ng migrate --force should not fail if there is no migration

[jase88]

Command

update

Is this a regression?

• Yes, this behavior used to work in the previous version

The previous version in which this bug was not present was

No response

Description

First: I'm sorry, I'm not sure if this is a bug behavior or rather a feature request.

If executing
npx ng update @angular-devkit/build-angular --from=18.2.14 --to=18.2.15 --migrate-only --allow-dirty --force

the process exits with code 1

Package does not provide migrations.

I would have expected with the --force flag the command would not have failed and

Package does not provide migrations

would just be a warning.

If this is not a bug in the CLI, would a flag be possible to ignore missing migrations? (feature request)

My use case is that I want to execute ng update regular as renovate postUpgradeTask within the CI.

Minimal Reproduction

• git clone https://github.com/jase88/ng-update-devkit-build-angular-migration-fail
• npm run migrate-devkit-build-angular

Exception or Error

> The installed Angular CLI version is outdated.
> Installing a temporary Angular CLI versioned 18.2.16 to perform the update.
> Using package manager: npm
> Collecting installed dependencies...
> Found 69 dependencies.
> Package does not provide migrations.
>
> Process finished with exit code 1

Your Environment

Angular CLI: 18.2.14
Node: 22.14.0
Package Manager: npm 10.9.2
OS: darwin arm64

Angular: 18.2.13
... animations, common, compiler, compiler-cli, core, forms
... platform-browser, platform-browser-dynamic, router

Package                         Version
---------------------------------------------------------
@angular-devkit/architect       0.1802.14
@angular-devkit/build-angular   18.2.14
@angular-devkit/core            18.2.14
@angular-devkit/schematics      18.2.14
@angular/cli                    18.2.14
@schematics/angular             18.2.14
rxjs                            7.8.2
typescript                      5.5.4
zone.js                         0.14.10

Anything else relevant?

This occurs if using renovate to create merge-requests that executed ng update

for context the renovate.json:

{
  "$schema": "https://docs.renovatebot.com/renovate-schema.json",
  "extends": ["config:recommended"],
    {
      "groupName": "angular",
      "matchManagers": ["npm"],
      "matchPackageNames": ["@angular/{/,}**", "@angular-devkit/{/,}**"],
      "postUpgradeTasks": {
        "commands": [
          "npm ci --ignore-scripts --audit=false --fund=false",
          "npx ng update {{{depName}}} --from={{{currentVersion}}} --to={{{newVersion}}} --migrate-only --allow-dirty --force"
        ],
        "fileFilters": ["**/**"]
      },
      "separateMultipleMajor": true
    }
  ]
}

[alan-agius4]

The error happens because @angular-devkit/* packages never include migrations, which makes the command ng update @angular-devkit/build-angular invalid.

The --force flag is used to override peer dependency version conflicts.

The issue lies with your Renovate configuration. You should not run postUpgradeTasks when updating @angular-devkit/ packages.