create-helper
A helper to create your own create-something app
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About The Project
A helper to create your own create-something
app. Inspired by create-initializer.
Installation
npm i @beuluis/create-helper
Unstable installation
The next
dist-tag is kept in sync with the latest commit on main. So this contains always the latest changes but is highly unstable.
npm i @beuluis/create-helper@next
Usage
This pack is meant to be used with the npm init which runs the main bin of a pack when provided as parameter.
Use @beuluis/create-something or
-
Create a new create-something
pack.
-
Create a bin script in the desired destination. (Make sure to set main and bin)
-
Call the create
helper function and configure it.
-
Publish your pack. The pack name has to be prefixed with create-
for npm create
to work.
-
Run
npm create @scope/your-pack <create_path>
npx @scope/create-your-pack <create_path>
Functions
Create helper function
Create helper function accepts CreateOptions as parameter.
Example:
#!/usr/bin/node
import { resolve } from 'path';
import { create } from '@beuluis/create-helper';
import autocomplete, { AutocompleteQuestionOptions } from 'inquirer-autocomplete-prompt';
declare module 'inquirer' {
interface QuestionMap<T> {
autocomplete: AutocompleteQuestionOptions<T>;
}
}
const fetchTotallyDynamicReactVersion = () => '1.0.0';
create({
templatesDirectory: resolve(__dirname, 'templates'),
templatesPrefix: 'test-',
defaultTemplate: 'test',
partials: resolve(__dirname, 'templates', 'partials'),
layouts: resolve(__dirname, 'templates', 'layouts'),
argumentAnswerParsing: toParseAnswerArguments => {
const result = toParseAnswerArguments;
if ('isEarthling' in result) {
result.isEarthling = Boolean(result.isEarthling);
}
return result;
},
setupInteractiveUI: (engine, buildInQuestions) => {
engine.registerPrompt('autocomplete', autocomplete);
engine.registerQuestion({
type: 'input',
message: 'Message was overridden?',
name: 'name',
});
engine.registerQuestions([
buildInQuestions.name,
buildInQuestions.description,
buildInQuestions.license,
{
type: 'input',
message: 'World?',
name: 'hello',
},
{
type: 'autocomplete',
name: 'from',
message: 'Select a state to travel from',
source: (answersSoFar, input) => myApi.searchStates(input),
},
{
type: 'confirm',
name: 'isEarthling',
message: 'Are you from earth?',
},
]);
},
setupTemplateEngine: engine => {
engine.registerFilter('upper', v => v.toUpperCase());
engine.registerTag('upper', myTag);
},
beforeCreationHook: async ({ getBeforeHookHelper, answers }) => {
console.log(`I run before ${answers.template} scaffold being created.`);
const helper = getBeforeHookHelper();
await helper.runCommand('echo', ['hello world']);
return { ...answers, reactVersion: fetchTotallyDynamicReactVersion() };
},
afterCreationHook: async ({ getAfterHookHelper, answers }) => {
console.log(`${answers.name} is a perfect name for a new project!`);
const helper = getAfterHookHelper();
await helper.runCommand('echo', ['hello world']);
},
});
Template variable
A template
variable is always injected into the answers hash to use it in answer validation or when conditions.
engine.registerQuestions([
{
type: 'input',
message: 'World?',
name: 'hello',
when: ({ template }) => template === 'abc',
},
]);
setupInteractiveUI
Setup function that exposes the internal used helper instance and build in questions for modifications/usage. Gets UIHelper and a indexed object of the inquire question type as parameter. See build in questions
setupTemplateEngine
Setup function that exposes the internal used helper instance for modifications. Gets TemplateHelper as parameter
afterCreationHook
Hook run after all files are copied. Gets AfterCreationHookObject as parameter
argumentAnswerParsing
Function to parse/modify argument from the command line. Good for mapping falsy value to JS false.
beforeCreationHook
Hook run before all files are copied. Gets BeforeCreationHookObject as parameter and returns new answerers to be used
void create({
argumentAnswerParsing: toParseAnswerArguments => {
const result = toParseAnswerArguments;
if ('isEarthling' in result) {
result.isEarthling = Boolean(result.isEarthling);
}
return result;
},
});
npm create something --isEarthling
Results in { isEarthling: true }
.
npm create something --isEarthling 0
Results in { isEarthling: false }
.
