angular ng serve command throws error: An unhandled exception occurred: Project does not exist

Question

I am trying to up my local angular dev env using ng serve, it was working perfectly fine a day back, but now every time I run ng serve or npm start it throws an error:

An unhandled exception occurred: Project does not exist.

I have tried running ng serve in one of my different project, it works there.

not sure what it causing this error

I have the exact same error and updating or reinstalling doesn't help for either angular/cli nor angular itself — itsLex
– itsLex, Commented Aug 23, 2019 at 14:07

adam0101 · Accepted Answer · 2019-09-16 18:51:12Z

97

Make sure the name of the project in your angular.json matches what is being called from your package.json scripts section.

This is how I discovered the problem. I was getting the following error:

An unhandled exception occurred: Project does not exist.
See "C:\Users\Adam\AppData\Local\Temp\ng-XcQsPs\angular-errors.log" for further details.

When I went to that log file, I saw this:

[error] Error: Project does not exist.
    at WorkspaceNodeModulesArchitectHost.findProjectTarget (C:\Users\Adam\source\repos\TechScore.Express\node_modules\@angular-devkit\architect\node\node-modules-architect-host.js:94:23)
    at WorkspaceNodeModulesArchitectHost.getBuilderNameForTarget (C:\Users\Adam\source\repos\TechScore.Express\node_modules\@angular-devkit\architect\node\node-modules-architect-host.js:13:39)
    at RunCommand.runSingleTarget (C:\Users\Adam\source\repos\TechScore.Express\node_modules\@angular\cli\models\architect-command.js:175:55)
    at RunCommand.runArchitectTarget (C:\Users\Adam\source\repos\TechScore.Express\node_modules\@angular\cli\models\architect-command.js:218:35)
    at RunCommand.run (C:\Users\Adam\source\repos\TechScore.Express\node_modules\@angular\cli\commands\run-impl.js:14:25)
    at RunCommand.validateAndRun (C:\Users\Adam\source\repos\TechScore.Express\node_modules\@angular\cli\models\command.js:134:39)
    at process._tickCallback (internal/process/next_tick.js:68:7)
    at Function.Module.runMain (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:834:11)
    at startup (internal/bootstrap/node.js:283:19)
    at bootstrapNodeJSCore (internal/bootstrap/node.js:622:3)

So I opened node-modules-architect-host.js:94:23 and saw this:

const projectDefinition = this._workspace.projects.get(target.project);
if (!projectDefinition) {
    throw new Error('Project does not exist.');
}

I have no idea why they throw an error like this without telling you which project does not exist. So I changed the file to be like this:

throw new Error('Project does not exist. ' + target.project);

Now, when I build, I get an error like this instead:

An unhandled exception occurred: Project does not exist. client-app

Finally I can see who the culprit is! A global search for "client-app" showed me that it was being used from package.json, but my project in angular.json was "ClientApp". Changing all references of "ClientApp" to "client-app" fixed the problem for me.

edited Sep 16, 2019 at 18:51

answered Aug 25, 2019 at 17:41

adam0101

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5 Comments

kakurala Over a year ago

There should have added this little piece ('Project does not exist. ' + target.project); there which saves a lot of time.

dfbenny Over a year ago

When I update my node-modules-architect-host.js file as to your suggestions, I don't even get the new Error message? Any Idea how that could happen?

adam0101 Over a year ago

@dfbenny, I would double-check that the correct file was modified, that the file was not overwritten by the old version after you modified it, and that a cached version was not being used (maybe clear package cache?).

GChuf Over a year ago

Name of the project is now included in angular-devkit-architect-builds since august 2020.

Mohamad Al Asmar Over a year ago

I tried this but the error changed to "Project target does not exist".

Raghu Vallikkat · Accepted Answer · 2020-03-07 10:44:20Z

20

Similar to issue mentioned by adam0101, the issue got fixed for me by changing the project name. Infact package.json and angular.json names can be different( at least for me), but within angular.json, the naming was consistent

Old

  "$schema": "./node_modules/@angular/cli/lib/config/schema.json",
  "version": 1,
  "newProjectRoot": "projects",
  "projects": {
    "e-admin": {   ======NAME USED HERE=======
      "root": "",
...
"serve": {
          "builder": "@angular-devkit/build-angular:dev-server",
          "options": {
            "browserTarget": "eAdmin:build"    ===NAME USED HERE====
          },
          "configurations": {
            "production": {
              "browserTarget": "eAdmin:build:production"  <===NAME USED HERE
            }
          }
        },

Modified

 "$schema": "./node_modules/@angular/cli/lib/config/schema.json",
  "version": 1,
  "newProjectRoot": "projects",
  "projects": {
    "e-admin": {
      "root": "",
...
"serve": {
          "builder": "@angular-devkit/build-angular:dev-server",
          "options": {
            "browserTarget": "e-admin:build"
          },
          "configurations": {
            "production": {
              "browserTarget": "e-admin:build:production"
            }
          }
        },

answered Mar 7, 2020 at 10:44

Raghu Vallikkat

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3 Comments

Omar Amaoun Over a year ago

Thank you, your answer helps me not to waste my time,

Daniel Danielecki Over a year ago

Agree, names can be different. In fact, you might have a command defined in angular.json, but even not existing in package.json and it'll still work.

tr8er Aug 6 at 15:49

that's it for my case, I renamed the project in both package.json and angular.json but didn't change it in agular.json for the :serve definition. It's working now that I changed :serve correspondingly

Paul Cheriyan · Accepted Answer · 2020-08-24 07:25:18Z

9

please check projects name and defaultProject are same

testapp

{
"$schema": "./node_modules/@angular/cli/lib/config/schema.json",
"version": 1,
"newProjectRoot": "projects",
"projects": { // here 
    "testapp": {
        "root": "",
        "sourceRoot": "src",
        "projectType": "application",

.....................

