Angular CLI 12.x silently fails serving, testing, and building older Angular projects.

[EvanCarroll]

🐞 Bug report

If you create a project with angular-cli v11, and then upgrade angular-cli v12, you'll no longer be able to run numerous subcommands on the project. Those subcommands will silently fail and exit.

Command (mark with an x)

• new
• build
• serve
• test
• e2e
• generate
• add
• update
• lint
• extract-i18n
• run
• config
• help
• version
• doc

Is this a regression?

Yes.

Description

Applications created with Angular 11.x will not build with angular-cli 12.x

🔬 Minimal Reproduction

npm install -g @angular-cli@11
ng new foobar --skip-install
cd foobar;

edit your package.json, to upgrade your @angular/cli to 12.

"@angular/cli": "~12",

Then run npm install

Now many of the ng commands will silently fail.

ng build
ng serve
ng test

🔥 Exception or Error

I would expect desire either,

• It works
• Or, an error is produced that notifies the user that @angular/cli version 12.x does not support projects created with @anguilar 11.x

🌍 Your Environment

     _                      _                 ____ _     ___
    / \   _ __   __ _ _   _| | __ _ _ __     / ___| |   |_ _|
   / △ \ | '_ \ / _` | | | | |/ _` | '__|   | |   | |    | |
  / ___ \| | | | (_| | |_| | | (_| | |      | |___| |___ | |
 /_/   \_\_| |_|\__, |\__,_|_|\__,_|_|       \____|_____|___|
                |___/
    

Angular CLI: 12.1.1
Node: 14.17.3
Package Manager: npm 6.14.13
OS: linux x64

Angular: 11.2.14
... animations, common, compiler, compiler-cli, core, forms
... platform-browser, platform-browser-dynamic, router

Package                         Version
---------------------------------------------------------
@angular-devkit/architect       0.1102.14
@angular-devkit/build-angular   0.1102.14
@angular-devkit/core            11.2.14
@angular-devkit/schematics      12.1.1
@angular/cli                    12.1.1
@schematics/angular             12.1.1
rxjs                            6.6.7
typescript                      4.1.6

[alan-agius4]

Updating the dependency directly in your package.json is guaranteed to cause undefined or broken behaviour.

To update please follow the steps in https://update.angular.io/

[EvanCarroll]

@alan-agius4 sure, but that seems like something ng can/should warn about.

[rajjaiswalsaumya]

I used ng update to update my dependencies, I also see similar behavior.