[FEAT] Allow to define `includePaths` in styleOptions for Angular compiler plugin

[miluoshi]

Which scope/s are relevant/related to the feature request?

vite-plugin-angular

Information

Problem: I want to be able to define custom path aliases for import paths in my scss stylesheets and I am not able to.

Angular+Webpack alternative: @nrwl/angular:webpack-browser executor and Angular CLI allows me to define stylePreprocessorOptions.includePaths to define custom paths (except node_modules) to search for scss modules at.

Solution: createCompilerPlugin function accepts 2nd parameter styleOptions, that can contain includePaths property. That option is consumed by sass plugin.

My proposed solution has two parts:

• automatic inclusion of resolve.alias from user Vite config here: https://github.com/analogjs/analog/blob/cee43a996377765a1f3305e8c28cfa8993d2e4e3/packages/vite-plugin-angular/src/lib/angular-vite-plugin.ts#L85
• manual configuration through new plugin option includePaths that would push new paths to the includePaths option mentioned above

Please let me know if you are ok with this solution 🙏

Describe any alternatives/workarounds you're currently using

No alternative exists except of patching the package

I would be willing to submit a PR to fix this issue

• [X] Yes
• [ ] No

[brandonroberts]

Thanks @miluoshi. We don't use the sass plugin included with createCompilerPlugin. This is handled by Vite itself. We had a discussion about this here with included solutions for includePaths

https://twitter.com/brandontroberts/status/1581824172547665920

You can fix it in your Vite config

"Fixed the imports by adding includePaths with a relative path to the root of the workspace in the Vite config."

    css: {
      preprocessorOptions: {       
        scss: {
          includePaths: ['node_modules', `../../assets/scss`]
        }
      }
    },

[miluoshi]

Hi @brandonroberts, thanks for your reply! I don't see very deep into the Vite + Angular build system so take my findings with a grain of salt.

TL;DR: css.preprocessorOptions.scss.includePaths doesn't work for me

With the new proposed includePaths plugin option there are together 3 options that influence resolution of aliased sass modules: resolve.alias, css.preprocessorOptions.scss.includePaths and the new proposed option.

After debugging the build pipeline I have found that without the proposed new option our app won't build. I get errors like this:

✘ [ERROR] [plugin angular-sass] Can't find stylesheet to import.
  ╷
1 │ @use 'ui-common-styles/variables/colors';
  │ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

The option is needed to compile a scss file with custom path alias in angular-cli/packages/angular_devkit/build_angular/src/builders/browser-esbuild/sass-plugin.ts call to sass.compile (@angular-devkit/build-angular@14.2.9). I also needed to define the same custom path in resolve.alias so the vite config looks like this:

// vite.config.ts
import angular from '@analogjs/vite-plugin-angular';
import { workspaceRoot } from '@nrwl/devkit';

const commonStylesLocation = path.resolve(workspaceRoot, 'libs/ui/src/lib');

export default defineConfig(({ mode }) => ({
  resolve: {
  alias: {
    'ui-common-styles': `${commonStylesLocation}/ui-common-styles`,
  },
  plugins: [
    angular({
      includePaths: [commonStylesLocation],
      workspaceRoot,
      inlineStylesExtension: 'scss',
    }),
  ],
});

// libs/ui/src/lib/ui-common-styles/variables/colors.scss
@import 'ui-common-styles/variables/colors';

Maybe it's obvious, but I found it interesting during my debugging session that there are 2 pipelines that process the same sass files in our app. At first the stylesheets are processed by @angular-devkit/build-angular:browser-esbuild builder and then they are processed by Vite's CSS transformer. Maybe it's related to #142?

[miluoshi]

Here's the call sequence for processing scss by @angular-devkit/build-angular:browser-esbuild@14.2.9 :

• angular-vite-plugin.ts: createCompilerPlugin call
• browser-esbuild/compiler-plugin.ts: bundleStylesheetFile call
• browser-esbuild/stylesheets.ts: bundleStylesheet call + options.includePaths assigned to loadPaths + createSassPlugin call

By following this sequence I can see that passing includePaths to createCompilerPlugin's styleOptions would eventually pass them to createSassPlugin's loadPaths.

---

Call sequence for Vite CSS transformer vite@3.2.3:

• packages/vite/src/node/plugins/css.ts: preprocessorOptions you've suggested to use are assigned to opts and then those opts are passed to preProcessor that is in our case scss preprocessor function that uses Vite config's resolve.alias option to resolve a file.

[brandonroberts]

I see. The esbuild compiler plugin is also processing SCSS, along with Vite. The fix seems reasonable to me. I've moved the plugin inside the @analogjs/platform package, so we can add it to the vite options and pass it to both plugins.