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Integration into large projects

It is usually not possible to modularize an existing codebase at once. Instead, we have to integrate Sheriff incrementally.

Next to automatic tagging, we introduce modules step by step.

With barrel-less modules​

The recommended approach is start with only one module. For example holidays/feature. Encapsulated files of that modules need to be moved to the internals folder. If holidays/feature is barrel-less, it can access root, given the dependency rules allow access to tag root.

By default, barrel-less modules are disabled. They have to be enabled in sheriff.config.ts via enableBarrelLess: true.

Without barrel-less modules​

If Sheriff only supports barrel modules, then the integration would still progress module by module. holidays/feature gets an index.ts and defines its exposed files. Since root would be barrel-less, holidays/feature cannot access it.

There is a special property for this use case: excludeRoot. Once set to true, all modules can access all files in the root module.

export const config: SheriffConfig = {
  excludeRoot: true, // <-- set this
  modules: {
    'src/shared': 'shared',
  },
  depRules: {
    root: 'noTag',
    noTag: ['noTag', 'root'],
    shared: anyTag,
  },
};

Please note that the excludeRoot property only makes sense with enableBarrelLess: false.