We need to do enable an explicit true/false like that since simply not providing --isEarthling
is confusion the library.
There is no way to tell if you simply want it to be traded as false
or not answered to trigger the prompting.
getAfterHookHelper
Get function to get a helper to run predefined actions. Gets AfterCreationHookOptions as parameter and returns AfterHookHelper
getBeforeHookHelper
Get function to get a helper to run predefined actions. Returns HookHelper
Interfaces
CreateOptions
-
templatesDirectory
- Directory for template lookup
-
templatesPrefix
- Prefix for template lookup. Can be useful if you want to mix other directories in the template directory.
-
defaultTemplate
- Default template without the prefix.
-
templateIgnorePattern
- Regex patterns to ignore while templating files with liquidjs. Default: [/\.(gif|jpe?g|tiff?|png|webp|bmp)$/u]
-
partials
- Partials directory. See partials-and-layouts
-
layouts
- layouts directory. See partials-and-layouts
-
setupInteractiveUI
- Exposed the internal used interactive UI engine helper and build in questions for modifications/usage. See setupInteractiveUI and build in questions.
-
setupTemplateEngine
- Exposed the internal used template engine helper for modifications. See setupTemplateEngine
-
afterCreationHook
- Hook run after all files are copied. See afterCreationHook
-
argumentAnswerParsing
- Function to parse/modify argument from the command line. Good for mapping falsy value to JS false.
-
beforeCreationHook
- Hook run before all files are copied. See beforeCreationHook
-
modifyCreatePath
- Dangerous option: Gets the user selected create path to modify. Returned string will be used as new create path. Can be useful for temp directories or already full paths in certain situations
UIHelper
TemplateHelper
AfterCreationHookOptions
packageManager
- Packagemanager to be used for actions
HookHelperObject
-
resolvedCreatePath
- Used create path
-
resolvedTemplateDirectory
- Used template directory
-
createOptions
- Used create options. See CreateOptions
-
answers
- All given answers
getAfterHookHelper
- Get function to configure the after hook helper and to run predefined actions. See getAfterHookHelper
BeforeCreationHookObject extends HookHelperObject
getBeforeHookHelper
- Get function to configure the before hook helper and to run predefined actions. See getBeforeHookHelper
AfterHookHelper extends HookHelper
HookHelper
runCommand
- runs a command with the new project root ad cwd.
Templating
For templating this pack internally use liquidjs.
Build in questions
-
name
- Name for the new project
-
description
- Description of the new project
-
license
- License of the new project
Mix use
The Create helper function uses minimist to parse provided arguments.
Those can be used to answer questions via arguments.
Select template
Templates are provided via arguments: --template <template_name>
will do the trick.
If nothing is provided that helper function wil, fallback to the defined default template
Local testing
npm run test-cli
It will create a project from test templates
Tips & Tricks
-
File permissions are preserved
-
The template engine is also run for file and directory names
-
NPM renames .gitignore
to .npmignore
during publish. To prevent this you can use echo in the filename: {% echo '.gitignore' %}
-
NPM processed every package.json
during publish and applied the files
filter. To prevent this you can use echo in the filename: {% echo 'package' %}.json
and add the $schema
to the file for 'linting':
{
"$schema": "https://json.schemastore.org/package.json"
}
-
Seeing something like Unexpected error occurred during the processing of test.png
? This file cannot be parsed by liquidjs. Try to adapt the templateIgnorePattern
to ignore those files.
Contributing
Contributions are what make the open source community such an amazing place to learn, inspire, and create. Any contributions you make are greatly appreciated.
- Fork the Project
- Create your Feature Branch (
git checkout -b feature/AmazingFeature
) - Commit your Changes (
git commit -m 'Add some AmazingFeature'
) - Push to the Branch (
git push origin feature/AmazingFeature
) - Open a Pull Request
Contact
Luis Beu - me@luisbeu.de