A Developer's Tale: Migrating an Angular app from version 10 to 18 by Loïc Magnette

Migrate Angular versions one major version at a time - attempting to jump multiple versions leads to dependency conflicts and complications

Clean up unnecessary dependencies before migration - remove unused packages and verify what’s actually needed in the project

Use built-in tools like ng update and schematics for automated migrations, but don’t rely on them completely as manual changes are often needed

Run npm ls and npm-dupe to identify dependency conflicts and version mismatches before upgrading

Having automated tests provides a safety net during migrations to catch breaking changes

Standalone components and the new control flow syntax in Angular 18+ simplify migrations and improve performance

Styling/CSS changes between versions can cause breaking changes - test thoroughly and consider CSS migration impacts

Node version management tools like NVM or ASDF help manage different runtime requirements between versions

Tools like Renovate and Dependabot can help automate dependency updates through automated PRs

Migration complexity decreases in newer versions (17->18 is easier than 10->11) due to better tooling and more mature ecosystem

Consider signals for state management in newer Angular versions but note they differ from RxJS which remains useful for async operations

Remove node_modules and package-lock.json before fresh installs to avoid dependency conflicts during migration