angular / angular/angular-cli

Creating unnecessary excessive chunks

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angular/build:application area: @angular/build freq2: medium severity4: memory/performance
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Description

### Command

build

### 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

**Disclaimer**

This is not really a bug, as even if it worked differently with `webpack`, for `esbuild` this is normal. However, since the default bundler is now `esbuild` some would consider this a regression.

## Required chunks references in dynamic imported code get split in to separate chunks

When splitting code, esbuild does not seems to properly take into account what is already statically imported (thus "required") and does not need to be split into a separate chunk.

To illustrate this lets consider an example where we have the following 5 standalone components:

- `AppComponent` (The root component which is not lazy loaded)
- `Feature1Component` (A feature component lazy loaded via a dynamic import in the router)
- `Feature21Component` (A feature component lazy loaded via a dynamic import in the router)
- `Ui1Component` (A UI component imported statically, like a button)
- `Ui2Component` (A UI component imported statically, like a button)

### Chunks without Shared Components

If the `AppComponent` has a `RouterOutlet` which has separate paths `Feature1Component` and `Feature21Component` it will generate a chunk for the code shared between these components (lets call it Common Chunk).

In this case the build output is:

| Initial chunk files | Names |
| --- | --- |
| chunk-YIKH6UD4.js | - ("common") |
| main-V6UA4PHT.js | main |

| Lazy chunk files | Names |
| --- | --- |
| feature-1.component-AQEBZKLJ.js | feature-1-component |
| feature-2.component-EH7EGWEP.js | feature-2-component |

And if `Feature1Component` imports `Ui1Component` and `Feature21Component` imports `Ui2Component` then code from `Ui1Component` will be bundle in `Feature1Component` and the code from `Ui2Component` will be bundle in `Feature2Component`.

### Chunks with Shared Components

However, if the `AppComponent` also imports `Ui1Component` and `Ui2Component` this code is now shared and will be split into separate chunks.

Thus the build output will now be:

| Initial chunk files | Names |
| --- | --- |
| chunk-YIKH6UD4.js | - ("common") |
| main-V6UA4PHT.js | main |
| chunk-WKA4CZR7.js | - ("ui-1-component") |
| chunk-XCJUHD2B.js | - ("ui-2-component") |

| Lazy chunk files | Names |
| --- | --- |
| feature-1.component-AQEBZKLJ.js | feature-1-component |
| feature-2.component-EH7EGWEP.js | feature-2-component |

The issue is that `Ui1Component` and `Ui2Component` are now statically imported in the `AppComponent`, and therefore belong in this common chunk. These chunks are statically imported in the "common" chunk and required for the application to bootstrap but are downloaded separately.

As they are always downloaded, splitting them does not seems to have a benefit, when `Feature1Component` or `Feature2Component` imports them, the request is cached and it should not make a difference if it over imports.

However, splitting them does have a downside, it increases the load time. Even tho in this example the consequences of a couple of extra chunks is meaningless in larger apps the consequence is very real.

If the application produces 100 or 200 initial chunks this will have a significant impact on the initial load time and LCP.

![image](https://github.com/angular/angular-cli/assets/40126819/d8bedc9b-be77-47fc-b9ca-702e5522c110)

Even tho the a modern browser using http3 or http2 uses multiplexing it will still have an significant overhead downloading so many small chunks. We are currently calling this `the chunk gap`:

![image](https://github.com/angular/angular-cli/assets/40126819/6d8a96dc-9a8c-4877-a4f6-277514802047)

Additionally this issue will have a larger impact on older and slower devices.

- [HTTP2 Support](https://caniuse.com/HTTP2)
- [HTTP3 Support](https://caniuse.com/HTTP3)

Additional example of performance impact:

- https://github.com/angular/angular-cli/issues/27321

### Avoiding Code Splitting Shared Code

It seems possible to avoid additional chunking in some cases by using barrel files.

For example if we create a barrel file that exports both `Ui1Component` and `Ui2Component` and only import them via that barrel file we are able to force `esbuild` to place the shared code into the "common" chunk.

So using:

```ts
// ./ui/index.ts

export * from './ui-1.component';
export * from './ui-2.component';
```

The build output will now be:

| Initial chunk files | Names |
| --- | --- |
| chunk-YIKH6UD4.js | - ("common") |
| main-V6UA4PHT.js | main |

| Lazy chunk files | Names |
| --- | --- |
| feature-1.component-AQEBZKLJ.js | feature-1-component |
| feature-2.component-EH7EGWEP.js | feature-2-component |

**Note**

In [`esbuild` architecture documentation](https://github.com/evanw/esbuild/blob/main/docs/architecture.md) it explains that:

> [code splitting](https://github.com/evanw/esbuild/blob/main/docs/architecture.md#code-splitting) is implemented as an advanced form of tree shaking.

This means that doing so will partially optout of tree shaking.

For example if we add a `Ui3Component` and a `Feature3Component`.

And we add the `Ui3Component` to the barrel file:

```ts
// ./ui/index.ts

export * from './ui-1.component';
export * from './ui-2.component';
export * from './ui-3.component';
```

If the `Ui3Component` is never imported anywhere it will not increase the initial bundle.

However, if we reference the `Ui3Component` in `Feature3Component` (loading the `Feature3Component` in a lazy route), this will increase the initial bundle even if `Ui3Component` is not used in the `AppComponent`.

### Minimal Reproduction

https://github.com/ChristopherPHolder/ng-esbuild-demo

### Exception or Error

```text
Shared Code Required in a root component or a root node of the node graph is bundle together.
```

### Your Environment

```text
Angular CLI: 17.3.5
Node: 20.11.1
Package Manager: npm 10.2.4
OS: win32 x64

Angular: 17.3.5
... animations, cli, common, compiler, compiler-cli, core, forms
... language-service, platform-browser, platform-browser-dynamic
... router

Package Version
---------------------------------------------------------
@angular-devkit/architect 0.1703.5
@angular-devkit/build-angular 17.3.5
@angular-devkit/core 17.3.5
@angular-devkit/schematics 17.3.5
@schematics/angular 17.3.5
ng-packagr 17.3.0
rxjs 7.8.1
typescript 5.4.5
zone.js 0.14.4
```

### Anything else relevant?

_No response_

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

Research direction

Start by running `build` in the linked ng-esbuild-demo reproduction and compare the initial and lazy chunk lists described here. Read the linked esbuild code-splitting architecture section, then trace the Angular CLI build integration to find where statically required shared modules become separate initial chunks. Done means required shared code no longer creates unnecessary initial requests without pulling unused code into the initial bundle.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
angular, typescript
Domain
build-system, performance
Issue type
Bug
Difficulty
5/5
Estimated time
Over a week
Activity status
Active
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
38/100

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