Scaf-folder

"Hmm, I need to update my basic scaffold so that I can easily use that new code feature"

"Let me just pull up my Yeoman configuration and create a new generator that handles it"

"Why is this so complicated that it's unfamiliar? Didn't I just do this only two months ago???

"Why am I managing every template manually?"

"Let me take a quick look at the documentation."

"How many different pages do I need to read to remember this?"

Why Scaf-folder?

I don't want to knock Yeoman. It's been great! It was a critical tool for a long time for quickly generating application stubs, but we're in an era where every framework has a one-line application generator, and no one has time to maintain complex configurations. And those application generators only get you so far, so something has to give.

Enter Scaf-folder

You need to follow a very basic application structure for the main composer in your application, but simple design is the key to ease-of-use.

Getting Started

The current version of Scaf-folder assumes it's installed globally (npm install -g scaffolder), and so are your composers. A future version will be installable locally, and allow local composer-lookup.

Install Scaf-folder

npm install -g scaf-folder

Create a Composer/Composer Group

Composer groups are more than one composer that work together and can call each other successively

Basic structure

- My Composer Folder
  |
  - composers
  | |
  | - main
  |   |
  |   composer.js
  |   |
  |   - templates
  |     |
  |     .eslintrc.js
  |     |
  |     .gitignore
  |     |
  |     package.json
  |
  package.json

The composer named My Composer Folder contains a subdirectory named composers. This structure (./composers/main/composer.js) is required to identify a composer. Other related composers will also be in the ./composers/ subdirectory.

composer.js

A composer must inherit from the Scaf-folder RootComposer class, and export that inherited class as Composer. The composer must pass __dirname into the RootComposer constructor.

The first composer in a group that needs to write template files must set the installDestination property on configuration. See below.

This basic class can look as simple as follows, and will write .eslintrc.js, .gitignore, and package.json to a New App directory created below your command line current directory:

import * as path from "path";
import { RootComposers } from "scaffolder";

class MainComposer extends RootComposers {
    constructor() {
        super(__dirname);
    }

    SetConfiguration({ answers, configuration }) {
        // Your composers will probably prompt the user for the name of the application, and use that as the install location
        configuration.installDestination = path.join(process.cwd(), "New App");
    }
}

export {
    MainComposer as Composer,
};

templates

All templates are written to the file system. Templates support a replacement token system: Wrap your tokens in three dollar signs: $$$mytoken$$$. Tokens automatically replace for answers, and configuration objects. Tokens support a few manipulations.

{
    "name": "$$$answers.main.appName$$$",
    "author": "$$$answers.main.author/default:John Smith<jsmith@example.com>$$$"
}

Replacement manipulations