nx migrate codemods are incomplete and users have to spend LLM tokens on work that should be covered by migration scripts

[Lonli-Lokli]

What happened

I ran nx migrate latest to upgrade from 23.x to the current version. The built-in migration scripts from migrations.json either did not exist, were no-ops, or left the workspace in a broken state that required manual intervention across many files.

To get the workspace compiling and passing lint and tests again, I had to run a long AI-agent session (Claude Code) that read error output, traced API changes, and edited files one by one. That session cost real money in LLM tokens, money that was spent on work your team ships codemods for in principle, but not always in practice.

I understand that maintaining migrations is a lot of work and I appreciate the effort that goes into the Nx tooling. I just wanted to share this experience because I think it points to a real gap.

Why this feels like a tooling gap, not a user error

The nx migrate contract is: the team provides the codemod, the user runs the migration, it works. When a version renames APIs, drops options, or changes config schemas, the migration script should handle it. The fact that an AI agent can figure out the change by reading the changelog means the information is available. It just was not put into a codemod.

Concrete cost

• Agent session: several hours of interrupted development
• LLM API costs for the session
• Feature work blocked while fixing post-migration breakage

What I would kindly ask the team to consider

1. Audit what migrations.json actually covers for the 23.x to current upgrade path. If the migration guide has manual steps that are not automated, it would be great to automate them.
2. Add codemods for every breaking API or config change mentioned in the changelog.
3. Perhaps publish a "migration completeness" metric showing what percentage of real-world workspaces pass their own CI after running nx migrate --run-migrations without any manual edits.

Environment

• Nx: 23.2.1
• Next.js: 16.2.x
• TypeScript: 6.0.3
• Node: v24
• OS: Windows 11

Thank you for reading and for the work you do on Nx. I hope this feedback is useful.