angular-cli/packages/angular/cli/commands/run-long.md

Architect is the tool that the CLI uses to perform complex tasks such as compilation, according to provided configurations. The CLI commands run Architect targets such as build, serve, test, and lint. Each named target has a default configuration, specified by an "options" object, and an optional set of named alternate configurations in the "configurations" object.

For example, the "serve" target for a newly generated app has a predefined alternate configuration named "production".

You can define new targets and their configuration options in the "architect" section of the angular.json file. If you do so, you can run them from the command line using the ng run command. Execute the command using the following format.

ng run project:target[:configuration]