Did you read the migration guide?

• I have read the whole migration guide

Is there an existing issue that is already proposing this?

• I have searched the existing issues

Potential Commit/PR that introduced the regression

PR #3313

Versions

11.0.17 → 11.0.18

Describe the regression

Description, and workaround generated by an IA.
The workaround resolves our issue, but I think there is still a bug on your end.

nest start hangs indefinitely when the child process exits on its own (e.g. process.exit(0)).

I use process.exit(0) after microservice initialization to validate startup in a CI pipeline. The startup test works fine on sub-apps that have no watchAssets configured, but hangs on apps where root-level compilerOptions.assets with watchAssets: true are inherited — even though the asset globs don't match any files for that sub-app.

Works on 11.0.17, hangs on 11.0.18+.

Running with node dist/main.js always exits correctly. Only nest start hangs.

Root cause

In 11.0.18, closeWatchers() in assets-manager.js was changed from a setTimeout-based approach to Promise.all(watcherReadyPromises).then(close).

When an asset glob with watchAssets: true matches no files (common in monorepos where root-level assets don't exist in every sub-app's sourceRoot), glob.sync() returns [] and chokidar.watch([]) never emits 'ready'. This blocks Promise.all() from ever resolving, so all FSWatchers — including ones watching real files — are never closed. The parent process hangs.

Workaround

Move compilerOptions.assets from the root config to each project's own compilerOptions in nest-cli.json, so that only apps that actually have those files get the watchers. This avoids the empty glob scenario.

Suggested fix

Skip watcher creation when the glob matches nothing:

const matchedPaths = glob.sync(item.glob, { ignore: item.exclude, dot: true });
if (matchedPaths.length === 0) return; // chokidar.watch([]) never emits 'ready'
const watcher = chokidar.watch(matchedPaths)...

Minimum reproduction code

// nest-cli.json — one glob matches files, the other matches nothing
{
  "sourceRoot": "src",
  "compilerOptions": {
    "assets": [
      { "include": "i18n/**/*.json", "watchAssets": true, "outDir": "dist/src" },
      { "include": "templates/**/*", "watchAssets": true, "outDir": "dist/src" }
    ]
  }
}
// src/templates/page.html exists → creates real FSWatcher handles
// src/i18n/ does NOT exist → chokidar.watch([]) → 'ready' never fires → Promise.all blocks

// main.ts — app that exits after startup (CI startup validation)
const app = await NestFactory.create(AppModule);
await app.listen(0);
await app.close();
process.exit(0);

• node dist/main.js → exits immediately
• nest start → hangs forever

Expected behavior

nest start should exit when the child process exits, regardless of whether some asset globs match no files.

Other

Node.js: v22.22.0
OS: Linux
Works on 11.0.17, broken on 11.0.18