Angular Roadmap

Deliver Angular Signals

This project rethinks the Angular reactivity model by introducing Signals as a reactivity primitive. The initial planning resulted in hundreds of discussions, conversations with developers, feedback sessions, user experience studies, and a series of RFCs, which received over 1,000 comments.

As part of the v17 release, we graduated the Angular Signals library from developer preview. In v18 you can now use signal-based queries, inputs, and model inputs in developer preview. Next we'll continue addressing community feedback before graduating these APIs to stable and integrate signals deeper in Angular's change detection mechanism.

Local template variables

Local template variables is one of the most upvoted features in the Angular issue tracker. In Q2 2024 we started initial design and prototyping. Expect updates later in 2024.

Event replay with SSR and prerendering

In v18 we introduced an event replay functionality when using server-side rendering or prerendering. For this feature we depend on the event dispatch primitive (previously known as jsaction) that is running on Google.com.

Over the next couple of months we'll be collecting feedback from the community for this feature and work towards graduating it to stable.

Improve HMR (Hot Module Reload)

Angular CLI currently supports HMR via ng serve --hmr. Under the hood, this mostly rerenders the Angular application from scratch, which is better than a full page reload, but can definitely be improved. Most importantly, our strategy here should be to optimize the turnaround time for any given change scaled with the frequency of that kind of change. In the future, our team will explore a number of opportunities for improving HMR, including:

• Fast track CSS-only changes and apply them to any existing components on the page.
• Fast track Angular template-only changes and apply them to any existing components on the page.

Support two-dimensional drag-and-drop

As part of this project, we'd like to implement mixed orientation support for the Angular CDK drag and drop. This is one of the repository's most highly requested features.

Evaluating Nitro support in the Angular CLI

We're excited about the set of features that Nitro offers such as portability, minimal design, and file-based routing. Later this year we'll evaluate how it fits in the Angular server-side rendering model.

We'll share updates as we make progress in this investigation.

Expand the customizability of Angular Material

To provide better customization of our Angular Material components and enable Material 3 capabilities, we'll be collaborating with Google's Material Design team on defining token-based theming APIs.

In v17.2 we shared experimental support for Angular Material 3 and in v18 we graduated it to stable.

Introduce deferred loading

In v17 we shipped deferrable views in developer preview, which provide an ergonomic API for deferred code loading. In v18 we enabled deferrable views for library developers and graduated the API to stable.

Automation for transition of existing hybrid rendering projects to esbuild and vite

In v17 we shipped a vite and esbuild-based application builder and enabled it for new projects by default. It improves build time for projects using hybrid rendering with up to 87%. As part of v18 we shipped schematics and a guide that migrate existing projects using hybrid rendering to the new build pipeline.

Make Angular.dev the official home for Angular developers

Angular.dev is the new site, domain and home for Angular development. The new site contains updated documentation, tutorials and guidance that will help developers build with Angular’s latest features.

Introduce built-in control flow

In v17 we shipped a developer preview version of a new control flow. It brings significant performance improvements and better ergonomics for template authoring. We also provided a migration of existing *ngIf, *ngFor, and *ngSwitch which you can run to move your project to the new implementation. As of v18 the built-in control flow is now stable.

Investigate modern bundlers

In Angular v16, we released a developer preview of an esbuild-based builder with support for ng build and ng serve. The ng serve development server uses Vite and a multi-file compilation by esbuild and the Angular compiler. In v17 we graduated the build tooling from developer preview and enabled it by default for new projects.

Introduce dependency injection debugging APIs

To improve the debugging utilities of Angular and Angular DevTools, we'll work on APIs that provide access to the dependency injection runtime. As part of the project, we'll expose debugging methods that allow us to explore the injector hierarchy and the dependencies across their associated providers. As of v17, we shipped a feature that enables us to plug into the dependency injection life-cycle. We also launched a visualization of the injector tree and inspection of the providers declared inside each individual node,

Improve documentation and schematics for standalone components

We released a developer preview of the ng new --standalone schematics collection, allowing you to create apps free of NgModules. In v17 we switched the new application authoring format to standalone APIs and changed the documentation to reflect the recommendation. Additionally, we shipped schematics which support updating existing applications to standalone components, directives, and pipes. Even though NgModules will stick around for foreseeable future, we recommend you to explore the benefits of the new APIs to improve developer experience and benefit from the new features we build for them.

Non-destructive full app hydration

In v16, we released a developer preview of non-destructive full hydration, which allows Angular to reuse existing DOM nodes on a server-side rendered page, instead of re-creating an app from scratch. See additional information in the hydration guide.

