Overview

When backend and frontend live in the same repository, the cleanest way to ship a Nestia-generated SDK is as a third workspace package sitting between them. The frontend imports it like any npm dependency, but pnpm resolves it to a sibling folder — no publish round-trip, no version drift.

The reference: samchon/shopping

The canonical demonstration is samchon/shopping — an enterprise-scale shopping mall built to prove that “well-designed backend + Nestia-generated SDK = AI automates the frontend.” It ships three complete user surfaces (customer, seller, administrator) — all generated from a single prompt against the SDK package.

The whole repo is a pnpm workspace with three packages:

shopping/
├── packages/
│   ├── api/          # @samchon/shopping-api      — generated SDK package
│   ├── backend/      # @samchon/shopping-backend  — NestJS + Fastify server
│   └── frontend/     # @samchon/shopping-frontend — Next.js storefront
├── package.json
├── pnpm-workspace.yaml
└── pnpm-lock.yaml

Three rules wire the packages together:

1. The backend runs nestia sdk, which writes the SDK source straight into the sibling api package.
2. The api package re-exports that source as @samchon/shopping-api.
3. The frontend depends on @samchon/shopping-api via workspace:*, so pnpm symlinks it back to packages/api.

One pnpm install at the root sets up the symlinks; pnpm -r build regenerates and rebuilds the whole graph in topological order.

How the backend points at the sibling package — nestia.config.ts

The single most important configuration line lives in packages/backend/nestia.config.ts. output: "../api/src" is what makes the monorepo layout work — Nestia writes generated functional/ and structures/ directly into the sibling SDK package, so there is no copy step and no separate publish dance.

import { INestiaConfig } from "@nestia/sdk";
import { NestFactory } from "@nestjs/core";
import { FastifyAdapter } from "@nestjs/platform-fastify";
 
import { ShoppingModule } from "./src/ShoppingModule";
 
export default {
  input: () => NestFactory.create(ShoppingModule, new FastifyAdapter()),
  output: "../api/src",
  swagger: {
    servers: [
      {
        url: "https://shopping-be.wrtn.ai",
        description: "Production, the real server",
      },
    ],
    security: {
      bearer: {
        type: "apiKey",
        name: "Authorization",
        in: "header",
      },
    },
    output: "../api/swagger.json",
  },
  simulate: true,
  primitive: false,
} satisfies INestiaConfig;

Two outputs both target the sibling api package:

• output: "../api/src" — generated SDK functions and DTO structures.
• swagger.output: "../api/swagger.json" — the Swagger document, also stored in the SDK package so consumers can pull it down with the SDK.

After npx nestia sdk, packages/api/src contains a fresh, fully-typed SDK. From here on, the rest of this page is about making that package import cleanly from itself, the backend, the frontend, and a third-party consumer — using the same import path in all four places.

The Nestia-specific bit is only two configuration tricks inside packages/api/:

1. @samchon/shopping-api lists itself in its own devDependencies as workspace:^.
2. packages/api/tsconfig.json defines @samchon/shopping-api as a paths alias pointing back at ./src.

Both let the SDK’s own sources import from itself by its public package name — the exact same import line the backend, the frontend, and any third party will write after npm install @samchon/shopping-api. That symmetry is what removes the entire class of “works in the monorepo, breaks when published” bugs.

1. Self-referential devDependencies

{
  "name": "@samchon/shopping-api",
  "version": "0.1.0",
  "main": "src/index.ts",
  "devDependencies": {
    "@samchon/shopping-api": "workspace:^"
  }
}

The package depends on itself. pnpm resolves workspace:^ to the local folder, so packages/api/node_modules/@samchon/shopping-api becomes a symlink to packages/api/ itself.

Why bother:

• Generated SDK files (and any tests, barrel files, or examples that live under packages/api/src) can write import { IShoppingSale } from "@samchon/shopping-api" instead of climbing relative paths.
• The exact same import line works inside packages/backend/, inside packages/frontend/, and on a third-party consumer’s machine after npm install. One canonical import path, everywhere.
• TypeScript’s module resolver follows the symlink, reads "main": "src/index.ts", and resolves the type — no compile-time difference between in-monorepo dev and post-publish consumption.

2. Self-alias in tsconfig.json paths

{
  "compilerOptions": {
    "outDir": "./lib",
    "declaration": true,
    "esModuleInterop": true,
    "paths": {
      "@samchon/shopping-api": ["./src"]
    },
    "plugins": [
      { "transform": "typescript-transform-paths" },
      { "transform": "typia/lib/transform" }
    ]
  },
  "include": ["src"]
}

paths tells the TypeScript compiler that @samchon/shopping-api resolves to ./src — same target as the node_modules symlink in §1, but from the compiler’s perspective rather than the runtime resolver’s.

Without this, tsc --declaration will emit .d.ts files containing import { X } from "@samchon/shopping-api" literally — and downstream consumers will see TypeScript chase its own tail (the published package importing itself).

typescript-transform-paths (loaded as a ts-patch plugin) is the second half of the trick: it rewrites the alias at compile time so the emitted .js files contain real relative paths instead of the alias. The published lib/ is then standalone — no paths config needed by the consumer.

What this combination buys you

Everything else in this workspace — the root package.json, pnpm-workspace.yaml catalogs, the frontend’s "@samchon/shopping-api": "workspace:*" dependency — is conventional pnpm workspace usage. The two tricks above are the Nestia-specific bit.

Reference files

• packages/backend/nestia.config.ts — output: "../api/src" writing into the sibling SDK package.
• packages/api/package.json — the self-referential devDependencies entry.
• packages/api/tsconfig.json — the self-alias under paths plus the typescript-transform-paths plugin.

Clone samchon/shopping, rename the scope, and the rest of the workspace falls into place.