Angular CLI 6+

I’ve updated my own projects so I figured I can now update this answer too.

You’ll now put the path to your key and certificate in your angular.json file as follows:

{
   "$schema": "./node_modules/@angular/cli/lib/config/schema.json",
   "projects": {
       "<PROJECT-NAME>": {
           "architect": {
               "serve: {
                   "options": {
                       "sslKey": "<relative path from angular.json>/server.key",
                       "sslCert": "<relative path from angular.json>/server.crt",
                       ...
                   }, ...
               }, ...
           }, ...
       }, ...
   }, ...
}

And then you can run:

ng serve --ssl

If you want SSL on by default then you should add a “ssl”: true, option immediately below the sslKey and sslCert.

You can find the angular.json schema at the Angular CLI documentation.

Old answer for Angular CLI 1.0.0+.

Angular-CLI now works with the SSL options. Like you’ve noted, you can manually select which key and cert you’d like to use with the command:

ng serve --ssl --ssl-key <key-path> --ssl-cert <cert-path>

If you’d like to set a default path for your key and cert then you can go into your .angular-cli.json file adjust the Defaults section accordingly:

{
    "$schema": "./node_modules/@angular/cli/lib/config/schema.json",
    "defaults": {
        "serve": {
            "sslKey": "<relative path from .angular-cli.json>/server.key",
            "sslCert": "<relative path from .angular-cli.json>/server.crt",
            ...
        }, ...
    }, ...
}

And then you can run:

ng serve --ssl

If you want SSL on by default then you should add a “ssl”: true, option immediately below the sslKey and sslCert.