Cannot run my angular application in dev environment

Question

So I have an Angular application that I can build and run in production environment, but cannot run in dev mode. Tried to use this command: npm exec ng serve -c dev --port 4200 --proxy-config proxy.conf.json and adding -c dev shows this error in the console An unhandled exception occurred: Configuration 'dev' is not set in the workspace.

I have a environment folder with environment.prod.ts file and enviromnent.ts file That contains :

//environment.ts
export const environment ={production: true};
//environment.prod.ts
export const environment = {development: true};

For the instance, there's a look of my angular.json file :

  "$schema": "./node_modules/@angular/cli/lib/config/schema.json",
  "version": 1,
  "cli": {
    "packageManager": "pnpm",
    "analytics": "f9472df0-6689-4f76-b320-65b56b37836a"
  },
  "newProjectRoot": "projects",
  "projects": {
    "hellooara-web-ui": {
      "projectType": "application",
      "schematics": {
        "@schematics/angular:component": {
          "inlineStyle": true,
          "style": "css"
        }
      },
      "root": "",
      "sourceRoot": "src",
      "prefix": "app",
      "architect": {
        "build": {
          "builder": "@angular-devkit/build-angular:browser",
          "options": {
            "outputPath": "target/classes/static",
            "index": "src/index.html",
            "main": "src/main.ts",
            "polyfills": "src/polyfills.ts",
            "preserveSymlinks": true,
            "tsConfig": "tsconfig.app.json",
            "aot": true,
            "assets": [
              {
                "glob": "*",
                "input": "node_modules/mch-common/assets/images",
                "output": "assets/mch-common/images"
              },
              {
                "glob": "*.json",
                "input": "node_modules/mch-common/assets/i18n",
                "output": "assets/mch-common/i18n"
              },
              "src/assets"
            ],
            "styles": [
              "src/styles.scss"
            ],
            "vendorChunk": true,
            "extractLicenses": false,
            "buildOptimizer": false,
            "sourceMap": true,
            "optimization": false,
            "namedChunks": true
          },
          "configurations": {
            "production": {
              "fileReplacements": [
                {
                  "replace": "src/environments/environment.ts",
                  "with": "src/environments/environment.dev.ts"
                }
              ],
              "optimization": true,
              "outputHashing": "all",
              "sourceMap": false,
              "namedChunks": false,
              "extractLicenses": true,
              "vendorChunk": false,
              "buildOptimizer": true,
              "budgets": [
                {
                  "type": "initial",
                  "maximumWarning": "2mb",
                  "maximumError": "5mb"
                },
                {
                  "type": "anyComponentStyle",
                  "maximumWarning": "6kb",
                  "maximumError": "100kb"
                }
              ]
            }
          },
          "defaultConfiguration": "development"
        },
        "serve": {
          "builder": "@angular-devkit/build-angular:dev-server",
          "options": {
            "browserTarget": "hellooara-web-ui:build"
          },
          "configurations": {
            "production": {
              "browserTarget": "hellooara-web-ui:build:production"
            }
          }
        },
        "extract-i18n": {
          "builder": "@angular-devkit/build-angular:extract-i18n",
          "options": {
            "browserTarget": "hellooara-web-ui:build"
          }
        },
        "test": {
          "builder": "@angular-devkit/build-angular:karma",
          "options": {
            "main": "src/test.ts",
            "polyfills": "src/polyfills.ts",
            "tsConfig": "tsconfig.spec.json",
            "karmaConfig": "karma.conf.js",
            "assets": [
              "src/assets"
            ],
            "styles": [
              "src/styles.scss"
            ],
            "scripts": []
          }
        },
        "lint": {
          "builder": "@angular-eslint/builder:lint",
          "options": {
            "lintFilePatterns": [
              "src/**/*.ts",
              "src/**/*.html"
            ]
          }
        },
        "e2e": {
          "builder": "@angular-devkit/build-angular:protractor",
          "options": {
            "protractorConfig": "e2e/protractor.conf.js",
            "devServerTarget": "hellooara-web-ui:serve"
          },
          "configurations": {
            "production": {
              "devServerTarget": "hellooara-web-ui:serve:production"
            }
          }
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

I already tried to add an environment.dev file in environment folder, add environment into angular.json file.

Answer 1

Your error is correct.

Examine the following part of your angular.json:

        "serve": {
          "builder": "@angular-devkit/build-angular:dev-server",
          "options": {
            "browserTarget": "hellooara-web-ui:build"
          },
          "configurations": {
            "production": {
              "browserTarget": "hellooara-web-ui:build:production"
            }
          }
        },

When you run ng serve -c dev what the angular cli does is use the "@angular-devkit/build-angular:dev-server" script and it looks for the configuration "dev" to override the default options (in "serve" > "options"). But you don't have a "dev" configuration, only a "production" one.

You can therefore run

ng serve (this is development by default)
ng serve -c production

Advanced: once you get comfortable you can add new configurations as you like (testing/staging/etc) with custom options. The available options are usually defined in a schema co-located where the "@angular-devkit/build-angular:dev-server" script is in node_modules.

---

Update per comment

The common form for environments is to do the following, referring in your application to environment.ts. You then set fileReplacements to replace environment.ts with environment.prod.ts. See https://angular.io/guide/build#configure-target-specific-file-replacements

//environment.ts
export const environment = { production: false };
//environment.prod.ts
export const environment = { production: true };