@politico/interactive-templates

Easy-bake templates from existing projects, stored on GitHub.

Why this?

At POLITICO, we're always looking for projects we can replicate.

You might have used Yeoman, npm scripts or something else in the past to help create the boilerplate code similar projects start from. We have, too. These are powerful templating tools, but in some cases they're overkill, and the overhead of building generators means only a few members of our team usually create them.

POLITICO interactive templates, or PIT, is designed to make creating templates easy for anyone. It also fits seamlessly in our GitHub-based workflow.

With PIT, anyone can easily create a reusable codebase and a simple interface for jump-starting new projects from old ones. PIT let's us quickly create templates at exactly the point where reuse makes sense. It's a Goldilocks tool for easy replication on our team.

How it works

PIT is a local CLI tool for scaffolding a new project directory from a template hosted on GitHub.

You can turn any existing project hosted on GitHub into a PIT template by simply adding a .pitrc configuration file.

Once a project is templatized, you register it with your PIT CLI and start using it.

You can customize the CLI for any project by adding Inquire.js prompts and then use your user's answers to those questions to customize template files with EJS template rendering.

Because your templates are always pulled down from GitHub, you can be sure your users always have the latest version whenever they start a new project.

Quick start

1. Export a GitHub personal access with the repo scope token as GITHUB_TOKEN. You can learn more about acquiring a GitHub access token here.

$ export GITHUB_TOKEN = [PERSONAL_ACCESS_TOKEN_HERE]

2. Install:

$ npm install -g @politico/interactive-templates

3. Register a PIT-configured template hosted on GitHub by using the HTTPS URL for the repo:

$ pit register GIT_URL_HERE

4. To start a new project, make an empty directory:

$ mkdir MY_PROJECT_NAME
$ cd MY_PROJECT_NAME

5. Then run PIT's new project command:

$ pit new

6. Select your project template, answer any prompts and then BUILD! 🚀

Read more

• Creating new PIT templates
• .pitrc file specification
• Developing this app