create-node-craft

Create Node Craft 🚀

Build modern Node.js backends without the headache.

create-node-craft is a simple and flexible CLI tool that bootstraps a clean, production-ready Node.js backend in seconds.
It avoids heavy configuration, strict version locking, and opinionated tooling—so you can focus on writing application logic.

✨ Key Highlights

• Zero configuration setup
• Interactive & Smart dependency installer
• Best-effort installation (skips problematic libs instead of crashing)
• Clean and minimal project structure
• Beginner-friendly and production-ready
• Supports Node.js v18+

🚀 Quick Start

Create a New App

npx create-node-craft my-app
cd my-app
npm run dev

Use Current Folder Name

If you don’t provide a project name, the CLI will use the current folder name automatically:

npx create-node-craft

🧭 CLI Workflow

When you run the command, the CLI performs the following steps:

• 📁 Project Name: Determines name from argument or folder.
• ❓ Description: Asks if you want to add a project description.
• 📄 Template: Copies a fresh Node.js backend template.
• 📦 Dependencies: Asks for confirmation and performs best-effort installation.
  (If a library fails due to system compatibility, it skips it and continues).
• 🎉 Done: Your project is ready!

⏭️ Skip Dependency Installation

If you want to handle everything yourself:

npx create-node-craft my-app --skip-install

📦 Robust Dependency Installation

The CLI tries to install the latest supported versions using a non-blocking approach. If a package (like bcrypt) requires system-level build tools you don't have, the CLI will skip it and notify you, rather than letting the whole setup fail.

Core Architecture

• express – Web framework
• mongoose – MongoDB object modeling
• cors & dotenv – Security and environment management
• jsonwebtoken & bcrypt – Authentication core
• joi – Schema validation

Development

• nodemon – Auto server reload

This approach ensures maximum compatibility across different systems and Node.js versions.

📁 Generated Project Structure

my-app/
├── src/
├── index.js
├── .env.example
├── package.json
└── node_modules/   (if dependencies are installed)

The structure is intentionally minimal so you can extend it based on your project needs.

🏗 Architecture Philosophy

• Minimal Express.js setup
• Easy to scale and customize
• No forced patterns or frameworks
• Cloud-ready and platform-agnostic
• Inspired by Twelve-Factor App principles

☁️ Deployment Ready

Projects generated with create-node-craft work seamlessly with:

• Render
• Railway
• Heroku
• DigitalOcean
• AWS / VPS

Standard production commands:

npm install
npm start

🔮 Roadmap

Planned and upcoming features:

• TypeScript support (--typescript)
• Authentication starter (--auth)
• Database options (--postgres, --mysql)
• Docker support
• pnpm / yarn auto-detection
• Optional project presets

🤝 Contributing

Contributions, issues, and feature requests are welcome.
Feel free to open an issue or submit a pull request.

📄 License

ISC