cypress-io/cypress · error · Error

Could not find angular.json. Looked in

Error message

Could not find angular.json. Looked in ${projectRoot} and up.

What it means

Thrown by getAngularJson after find-up walks the directory tree starting at projectRoot and fails to locate a file named angular.json. The lookup uses tsImport('find-up') because find-up 6+ is ESM-only and this package is CJS. This is a project-detection error: Cypress believes it is in an Angular project (e.g. because the Angular framework handler was selected) but cannot find the manifest that defines the project.

Solutions

  1. Confirm angular.json exists at the Angular workspace root and run `cypress open`/`cypress run` from that root.
  2. Set the correct projectRoot / componentFolder in cypress.config.ts so it resolves up to the directory containing angular.json.
  3. If using Nx with angular.json renamed or relocated, regenerate it (`ng update` or restore the workspace.json -> angular.json mapping).
  4. Switch the devServer framework away from Angular if you are not actually testing an Angular app.

Example fix

// before (cypress.config.ts)
export default defineConfig({
  component: {
    devServer: { framework: 'angular' },
    componentFolder: './libs/some-lib',
  },
})
// after
export default defineConfig({
  component: {
    devServer: { framework: 'angular' },
    componentFolder: './apps/my-app/src/app',
    // projectRoot should resolve upward to the folder containing angular.json
  },
})
Defensive patterns

Strategy: validation

Validate before calling

import { existsSync } from 'fs'
import { resolve } from 'path'

function findAngularJsonUp (dir: string): string | null {
  let cur = dir
  for (let i = 0; i < 10 && cur !== '/'; i++) {
    if (existsSync(resolve(cur, 'angular.json'))) return resolve(cur, 'angular.json')
    cur = resolve(cur, '..')
  }
  return null
}

Type guard

function hasAngularJsonInTree (projectRoot: string): boolean {
  return findAngularJsonUp(projectRoot) !== null
}

Prevention

When it happens

Trigger: Invoking the Angular webpack-dev-server handler with a projectRoot that points at a sub-directory of an Angular workspace (e.g. a project that lives under apps/my-app) where angular.json sits several levels above and find-up's recursion was constrained, or invoking the Angular handler on a non-Angular project.

Common situations: Wrong `componentFolder` / projectRoot configured in cypress.config.ts, running Cypress from a deeply nested package whose angular.json is outside the search ceiling, monorepo where angular.json was renamed (e.g. workspace.json in Nx), or the devServer was misconfigured to use the Angular handler for a React/Vue project.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of cypress-io/cypress@0d85fdc912 (2026-08-12). Data as JSON: /api/errors/920bb987a7c7c41b. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at npm/webpack-dev-server/src/helpers/angularHandler.ts:226

    generateBrowserWebpackConfigFromContext,
    getCommonConfig,
    getStylesConfig,
    logging,
  }
}

export async function getAngularJson (projectRoot: string): Promise<AngularJson> {
  // NOTE: @cypress/webpack-dev-server is a CJS package, but find-up +6.0.0 is an ESM only package.
  // In order to dynamically import the find-up package, we need to use tsx to do so until @cypress/webpack-dev-server is an ESM-only package,
  // which would be a breaking change to @cypress/webpack-dev-server and cypress.
  const { tsImport } = require('tsx/esm/api')

  const { findUp } = await tsImport('find-up', __filename) as typeof import('find-up')

  const angularJsonPath = await findUp('angular.json', { cwd: projectRoot })

  if (!angularJsonPath) {
    throw new Error(`Could not find angular.json. Looked in ${projectRoot} and up.`)
  }

  const angularJson = await fs.readFile(angularJsonPath, 'utf8')

  return JSON.parse(angularJson)
}

function createFakeContext (projectRoot: string, defaultProjectConfig: Cypress.AngularDevServerProjectConfig, logging: typeof AngularLogging) {
  const logger = new logging.Logger(debugPrefix)

  // Proxy all logging calls through to the debug logger
  logger.forEach((value: AngularLogging.LogEntry) => {
    debug(JSON.stringify(value))
  })

  const context = {
    target: {
      project: 'angular',

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