Angular 5 Universal render directly form 'dist' instead of 'browser'

Question

I want to implement angular universal, for that I have gone through this entire tutorial and setup the app. https://angular.io/guide/universal

I'm able to build the app but when I serve the app I get an error that it can find any view in 'dist/browser', this is because as, my browser folder is itself not generating. I tried changing the route from 'dist/browser' to just 'dist' and the app worked, although I don't think this is the expected thing to do.

Here's a snippet of my angular-cli.json file if that helps

{
  "$schema": "./node_modules/@angular/cli/lib/config/schema.json",
  "project": {
    "name": "angular5"
  },
  "apps": [
    {
      "root": "src",
      "outDir": "dist",
      "assets": [
        "assets",
        "favicon.ico"
      ],
      "index": "index.html",
      "main": "main.ts",
      "polyfills": "polyfills.ts",
      "test": "test.ts",
      "tsconfig": "tsconfig.app.json",
      "testTsconfig": "tsconfig.spec.json",
      "prefix": "app",
      "styles": [
        "styles.css"
      ],
      "scripts": [],
      "environmentSource": "environments/environment.ts",
      "environments": {
        "dev": "environments/environment.ts",
        "prod": "environments/environment.prod.ts"
      }
    },
    {
      "platform": "server",
      "root": "src",

      "outDir": "dist/server",
      "assets": [
        "assets",
        "favicon.ico"
      ],
      "index": "index.html",
      "main": "main.server.ts",
      "test": "test.ts",
      "tsconfig": "tsconfig.server.json",
      "testTsconfig": "tsconfig.spec.json",
      "prefix": "app",
      "styles": [
        "styles.css"
      ],
      "scripts": [],
      "environmentSource": "environments/environment.ts",
      "environments": {
        "dev": "environments/environment.ts",
        "prod": "environments/environment.prod.ts"
      }
    }
  ],
  "defaults": {
    "styleExt": "css",
    "component": {}
  }
}

How can I get my browser folder to render and make it work properly?

Answer 1

In your first app, you actually need to change outDirto dist/browser instead of just dist

Regarding your index.html file, it's normal that you don't see it in the dist/serverfolder, your universal server will be using the one for the dist/browser folder

Have a look here, the steps are explained quite clearly https://github.com/angular/angular-cli/wiki/stories-universal-rendering