Allow starting an NX workspace using a local folder as preset

[ianldgs]

• I'd be willing to implement this feature (contributing guide)

Description

Be able to run npx create-nx-workspace my-workspace --preset=file:/path/to/dist

Motivation

To make it easier for testing. Currently have to publish to an NPM registry, which means also publishing all dependencies of the preset. The feedback loop is too high. It's also risky to publish a dev version with tag=latest and someone end up creating a workspace with that instead of the stable version. We usually change the .name in package.json before publishing the preset for testing.

Suggested Implementation

Check for preset.startsWith("file:") and use it instead of trying to install from the NPM registry. This prefix file: is what you use for installing local version of things, so it should be safe to just add it to the package.json as the version, with any name.

Alternate Implementations

Allow specifying the version or tag on the --preset option would make things easier: npx create-nx-workspace my-workspace --preset=mypkg@dev.
But not solve the problem entirely, only if it allows --preset=mypkg@file:/path/to/dist.

Considerations

It's worth noting that the --preset is currently passed to nx g, so perhaps the feature would have to be implemented on the generate cli command from NX.

[ianldgs]

@AgentEnder do you like the idea? Which implementation alternative do you think it's best?

[ianldgs]

Not entirely sure, have to test, but seems like #16303 solves this.

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