Improvements in the image directive

We released the Angular image directive as stable in v15. We introduced a new fill mode feature that enables images to fit within their parent container rather than having explicit dimensions. Over the past two months, the Chrome Aurora team backported the directive to v12 and newer.

Documentation refactoring

Ensure all existing documentation fits into a consistent set of content types. Update excessive use of tutorial-style documentation into independent topics. We want to ensure the content outside the main tutorials is self-sufficient without being tightly coupled to a series of guides. In Q2 2022, we refactored the template content and dependency injection. In Q1 2023, we improved the HTTP guides, and with this, we're putting the documentation refactoring project on hold.

Improve image performance

The Aurora and the Angular teams are working on the implementation of an image directive that aims to improve Core Web Vitals. We shipped a stable version of the image directive in v15.

Modern CSS

The Web ecosystem evolves constantly and we want to reflect the latest modern standards in Angular. In this project we aim to provide guidelines on using modern CSS features in Angular to ensure developers follow best practices for layout, styling, etc. We shared official guidelines for layout and as part of the initiative stopped publishing flex layout.

Support adding directives to host elements

A long-standing feature request is to add the ability to add directives to host elements. The feature lets developers augment their own components with additional behaviors without using inheritance. In v15 we shipped our directive composition API, which enables enhancing host elements with directives.

Better stack traces

The Angular and the Chrome DevTools are working together to enable more readable stack traces for error messages. In v15 we released improved relevant and linked stack traces. As a lower priority initiative, we'll be exploring how to make the stack traces friendlier by providing more accurate call frame names for templates.

Enhanced Angular Material components by integrating MDC Web

MDC Web is a library created by the Google Material Design team that provides reusable primitives for building Material Design components. The Angular team is incorporating these primitives into Angular Material. Using MDC Web aligns Angular Material more closely with the Material Design specification, expands accessibility, improves component quality, and improves the velocity of our team.

Implement APIs for optional NgModules

In the process of making Angular simpler, we are working on introducing APIs that allow developers to initialize apps, instantiate components, and use the router without NgModules. Angular v14 introduces developer preview of the APIs for standalone components, directives, and pipes. In the next few quarters we'll collect feedback from developers and finalize the project making the APIs stable. As the next step we will work on improving use cases such as TestBed, Angular elements, etc.

Allow binding to protected fields in templates

To improve the encapsulation of Angular components we enabled binding to protected members of the component instance. This way you'll no longer have to expose a field or a method as public to use it inside your templates.

Publish guides on advanced concepts

Develop and publish an in-depth guide on change detection. Develop content for performance profiling of Angular apps. Cover how change detection interacts with Zone.js and explain when it gets triggered, how to profile its duration, as well as common practices for performance optimization.

Rollout strict typings for @angular/forms

In Q4 2021 we designed a solution for introducing strict typings for forms and in Q1 2022 we concluded the corresponding request for comments. Currently, we are implementing a rollout strategy with an automated migration step that will enable the improvements for existing projects. We are first testing the solution with more than 2,500 projects at Google to ensure a smooth migration path for the external community.

Remove legacy View Engine

After the transition of all our internal tooling to Ivy is completed, we will remove the legacy View Engine for reduced Angular conceptual overhead, smaller package size, lower maintenance cost, and lower codebase complexity.

Simplified Angular mental model with optional NgModules

To simplify the Angular mental model and learning journey, we will be working on making NgModules optional. This work lets developers develop standalone components and implement an alternative API for declaring the compilation scope of the component. We kicked this project off with high-level design discussions that we captured in an RFC.

Design strict typing for @angular/forms

We will work on finding a way to implement stricter type checking for reactive forms with minimal backward incompatible implications. This way, we let developers catch more issues during development time, enable better text editor and IDE support, and improve the type checking for reactive forms.

Improve integration of Angular DevTools with framework

To improve the integration of Angular DevTools with the framework, we are working on moving the codebase to the angular/angular monorepository. This includes transitioning Angular DevTools to Bazel and integrating it into the existing processes and CI pipeline.

Launch advanced compiler diagnostics

Extend the diagnostics of the Angular compiler outside type checking. Introduce other correctness and conformance checks to further guarantee correctness and best practices.

Update our e2e testing strategy

To ensure we provide a future-proof e2e testing strategy, we want to evaluate the state of Protractor, community innovations, e2e best practices, and explore novel opportunities. As first steps of the effort, we shared an RFC and worked with partners to ensure smooth integration between the Angular CLI and state-of-the-art tooling for e2e testing. As the next step, we need to finalize the recommendations and compile a list of resources for the transition.

