Overview of the Nx powerpack-s3-cache Plugin

The @nx/powerpack-s3-cache plugin enables you to use an Amazon S3 bucket instead of Nx Cloud to host your remote cache.

This plugin will enable the remote cache for your Nx workspace, but does not provide any of the other features of Nx Cloud. If you want to leverage distributed task execution, re-running flaky tasks or automatically splitting tasks, you'll need to connect to Nx Cloud and use Nx Replay instead.

Potential Cache Poisoning

Using your own Amazon S3 bucket to host the remote cache opens you up to the possibility of cache poisoning. To avoid this, use Nx Replay.

This plugin requires an active Nx Powerpack license

In order to use @nx/powerpack-s3-cache, you need to have an active Powerpack license. If you don't have a license or it has expired, your cache will no longer be shared and each machine will use its local cache.

Set Up @nx/powerpack-s3-cache

1. Install the Package

Activate Powerpack if you haven't already
Install the package

❯

nx add @nx/powerpack-s3-cache

2. Authenticate with AWS

There are four different ways to authenticate with AWS. They will be attempted in this order:

Environment variables
INI config files
Single sign-on
nx.json settings

Environment Variables

AWS provides environment variables that can be used to authenticate:

Environment Variable	Description
`AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID`	The access key for your AWS account.
`AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY`	The secret key for your AWS account.
`AWS_SESSION_TOKEN`	The session key for your AWS account. This is only needed when you are using temporary credentials.
`AWS_CREDENTIAL_EXPIRATION`	The expiration time of the credentials contained in the environment variables described above. This value must be in a format compatible with the ISO-8601 standard and is only needed when you are using temporary credentials.

Both the AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID and the AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY environment variables are required to use the environment variable authentication method.

Here's an example of using OICD in GitHub Actions to set the environment variables in CI:

.github/workflows/ci.yml
name: CI
...
permissions:
  id-token: write
  ...

jobs:
  main:
    env:
      NX_POWERPACK_LICENSE: ${{ secrets.NX_POWERPACK_LICENSE }}
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
        ...

      - name: 'Configure AWS Credentials'
        uses: aws-actions/configure-aws-credentials@v4.0.2
        with:
          role-to-assume: arn:aws:iam::123456789123:role/GhAIBucketUserRole
          aws-region: us-east-1

        ...

      - run: pnpm exec nx affected -t lint test build

INI Config Files

AWS can read your authentication credentials from shared INI config files. The files are located at ~/.aws/credentials and ~/.aws/config. Both files are expected to be INI formatted with section names corresponding to profiles. Sections in the credentials file are treated as profile names, whereas profile sections in the config file must have the format of [profile profile-name], except for the default profile. Profiles that appear in both files will not be merged, and the version that appears in the credentials file will be given precedence over the profile found in the config file.

Single Sign-On

Nx can read the active access token created after running aws sso login then request temporary AWS credentials. You can create the AwsCredentialIdentityProvider functions using the inline SSO parameters (ssoStartUrl, ssoAccountId, ssoRegion, ssoRoleName) or load them from AWS SDKs and Tools shared configuration and credentials files. Profiles in the credentials file are given precedence over profiles in the config file.

Credentials in `nx.json` File

Storing your credentials in the nx.json file is the least secure of the 4 authentication options, since anyone with read access to your code base will have access to your AWS credentials.

nx.json
{
  "s3": {
    "ssoProfile": "default",
    "accessKeyId": "MYACCESSKEYID",
    "secretAccessKey": "MYSECRETACCESSKEY"
  }
}

Property	Description
ssoProfile	The name of the profile to use from your AWS CLI SSO Configuration (optional)
endpoint	The AWS endpoint URL (optional)
accessKeyId	AWS Access Key ID (optional)
secretAccessKey	AWS secret access key (optional)

3. Configure S3 Cache

Regardless of how you manage your AWS authentication, you need to configure your Nx cache in the nx.json file. The bucket that you specify needs to already exist - Nx doesn't create it for you.

nx.json
{
  "s3": {
    "region": "us-east-1",
    "bucket": "my-bucket",
    "encryptionKey": "create-your-own-key"
  }
}

Property	Description
region	The id of the AWS region to use
bucket	The name of the S3 bucket to use
encryptionKey	Nx encryption key used to encrypt and decrypt artifacts from the cache (optional)

S3 Compatible Providers

To use @nx/powerpack-s3-cache with S3 compatible providers (MinIO, LocalStack, DigitalOcean Spaces, Cloudflare, etc..), endpoint will need to be provided. Some providers also need to have forcePathStyle set to true in the configuration.

Below is an example on how to connect to MinIO:

nx.json
{
  "s3": {
    "region": "us-east-1",
    "bucket": "my-bucket",
    "endpoint": "https://play.min.io",
    "forcePathStyle": true,
    "accessKeyId": "abc1234",
    "secretAccessKey": "4321cba"
  }
}

Property	Description
region	The id of the S3 compatible storage region to use
bucket	The name of the S3 compatible storage bucket to use
forcePathStyle	Changes the way artifacts are uploaded. Usually used for S3 compatible providers (MinIO, LocalStack, etc)
endpoint	The custom endpoint to upload artifacts to. If endpoint is not defined, the default AWS endpoint is used
accessKeyId	AWS Access Key ID (optional if `AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID` is set in the environment)
secretAccessKey	AWS secret access key (optional if `AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY` is set in the environment)

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