create-initializer

✨ Create Initializer

Create your own `create-something` app.

NOTE

This is a forked and modified version of create-create-app. Modifications may be differ from the initial design of the original project so this will not be merged to the upstream and will be made into a seperate package.

Why?

• ⚖️ Built-in License selector No need to manually add license things.
• 🎩 Template engine Mustache will do things all.
• 💄 Highly customizable Changable caveat text, and add extra cli options.

Table of contents

• Quick Start
  • 1. npm create initializer
  • 2. Edit templates
    • TypeScript
  • 3. Publish package to npm
  • 4. PROFIT!
• Template
  • Adding a template
  • Helper functions
    • upper
    • lower
    • capital
    • camel
    • snake
    • kebab
    • space
    • uuid
• Config
  • templateRoot (required)
  • templatePrefix (default: <empty string>)
  • promptForTemplate (default: false)
  • defaultTemplate (default: default)
  • extra (default: undefined)
  • modifyName (default: undefined)
  • after (default: undefined)
  • caveat (default: undefined)
  • AfterHookOptions
• Contribution
  • Contributors ✨

Quick Start

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

1. npm create initializer

npm create initializer greet

or if you use yarn, then run yarn create initializer greet

2. Edit templates

cd create-greet and edit files inside templates/default.

TypeScript

Run npm run build or yarn build to transpile TypeScript code into JavaScript.

3. Publish package to npm

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

4. PROFIT!

npm create greet ohayo

Template

Edit files inside templates/default. File names, directory names, and text files will be processed through Handlebars template engine to replace all template strings with respective value.

Built-in variables are:

• {{name}} package name
• {{description}} package description
• {{author}} author name
• {{email}} author email
• {{contact}} author name formatted with {{name}} <{{email}}> if email given, otherwise {{name}}
• {{license}} package license (e.g. MIT)
• {{year}} current year (e.g. 2020)

Adding a template

Add new directory to the location defined in templateRoot; it will be accessible in --template flag (e.g. create-something <name> --template <template>). Besides, set promptForTemplate true to explicitly ask users to pick a template in initialization phase, otherwise default will be used.

Helper functions

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

upper

Output text in UPPERCASE.

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

lower

Output text in lowercase.

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

capital

Output text in CapitalCase.

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

camel

Output text in camelCase.

{{camel name}} becomes createReactApp.

snake

Output text in snake_case.

{{snake name}} becomes create_react_app.

kebab

Output text in 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

You can find the app config in src/cli.js (or src/cli.ts if you chose typescript template).

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

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

templateRoot (required)

templateRoot set to path.resolve(__dirname, '../templates'). You can change it to whereever you want.

templatePrefix (default: <empty string>)

Set the prefix for template folder. Template prefix will be removed when displaying choices for the template.

For example: we have a template folder named template-awesome, we set templatePrefix to template-, then

create-something <name> --template awesome

will copy template-awesome to the destination dir.

promptForTemplate (default: false)

Ask users to choose a template to be used for initialization only if promptForTemplate is set true AND there's multiple templates found in templates/.

With promptForTemplate set false, users still can specify template via command-line flag --template:

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

defaultTemplate (default: default)

Set the default template choice. Works both when promptForTemplate is true or false.

extra (default: undefined)

object | undefined

Extra options passed to the app. These options will be accessible as a cli option, interactive question, and template string. In this case, --language cli option and {{language}} template string will be available.

You can find all possible options in yargs-interactive documentation.

modifyName (default: undefined)

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

Modify name property.

after (default: undefined)

(options: AfterHookOptions) => void

After hook script that runs after the initialization.

caveat (default: undefined)

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

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

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

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

create('create-greet', {
  caveat: async ({ packageDir, answers }) => {
    const { plugin } = answers;
    await execa('npm', ['install', '--prefix', packageDir, '-S', plugin]);
    console.log(`"${plugin}" has been added`);
  },
});

AfterHookOptions

{
  // variables
  packageDir: string;
  templateDir: string;
  year: number; // 2020
  answers: {
    name: string; // package name
    description: string; // description
    author: string; // John Doe
    email: string; // [e-mail]
    contact: string; // John Doe <[e-mail]>
    license: string; // MIT
    [key: string]: string | number | boolean | any[]; // any values defined in the `extra` field.
  };
  // functions
  run: (command: string, options?: CommonOptions<string>) => ExecaChildProcess<string>; // run shell command in the package dir
  installNpmPackage: (packageName: string) => Promise<void>; // use yarn if available
}

Contribution

PRs are always welcome!