kickstart

A CLI tool to easily get a new project up and running by using pre-made templates. This is a slightly more powerful version of an equivalent tool in Python, cookiecutter. It is an alternative to NodeJS projects such as Yeoman or Slush.

Installation

kickstart is available only through crates.io:

$ cargo install kickstart

Or as a pre-built binary on the Releases page.

Run kickstart --help for a full listing of the available commands and their flags/options.

Features

• Cross-platform: Windows, Mac and Linux supported
• Single binary: no need to install a virtualenv or anything else
• Simple to use
• Directory names and filenames can be templated: {{ repo_name }}/{{author}}.md is a valid path
• All templating done through Tera - a template engine inspired by Jinja2
• Choose your own adventure: it supports conditional questions based on previous answers
• It can load templates from a local directory or from a Git repository
• It has conditional cleanup to not let irrelevant files in the output directory after generation
• Templates can be made for any kind of projects/languages
• Case conversion filters, e.g. camelCase to CamelCase

The main drawback compared to cookiecutter is the lack of hook scripts support, which can be mitigated a bit by the conditional cleanup.

Lastly, since Windows does not allow | in file paths, you may use a tera built-in filter by using the $$ separator instead.

Note that, in file templates, you should keep using | for filtering, as the $$ syntax is only for files and directories. Keep in mind the characters () are not allowed on Windows so do not use filter parameters if you want to be cross-platform.

Try it out

# From the root of this repo
$ kickstart examples/super-basic
$ kickstart examples/complex -o Hello
# Anywhere
$ kickstart https://github.com/Keats/kickstart -s examples/super-basic
$ kickstart https://github.com/Keats/kickstart-sample -o sample

Creating your own template

Creating a template is fairly simple: create files and then just add a template.toml in the root folder. Here is a description of all the fields available in it:

# Required, name of the template
name = "Django"
# Optional, longer form description
description = "A fully-featured Django template"
# Required, the version of the kickstart schema, currently only `1` is used
kickstart_version = 1
# Optional, the URL of the template
url = "https://google.com"
# Optional, a list of authors for this template
authors = [

]
# Optional, a list of keywords for this template
keywords = [

]
# Optional, those files will NOT be copied over when generating the template
# Use it to remove template-specific like its CI or its README/docs
ignore = [
    "README.md",
    "CONTRIBUTING.md",
    ".travis.yml",
    "docs",
]
# If this is set, kickstart will use this directory as a base for the template instead of
# the root directory. This is useful when your template has its own documentation/CI/etc and you don't want
# to ignore it.
directory = "some-directory"
# Optional, a list of patterns. All files matching one of the patterns will
# be copied over without going through Tera.
# Use it for files that contain syntax similar to Tera for example
copy_without_render = [
    "*.html",
]

# Optional, a list of cleanup actions to do.
# All paths listed will be deleted if the `name` has the value `value` after
# the questions have been answered and the project generated.
cleanup = [
    { name = "spa", value = true, paths = ["{{ project_name }}/templates/"]},
    { name = "auth_method", value = "none", paths = ["{{ project_name }}/docs/auth.md"]},
]

# A list of variables, the schema is explained in detail below
[[variables]]
name = "project_name"
default = "my-project"
prompt = "What is the name of this project?"
validation = "^([a-zA-Z][a-zA-Z0-9_-]+)$"

[[variables]]
name = "database"
default = "postgres"
prompt = "Which database do you want to use?"
choices = ["postgres", "mysql", "sqlite"]

[[variables]]
name = "pg_version"
default = "10.4"
prompt = "Which version of Postgres?"
choices =  [
    "10.4",
    "10.3",
    "10.2",
    "10.1",
    "9.6",
    "9.5",
    "9.4",
    "9.3",
]
only_if = { name = "database", value = "postgres" }

[[variables]]
name = "auth_method"
default = "jwt"
prompt = "How are users going to be authenticated?"
choices = ["jwt", "sessions", "none"]

[[variables]]
name = "sentry"
default = true
prompt = "Do you want to add Sentry integration?"

[[variables]]
name = "spa"
default = false
prompt = "Is the frontend a SPA?"

[[variables]]
name = "js_framework"
default = "React"
prompt = "Which JS framework do you want to setup?"
choices =  [
    "React",
    "Angular",
    "Vue",
    "None",
]
only_if = { name = "spa", value = true }

[[variables]]
name = "typescript"
default = true
prompt = "Do you want to use TypeScript?"
only_if = { name = "spa", value = true }

A variable has the following required fields:

• name: the name of the variable in Tera context
• default: the default value for that question, kickstart uses that to deduce the type of that value (only string, bool and integer are currently supported)
• prompt: the text to display to the user

And three more optional fields:

• choices: a list of potential values, kickstart will make the user pick one
• only_if: this question will only be asked if the variable name has the value value
• validation: a Regex pattern to check when getting a string value

List of templates

• Rust CLI application

Case Conversion Filters

Case conversion filters are provided (via heck):

• upper_camel_case: UpperCamelCase
• camel_case: lowerCamelCase
• snake_case: snake_case
• kebab_case: kebab-case
• shouty_snake_case: SHOUTY_SNAKE_CASE
• title_case: Title Case
• shouty_kebab_case: SHOUTY-KEBAB-CASE

You can use these like any other filter, e.g. {{variable_name | camel_case}}.

Changelog

0.4.0 (2023-08-02)

• Add case conversion filter
• Update dependencies

0.3.0 (2021-07-10)

• Update dependencies

0.2.1 (2020-02-07)

• Allow using $$ for filters in filenames/directories

0.2.0 (2020-01-09)

• Update all dependencies
• Add the directory field to change the template directory away from the current one
• VCS files are not automatically ignored anymore

0.1.8 (2018-09-30)

• Allow loading templates from a subdirectory

0.1.7 (2018-08-09)

• Work with Git aliases
• The crate now works as a library as well as a binary

0.1.6 (2018-08-02)

• Add a --no-input flag to the main command to generate a template from defaults
• Validate that a template only uses allowed TOML types (String, integer and boolean) in validate command
• Better question UI

0.1.5 (2018-07-31)

• Fix git clone command

0.1.4 (2018-07-31)

• Fix missing error display impl
• Fix TOML error not showing up
• Fix multi-layered questions being asked when they shouldn't

0.1.3 (2018-07-31)

• Add pattern to match in the question when there is on

0.1.2 (2018-07-31)

• Add optional validation field to validate a string against a regex
• Add colours and boldness to CLI
• Use git command rather than git2 crate to avoid some build issues
• Add cleanup field to template definition for post-generation cleanup
• Add validate command to diagnose errors in a template.toml file