Why?

• ⚖️ Built-in License selector No need to worry about license things.
• 🎩 Template engine You can use template strings in text files, file names, and folder names.
• 💄 Highly customizable Can change caveat text, add extra command-line options.

Table of contents

• Quick Start
  • 1. Bootstrap your project
  • 2. Add and edit template files
  • 3. Build the app (TypeScript only)
  • 4. Publish package to npm
  • 5. PROFIT
• Template
  • Advanced: Multiple templates
  • Helper functions
    • upper
    • lower
    • capital
    • camel
    • snake
    • kebab
    • space
    • uuid
• Config
  • templateRoot (required)
  • modifyName (default: undefined)
  • extra (default: undefined)
  • defaultDescription (default: description)
  • defaultAuthor (default: user.name in ~/.gitconfig otherwise Your name)
  • defaultEmail (default: user.email in ~/.gitconfig otherwise Your email)
  • defaultTemplate (default: default)
  • defaultLicense (default: MIT)
  • defaultPackageManager (default: undefined)
  • promptForDescription (default: true)
  • promptForAuthor (default: true)
  • promptForEmail (default: true)
  • promptForTemplate (default: false)
  • promptForLicense (default: true)
  • promptForPackageManager (default: false)
  • skipGitInit (default: false)
  • skipNpmInstall (default: false)
  • after (default: undefined)
  • caveat (default: undefined)
  • AfterHookOptions
• Showcase
• Contribution
  • Contributors ✨

Quick Start

Let's create create-greet package in five steps.

1. Bootstrap your project

npx create-create-app greet  # simplest route
npm init create-app greet    # requires npm 6+
yarn create create-app greet # requires Yarn 0.25+

You will then be asked about your project.

2. Add and edit template files

cd create-greet

Then you can see the templates/default folder where the actual template files go.

Note that .gitignore files should be named gitignore to avoid being ignored on publishing.

3. Build the app (TypeScript only)

Run npm run build or yarn build to transpile TypeScript code into JavaScript. If you chose the default template, this step is not necessary.

4. Publish package to npm

Run npm publish or yarn publish to publish your create-greet app to npm.

5. PROFIT

npx create-greet ohayo
npm init greet ohayo
yarn create greet ohayo

Template

Edit files inside templates/default. Every file name, directory name, and a text file will be processed through Handlebars template engine to replace all template strings with the respective value.

Built-in variables are:

• {{name}} package name (e.g. ohayo)
• {{description}} package description
• {{author}} author name (e.g. John Doe)
• {{email}} author email (e.g. [email protected])
• {{contact}} author name formatted with {{name}} <{{email}}>. If email is missing, simply {{name}}
• {{license}} package license (e.g. MIT)
• {{year}} current year (e.g. 2021)

Advanced: Multiple templates

Creates a new directory in the location defined by templateRoot. It can be accessed via --template flag (e.g. create-something <name> --template <template>). You might want to set promptForTemplate to true to explicitly ask the user to choose a template during the initialization phase. If promptForTemplate is false, which is the default behavior, default template will be used unless the user explicitly selects a template via --template cli flag.

Helper functions

In the following example, we assume that the variable name is create-react-app.

upper

Convert text to UPPERCASE.

{{upper name}} becomes CREATE-REACT-APP.

lower

Convert text to lowercase.

{{lower name}} becomes create-react-app.

capital

Convert text to CapitalCase.

• {{capital name}} becomes CreateReactApp
• {{capital name space=true}} becomes Create React App.

camel

Convert text to camelCase.

{{camel name}} becomes createReactApp.

snake

Convert text to snake_case.

{{snake name}} becomes create_react_app.

kebab

Convert text to kebab-case.

{{kebab name}} becomes create-react-app.

space

Replace all word separators with single space.

{{space name}} becomes create react app

uuid

Generates unique UUID string.

{{uuid}} // => a5df7100-da46-47a6-907e-afe861f48b39
{{upper (uuid)}} // => A5DF7100-DA46-47A6-907E-AFE861F48B39

Config

The app configuration can be found in src/cli.js (or src/cli.ts if you choose the typescript template).

import { resolve } from 'path';
import { create } from 'create-create-app';

create('create-greet', {
  templateRoot: resolve(__dirname, '..', 'templates'),
  extra: {
    language: {
      type: 'input',
      describe: 'greeting language',
      default: 'en',
      prompt: 'if-no-arg',
    },
  },
  modifyName: (name) => `package-prefix-${name}`,
  after: async ({ installNpmPackage }) => {
    console.log('Installing additional packages');
    await installNpmPackage('chalk');
  },
  caveat: `Your app has been created successfully!`,
});

templateRoot (required)

templateRoot is set to path.resolve(__dirname, '../templates'). You can change this to any location you like.

modifyName (default: undefined)

(name: string) => string | Promise<string>

Modify name property.

