": "^4.3.0",
    "typescript": "~2.0.3"
  }
}

Then just execute npm start

Answer 4

As far as Angular CLI: 7.1.4, there are two common ways to achieve changing the default port.

No. 1

In the angular.json, add the --port option to serve part and use ng serve to start the server.

"serve": {
  "builder": "@angular-devkit/build-angular:dev-server",
  "options": {
    "browserTarget": "demos:build",
    "port": 1337
  },
  "configurations": {
    "production": {
      "browserTarget": "demos:build:production"
    }
  }
},

No. 2

In the package.json, add the --port option to ng serve and use npm start to start the server.

  "scripts": {
    "ng": "ng",
    "start": "ng serve --port 8000",
    "build": "ng build",
    "test": "ng test",
    "lint": "ng lint",
    "e2e": "ng e2e"
  }, 

Answer 5

You can now specify the port in the .angular-cli.json under the defaults:

"defaults": {
  "styleExt": "scss",
  "serve": {
    "port": 8080
  },
  "component": {}
}

Tested in angular-cli v1.0.6

Answer 6

In Angular 2 cli@2.3.1,

To run a new project on the different port, one way is to specify the port while you run ng serve command.

ng serve --port 4201

or the other way, you can edit your package.json file scripts part and attached the port to your start variable like I mentioned below and then simply run "npm start"

 "scripts": {

    "ng": "ng",
    "start": "ng serve --port 4201",
    ... : ...,
    ... : ....
}

this way is much better where you don't need to define port explicitly every time.