Defining Dependency Providers

Angular offers automatic and manual ways to provide dependencies to its Dependency Injection (DI) system.

Automatic Provision

The most common way to provide a service is using providedIn: 'root' on an @Injectable().

InjectionToken

Use InjectionToken for non-class dependencies (configuration objects, functions, primitives). An InjectionToken can also be automatically provided.

import {InjectionToken} from '@angular/core';

export interface AppConfig {
  apiUrl: string;
}

export const APP_CONFIG = new InjectionToken<AppConfig>('app.config', {
  providedIn: 'root',
  factory: () => ({apiUrl: 'https://api.example.com'}),
});

Manual Provision

You use the providers array when a service lacks providedIn, when you want a new instance for a specific component, or when configuring runtime values.

@Component({
  providers: [
    // Shorthand for { provide: LocalService, useClass: LocalService }
    LocalService,

    // useClass: Swap implementations
    {provide: Logger, useClass: BetterLogger},

    // useValue: Provide static values
    {provide: API_URL_TOKEN, useValue: 'https://api.example.com'},

    // useFactory: Generate value dynamically
    {
      provide: ApiClient,
      useFactory: (http = inject(HttpClient)) => new ApiClient(http),
    },

    // useExisting: Create an alias
    {provide: OldLogger, useExisting: NewLogger},

    // multi: Provide multiple values for the same token as an array
    {provide: INTERCEPTOR_TOKEN, useClass: AuthInterceptor, multi: true},
  ],
})
export class Example {}

Scopes of Providers

• Application Bootstrap: Global singletons. Use for HTTP clients, logging, or app-wide config.
• Component/Directive: Isolated instances. Use for component-specific state or forms. Services are destroyed when the component is destroyed.
• Route: Feature-specific services loaded only with specific routes.

Library Pattern: provide* functions

Library authors should export functions that return provider arrays to encapsulate configuration:

export function provideAnalytics(config: AnalyticsConfig): Provider[] {
  return [{provide: ANALYTICS_CONFIG, useValue: config}, AnalyticsService];
}