Current Behavior

When we upgrade NX to version 20.3.2 or later our local plugin executors are not working anymore. They throw an error Cannot find module '/Users/roozenboom/Work/npm/nx-examples/tools/workspace/executors/demo'.

The error originates from packages/nx/src/config/schema-utils.ts L30-33:

    if (extname(modulePath) === '.ts') {
      registerPluginTSTranspiler();
    }
    const module = require(modulePath);

After some debugging I found out that the reason for this is that the implementation does not handles index.ts files correctly. All our local plugin executors and generators are configured to use an index.ts file as implementation:

    "demo": {
      "implementation": "./executors/demo",
      "schema": "./executors/demo/schema.json",
      "description": "Executor to demonstrate TS transpile error"
    },

This behavior is introduced by PR 29539, as the TypeScript transpiler is not triggered anymore for our local plugin.

As a workaround i tried to update the implementation to point to the index file directly. This also does not work but throws a different error:
implementation is not a function

    "demo2": {
      "implementation": "./executors/demo/index",
      "schema": "./executors/demo/schema.json",
      "description": "Executor to demonstrate TS transpile error"
    },

Renaming index to something else (for example demo.ts) does not solve this issue.

When I looked at the NX repo and the naming convention you are using for executor implementation, I saw you are using <name>.impl.ts and if i change our implementation to use the same convention it works. Successfully ran target demo3 for project cart

    "demo3": {
      "implementation": "./executors/demo/index.impl",
      "schema": "./executors/demo/schema.json",
      "description": "Executor to demonstrate TS transpile error"
    }

Expected Behavior

The expected behavior is that barrel files (index.ts) are handled correctly and will trigger the TypeScript transpiler when required. It should follow the path as specified in the implementation property of the executors.json and should not depend on an undocumented naming convention.

GitHub Repo

https://github.com/Roozenboom/nx-examples/tree/feature/nx-20-3-2-module-not-found

Steps to Reproduce

I created a minimal reproduction path in nx-examples

1. Checkout the repo
2. A local plugin is created in tools/workspace
3. One simple executor 'demo' is added
4. In the executors.json we have 3 different implementation for this executor
   a. point to folder "./executors/demo"
   b. point to index file "./executors/demo/index"
   c. point to index.impl file "./executors/demo/index.tmpl"
5. Add new targets to the cart app to be able to use the executors
6. Run the targets
   a. yarn nx run cart:demo will throw 'Module not found' error
   b. yarn nx run cart:demo2 will throw 'implementation in not a function' error
   c. yarn nx run cart:demo3 will be successful

Nx Report

Node           : 23.6.1
OS             : darwin-arm64
Native Target  : aarch64-macos
yarn           : 4.2.2

nx                     : 20.4.0-beta.2
@nx/js                 : 20.4.0-beta.2
@nx/jest               : 20.4.0-beta.2
@nx/eslint             : 20.4.0-beta.2
@nx/workspace          : 20.4.0-beta.2
@nx/angular            : 20.4.0-beta.2
@nx/cypress            : 20.4.0-beta.2
@nx/devkit             : 20.4.0-beta.2
@nx/eslint-plugin      : 20.4.0-beta.2
@nx/module-federation  : 20.4.0-beta.2
@nx/react              : 20.4.0-beta.2
@nx/web                : 20.4.0-beta.2
@nx/webpack            : 20.4.0-beta.2
typescript             : 5.7.3
---------------------------------------
Registered Plugins:
@nx/eslint/plugin
@nx/cypress/plugin
@nx/jest/plugin
---------------------------------------
Community plugins:
@ngrx/component-store : 19.0.0
@ngrx/effects         : 19.0.0
@ngrx/entity          : 19.0.0
@ngrx/operators       : 19.0.0
@ngrx/router-store    : 19.0.0
@ngrx/store           : 19.0.0
@ngrx/store-devtools  : 19.0.0
---------------------------------------
Local workspace plugins:
	 @nx-example/workspace

Failure Logs

NX   Cannot find module '/Users/roozenboom/Work/npm/nx-examples/tools/workspace/executors/demo'

Require stack:
- /Users/roozenboom/Work/npm/nx-examples/node_modules/nx/src/config/schema-utils.js
- /Users/roozenboom/Work/npm/nx-examples/node_modules/nx/src/command-line/run/executor-utils.js
- /Users/roozenboom/Work/npm/nx-examples/node_modules/nx/src/devkit-internals.js
- /Users/roozenboom/Work/npm/nx-examples/node_modules/nx/src/utils/assert-workspace-validity.js
- /Users/roozenboom/Work/npm/nx-examples/node_modules/nx/src/project-graph/build-project-graph.js
- /Users/roozenboom/Work/npm/nx-examples/node_modules/nx/src/project-graph/project-graph.js
- /Users/roozenboom/Work/npm/nx-examples/node_modules/nx/src/project-graph/file-utils.js
- /Users/roozenboom/Work/npm/nx-examples/node_modules/nx/src/utils/package-manager.js
- /Users/roozenboom/Work/npm/nx-examples/node_modules/nx/src/utils/package-json.js
- /Users/roozenboom/Work/npm/nx-examples/node_modules/nx/src/utils/print-help.js
- /Users/roozenboom/Work/npm/nx-examples/node_modules/nx/src/command-line/run/run.js
- /Users/roozenboom/Work/npm/nx-examples/node_modules/nx/bin/run-executor.js
Pass --verbose to see the stacktrace.

Package Manager Version

No response

Operating System

• macOS
• Linux
• Windows
• Other (Please specify)

Additional Information

I can provide a fix for this issue by changing the if statement in packages/nx/src/config/schema-utils.ts, because when I instead of checking for extname(modulePath) === '.ts' change this to the helper pluginTranspilerIsRegistered(), the executor is transpiled in all 3 scenarios. But I am not sure this is the best solution for this issue, as I think its maybe better to solve this on a higher level.