create-create-app

Create your own `create-something` app.

Usage no npm install needed!

<script type="module">
  import createCreateApp from 'https://cdn.skypack.dev/create-create-app';
</script>

README

✨ Create Create App

Create your own `create-something` app.

screenshot

Why?

  • ⚖️ Built-in License chooser No need to worry about license thingy.
  • 🎩 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

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.

screenshot

2. Add and edit template files

cd create-greet

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

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

screenshot

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. john@example.com)
  • {{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: ({ installNpmPackage }) => 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.

promptForTemplate (default: false)

Interactively asks the user to select a template if and only if:

  1. promptForTemplate is set to true, and
  2. there are multiple templates in the templates directory.

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

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

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.

modifyName (default: undefined)

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

Modify name property.

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

after (default: undefined)

(options: AfterHookOptions) => void

Define after-hook script to be executed after initialization.

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',
    },
  },
  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; // 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. "john@example.com"
    contact: string; // e.g. "John Doe <john@example.com>"
    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) => Promise<void>; // install npm package. uses yarn if available
}

Showcase

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

Send a PR to add yours here!

Contribution

PRs are always welcome.

Contributors ✨

Thanks goes to these wonderful people (emoji key):


uetchy
💻 📖
Shinyu Murakami
💻
Masayoshi Takahashi
💻

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