Should :name and/or :app be added to project definition in root mix.exs file in umbrella application?

Question

I'm attempting to generate documentation for applications in my Elixir project using ExDoc. My project is structured as an umbrella application, with two apps, a functional core and a Phoenix web frontend. When running the command mix docs from the root of the umbrella, I get the following error message:

** (RuntimeError) expected :name or :app to be found in the project definition in mix.exs
    (ex_doc 0.23.0) lib/mix/tasks/docs.ex:328: Mix.Tasks.Docs.run/3
    (mix 1.11.3) lib/mix/task.ex:394: Mix.Task.run_task/3
    (mix 1.11.3) lib/mix/cli.ex:84: Mix.CLI.run_task/2
    (elixir 1.11.3) lib/code.ex:931: Code.require_file/2

The root mix.exs file is as follows:

defmodule UmbrellaProject.MixProject do
  use Mix.Project

  def project do
    [
      apps_path: "apps",
      version: "0.1.0",
      start_permanent: Mix.env() == :prod,
      deps: deps()
    ]
  end

  defp deps do
    [{:ex_doc, "~> 0.23.0", dev: true, runtime: false}]
  end
end

Should I add :name and/or :app values to the list in the project/1 function? If yes, is there a standard convention for what their values should be or can they be anything (within reason)?

I'm using Elixir version 1.11.3.

I'm not sure if the version should be there. Can you remove it and try again? — David Magalhães
@DavidMagalhães Thanks for the suggestion, however it did not fix the problem. Why shouldn’t there be a version in the root mix.exs? It was put there by the mix umbrella generator — KPen
I have a umbrella project here that didn't have it. I thought that if a version exists it may expect a name. — David Magalhães
That’s interesting. ExDoc works for you in your :name-less project? And the only difference is a lack of a version? — KPen

sbouaked sbouaked · Accepted Answer · 2021-04-11T18:01:52

Try to add name: " xxx " in your config.

defmodule UmbrellaProject.MixProject do
  use Mix.Project

  def project do
    [
      name: "My umbrella project",
      apps_path: "apps",
      version: "0.1.0",
      start_permanent: Mix.env() == :prod,
      deps: deps()
    ]
  end

  defp deps do
    [{:ex_doc, "~> 0.23.0", dev: true, runtime: false}]
  end
end

Should :name and/or :app be added to project definition in root mix.exs file in umbrella application?

1 Answers