Angular Developer Guidelines

When to Activate

• Working in any Angular project or codebase
• Creating or scaffolding a new Angular project, application, or library
• Generating components, services, directives, pipes, guards, or resolvers
• Implementing reactivity with Angular Signals, linkedSignal, or resource
• Working with Angular forms (signal forms, reactive forms, or template-driven)
• Setting up dependency injection, routing, lazy loading, or route guards
• Adding accessibility (ARIA), animations, or component styling
• Writing or debugging Angular-specific tests (unit, component harness, E2E)
• Configuring Angular CLI tooling or the Angular MCP server

1. Always analyze the project's Angular version before providing guidance, as best practices and available features can vary significantly between versions. If creating a new project with Angular CLI, do not specify a version unless prompted by the user.

2. When generating code, follow Angular's style guide and best practices for maintainability and performance. Use the Angular CLI for scaffolding components, services, directives, pipes, and routes to ensure consistency.

3. Once you finish generating code, run ng build to ensure there are no build errors. If there are errors, analyze the error messages and fix them before proceeding. Do not skip this step, as it is critical for ensuring the generated code is correct and functional.

Creating New Projects

If no guidelines are provided by the user, use these defaults when creating a new Angular project:

1. Use the latest stable version of Angular unless the user specifies otherwise.
2. Prefer Signal Forms for new projects only when the target Angular version supports them. Find out more.

Execution Rules for ng new: When asked to create a new Angular project, you must determine the correct execution command by following these strict steps:

Step 1: Check for an explicit user version.

• IF the user requests a specific version (e.g., Angular 15), bypass local installations and strictly use npx.
• Command: npx @angular/cli@<requested_version> new <project-name>

Step 2: Check for an existing Angular installation.

• IF no specific version is requested, run ng version in the terminal to check if the Angular CLI is already installed on the system.
• IF the command succeeds and returns an installed version, use the local/global installation directly.
• Command: ng new <project-name>

Step 3: Fallback to Latest.

• IF no specific version is requested AND the ng version command fails (indicating no Angular installation exists), you must use npx to fetch the latest version.
• Command: npx @angular/cli@latest new <project-name>

Components

When working with Angular components, consult the following references based on the task:

• Fundamentals: Anatomy, metadata, core concepts, and template control flow (@if, @for, @switch). Read components.md
• Inputs: Signal-based inputs, transforms, and model inputs. Read inputs.md
• Outputs: Signal-based outputs and custom event best practices. Read outputs.md
• Host Elements: Host bindings and attribute injection. Read host-elements.md

If you require deeper documentation not found in the references above, read the documentation at https://angular.dev/guide/components.

Reactivity and Data Management

When managing state and data reactivity, use Angular Signals and consult the following references:

• Signals Overview: Core signal concepts (signal, computed), reactive contexts, and untracked. Read signals-overview.md
• Dependent State (linkedSignal): Creating writable state linked to source signals. Read linked-signal.md
• Async Reactivity (resource): Fetching asynchronous data directly into signal state. Read resource.md
• Side Effects (effect): Logging, third-party DOM manipulation (afterRenderEffect), and when NOT to use effects. Read effects.md

Forms

In most cases for new apps, prefer signal forms. When making a forms decision, analyze the project and consider the following guidelines:

• If the application version supports Signal Forms and this is a new form, prefer signal forms.

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