"defaultProject": "testapp",

please try

npm install

or

yarn install

edited Aug 24, 2020 at 7:25

answered Aug 24, 2020 at 7:12

Paul Cheriyan

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Comments

Tony · Accepted Answer · 2019-08-21 11:09:06Z

7

Make sure you angular.json have this config

{
    "$schema": "./node_modules/@angular/cli/lib/config/schema.json",
    "version": 1,
    "newProjectRoot": "projects",
    "projects": { // here 
        "testapp": {
            "root": "",
            "sourceRoot": "src",
            "projectType": "application",

answered Aug 21, 2019 at 11:09

Tony

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1 Comment

Jatinder Over a year ago

this application contain custom ng library I am building from,

buguz · Accepted Answer · 2020-03-29 17:22:53Z

6

I match the values in angular.json & package.json and my problem was solved

angular.json:

"projects": {
    "step1": {
      "projectType": "application",
      ...,
      ...,

package.json

{
  "name": "step1",
  ...,
  ...,

answered Mar 29, 2020 at 17:22

buguz

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1 Comment

Mohamad Al Asmar Over a year ago

tried it but error still project "app" does not exist where I have change the name to something else than not "app"

Nicola Di Lillo · Accepted Answer · 2019-12-25 14:54:55Z

5

I fixed this issue changing the target in tsconfig.json from es2015 to es5

answered Dec 25, 2019 at 14:54

Nicola Di Lillo

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1 Comment

Ahsan Aziz Abbasi Over a year ago

if you're getting reported issue suddenly without adding or removing any module..... this method will work thumbs up!

Chris · Accepted Answer · 2020-04-08 17:43:24Z

2

@adam0101 The solution helped a lot! Thank you!!!

But I had to add a console.log(target):

const projectDefinition = this._workspace.projects.get(target.project);
if (!projectDefinition) {
    console.log(target)
    throw new Error('Project does not exist.');
}

And I found in the package.json the wrong project name over a global search:

answered Apr 8, 2020 at 17:43

Chris

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Comments

Josep Alacid · Accepted Answer · 2020-04-21 22:26:09Z

2

Project name in angular.json must be the same at every property where is needed.

And take good care of letter case, even in paths, at angular.json.

Windows doesn't complain, but Angular does!!

answered Apr 21, 2020 at 22:26

Josep Alacid

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Comments

Jonathan · Accepted Answer · 2020-04-25 07:03:59Z

2

I had the same problem with Angular Universal. For me it was the simplest thing. It is npm run dev:ssr not ng run dev:ssr. However, it is ng run myproject:serve-ssr. Watch for differences between ng and npm.

answered Apr 25, 2020 at 7:03

Jonathan

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Comments

Mr. Disability · Accepted Answer · 2021-04-06 08:54:20Z

2

I duplicated a project and changed its name getting me this error. Fixed it by changing the project name everywhere else in angular.json.

For example


    "e2e": {
              "builder": "@angular-devkit/build-angular:protractor",
              "options": {
                "protractorConfig": "e2e/protractor.conf.js",
                "devServerTarget": "YourNewProjectName:serve"
              },
              "configurations": {
                "production": {
                  "devServerTarget": "YourNewProjectName:serve:production"
                }
              }
            },

answered Apr 6, 2021 at 8:54

Mr. Disability

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Comments

roy-willemse · Accepted Answer · 2019-11-18 10:40:14Z

1

For anyone still having this issue. It's likely you didn't run npm install or yarn before calling the run script.

answered Nov 18, 2019 at 10:40

roy-willemse

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Comments

ALBlancoIV · Accepted Answer · 2021-07-27 02:25:19Z

1

If you are working on an existing project, you might need want to check the codeCoverageExclude inside angular.json and see if your *.spec.ts files are defined inside the array.

You might find your files excluded on the test.

answered Jul 27, 2021 at 2:25

ALBlancoIV

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Comments

Everson Rafael · Accepted Answer · 2020-10-18 22:09:05Z

0

For me it only works using

npm run cordova:run android

answered Oct 18, 2020 at 22:09

Everson Rafael

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Comments

Rahul Mahto · Accepted Answer · 2021-03-21 16:29:25Z

0

Make sure the path of "styles" in the angular.json should be

"./node_modules/bootstrap/dist/css/bootstrap.min.css"

instead of

"../node_modules/bootstrap/dist/css/bootstrap.min.css"

And also remove one dot from the "scripts"

 "scripts": [
              "./node_modules/bootstrap/dist/js/bootstrap.min.js"
            ]

answered Mar 21, 2021 at 16:29

Rahul Mahto

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