Angular libraries use Ivy

Earlier in 2020, we shared an RFC for Ivy library distribution. After invaluable feedback from the community, we developed a design of the project. We are now investing in the development of Ivy library distribution, including an update of the library package format to use Ivy compilation, unblock the deprecation of the View Engine library format, and ngcc.

Improve test times and debugging with automatic test environment tear down

To improve test time and create better isolation across tests, we want to change TestBed to automatically clean up and tear down the test environment after each test run.

Deprecate and remove IE11 support

Internet Explorer 11 (IE11) has been preventing Angular from taking advantage of some of the modern features of the Web platform. As part of this project we are going to deprecate and remove IE11 support to open the path for modern features that evergreen browsers provide. We ran an RFC to collect feedback from the community and decide on next steps to move forward.

Leverage ES2017+ as the default output language

Supporting modern browsers lets us take advantage of the more compact, expressive, and performant new syntax of JavaScript. As part of this project we will investigate what the blockers are to moving forward with this effort, and take the steps to enable it.

Accelerated debugging and performance profiling with Angular DevTools

We are working on development tooling for Angular that provides utilities for debugging and performance profiling. This project aims to help developers understand the component structure and the change detection in an Angular app.

Streamline releases with consolidated Angular versioning & branching

We want to consolidate release management tooling between the multiple GitHub repositories for Angular (angular/angular, angular/angular-cli, and angular/components). This effort lets us reuse infrastructure, unify and simplify processes, and improve the reliability of our release process.

Higher developer consistency with commit message standardization

We want to unify commit message requirements and conformance across Angular repositories (angular/angular, angular/components, and angular/angular-cli) to bring consistency to our development process and reuse infrastructure tooling.

Transition the Angular language service to Ivy

The goal of this project is to improve the experience and remove legacy dependency by transitioning the language service to Ivy. Today the language service still uses the View Engine compiler and type checking, even for Ivy apps. We want to use the Ivy template parser and improved type checking for the Angular Language service to match app behavior. This migration is also a step towards unblocking the removal of View Engine, which will simplify Angular, reduce the npm package size, and improve the maintainability of the framework.

Increased security with native Trusted Types in Angular

In collaboration with the Google security team, we are adding support for the new Trusted Types API. This web platform API helps developers build more secure web apps.

Optimized build speed and bundle sizes with Angular CLI webpack 5

As part of the v11 release, we introduced an opt-in preview of webpack 5 in the Angular CLI. To ensure stability, we will continue iterating on the implementation to enable build speed and bundle size improvements.

Faster apps by inlining critical styles in Universal apps

Loading external stylesheets is a blocking operation, which means that the browser cannot start rendering your app until it loads all the referenced CSS. Having render-blocking resources in the header of a page can significantly impact its load performance, for example, its first contentful paint. To make apps faster, we have been collaborating with the Google Chrome team on inlining critical CSS and loading the rest of the styles asynchronously.

Improve debugging with better Angular error messages

Error messages often bring limited actionable information to help developers resolve them. We have been working on making error messages more discoverable by adding associated codes, developing guides, and other materials to ensure a smoother debugging experience.

Improved developer onboarding with refreshed introductory documentation

We will redefine the user learning journeys and refresh the introductory documentation. We will clearly state the benefits of Angular, how to explore its capabilities and provide guidance so developers can become proficient with the framework in as little time as possible.

Expand component harnesses best practices

Angular CDK introduced the concept of component test harnesses to Angular in version 9. Test harnesses let component authors create supported APIs for testing component interactions. We are continuing to improve this harness infrastructure and clarifying the best practices around using harnesses. We are also working to drive more harness adoption inside of Google.

Author a guide for content projection

Content projection is a core Angular concept that does not have the presence it deserves in the documentation. As part of this project we want to identify the core use cases and concepts for content projection and document them.

Migrate to ESLint

With the deprecation of TSLint we will be moving to ESLint. As part of the process, we will work on ensuring backward compatibility with our current recommended TSLint configuration, implement a migration strategy for existing Angular apps and introduce new tooling to the Angular CLI toolchain.

Operation Bye Bye Backlog (also known as Operation Byelog)

We are actively investing up to 50% of our engineering capacity on triaging issues and PRs until we have a clear understanding of broader community needs. After that, we will commit up to 20% of our engineering capacity to keep up with new submissions promptly.