{
  modifyName: (name) => (name.startsWith('create-') ? name : `create-${name}`);
}

extra (default: undefined)

object | undefined

Additional questions can be defined. These options will be available as CLI flags, interactive questions, and template strings. In the example above, --language flag and the {{language}} template string will be enabled in the app.

All possible options can be found in the yargs-interactive documentation.

defaultDescription (default: description)

Default value for a package description.

defaultAuthor (default: user.name in ~/.gitconfig otherwise Your name)

Default value for a package author.

defaultEmail (default: user.email in ~/.gitconfig otherwise Your email)

Default value for a package author email.

defaultTemplate (default: default)

Default value for a template.

defaultLicense (default: MIT)

Default value for license.

defaultPackageManager (default: undefined)

Default value for package manager. npm, yarn and pnpm are available. undefined to auto detect package manager.

promptForDescription (default: true)

Interactively asks users for a package description.

promptForAuthor (default: true)

Interactively asks users for a package author.

promptForEmail (default: true)

Interactively asks users for a package author email.

promptForTemplate (default: false)

Interactively asks users to select a template. If there are no multiple templates in the templates directory, it won't display a prompt anyways.

Even if promptForTemplate is set to false, users can still specify a template via a command line flag --template <template>.

create-something <name> --template <template>

promptForLicense (default: true)

Interactively asks users for a package license.

promptForPackageManager (default: false)

Interactively asks users for a package manager to use for installing packages from npm.

skipGitInit (default: false)

Skip initializing a git repository at a creation time.

skipNpmInstall (default: false)

Skip installing package dependencies at a creation time.

after (default: undefined)

(options: AfterHookOptions) => void

Define after-hook script to be executed right after the initialization process.

caveat (default: undefined)

string | ((options: AfterHookOptions) => string | void) | undefined

The caveat message will be shown after the entire process is completed.

create('create-greet', {
  caveat: 'Happy coding!',
});

create('create-greet', {
  caveat: ({ answers }) => `Run -> cd ${answers.name} && make`,
});

create('create-greet', {
  extra: {
    plugin: {
      type: 'input',
      describe: 'plugin to be used in your project',
      default: 'some-plugin',
      prompt: 'if-no-arg',
    },
  },
  after: async ({ installNpmPackage, answers }) => {
    const plugin = answers.plugin;
    console.log(`Installing additional package: ${plugin}`);
    await installNpmPackage(plugin);
  },
  caveat: ({ packageDir }) => {
    console.log('Next step:');
    console.log(`cd ${packageDir} && npm start`);
  },
});

AfterHookOptions

{
  // variables
  packageDir: string; // e.g. "/path/to/ohayo"
  templateDir: string; // e.g. "/path/to/create-greet/templates/default"
  year: number; // e.g. 2020
  answers: {
    name: string; // package name passed through `modifyName`
    description: string; // description
    author: string; // e.g. "John Doe"
    email: string; // e.g. "[email protected]"
    contact: string; // e.g. "John Doe <[email protected]>"
    license: string; // e.g. "MIT"
    [key: string]: string | number | boolean | any[]; // any values defined in the `extra` field.
  };

  // helper functions
  run: (command: string, options?: CommonOptions<string>) => ExecaChildProcess<string>; // execute shell commands in the package dir
  installNpmPackage: (packageName: string | [string], isDev?: boolean) => Promise<void>; // install npm package. uses package manager specified by --node-pm CLI param (default: auto-detect)
}

Showcase

List of amazing projects built with create-create-app.

• create-create-app - Yes, create-create-app uses create-create-app itself to generate create-<app> template!
• create-book - Fast & frictionless book template generator.
• create-vivliostyle-theme - Create Vivliostyle theme at ease.
• create-alfred-workflow - Create Alfred Workflow.
• create-catalyst - NPM create-app command for scaffolding a new Web Components project with GitHub's Catalyst.
• create-lit - Create simple-starter-kit lit applications.
• create-vscode-extension - Create Visual Studio Code extensions in one command
• create-express-app - Set up a modern express app by running one command.
• tsnt - 🚀An ESM node package template with ESLint, Prettier & TypeScript built in. Powered by esbuild.
• create-strawberry - npm template initializer for strawberry.js

Missing your project? Send a PR :)

Contribution

PRs are always welcomed.

Contributors ✨

Thanks goes to these wonderful people (emoji key):

This project follows the all-contributors specification. Contributions of any kind welcome!