fix(core): improve packages recognition when the package version is an external package

[newsiberian]

Current Behavior

After updating from [email protected] to [email protected] our docusaurus dep starts blocking us from running any nx command because of the error described in the linked issue

The "nx/js/dependencies-and-lockfile" plugin threw an error while creating dependencies: Target project does not exist: npm:react-helmet-async@npm:@slorber/react-helmet-async@*

Expected Behavior

Packages with such deps, like: "react-helmet-async": "npm:@slorber/react-helmet-async@*" shouldn't break any nx command

Related Issue(s)

Fixes #27285

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☁️ Nx Cloud last updated this comment at 2025-01-06 21:41:00 UTC

[newsiberian]

@Cammisuli can this PR be reviewed, please?

[Cammisuli]

I don't believe having the npm specific checks in the project graph builder is the best place for this. The reason for this is that the builder itself should be technology/package agnostic. The project graph will contain much more types of external nodes than just npm. For example, there could be cargo, gradle, pip, etc.

We should fix the area that is actually adding the external nodes which would be in the js plugin here:

nx/packages/nx/src/plugins/js/index.ts

Lines 63 to 80 in 21a1f4e

	if (!lockFileNeedsReprocessing(lockFileHash)) {
	const nodes = readCachedParsedLockFile().externalNodes;
	parsedLockFile.externalNodes = nodes;
	return {
	externalNodes: nodes,
	};
	}
	const externalNodes = getLockFileNodes(
	packageManager,
	lockFileContents,
	lockFileHash,
	context
	);
	parsedLockFile.externalNodes = externalNodes;
	return {
	externalNodes,
	};