Get Started

Make sure you have Node.js installed. Let’s try dumberjs skeleton to scaffold a front-end SPA project.

npx makes dumberjs

makes dumberjs

You will be prompted to provide a project name and few selections to generate a front-end project using Aurelia, React, or Vue framework.

That’s the basic command to use “makes”, no installation required, no skeleton (generator) installation required.

You can also provide project name to the command line. If you didn’t provide the project name, “makes” will prompt you for it.

npx makes dumberjs my-app

Use hosted skeleton repo

The above dumberjs skeleton is provided by a GitHub repository dumberjs/new.

“makes” supports Git repo short-cuts for GitHub/Bitbucket/GitLab hosted public repos. For example:

npx makes username/repo
npx makes github:username/repo
npx makes bitbucket:username/repo
npx makes gitlab:username/repo

You can also target branche/tag/commit, this is very common for skeleton developer:

npx makes username/repo#branch
npx makes bitbucket:username/repo#tag
npx makes gitlab:username/repo#commit-hash

“makes” also supports a conventional repo name called “new”, the previous example npx makes dumberjs is treated as npx makes dumberjs/new. This convention is great for any organisation or individual to provide a “makes” skeleton.

npx makes username # same as: npx makes username/new
npx makes github:username # same as: npx makes github:username/new
npx makes bitbucket:username # same as: npx makes bitbucket:username/new
npx makes gitlab:username # same as: npx makes gitlab:username/new

Private skeleton repo is supported, as long as you have proper SSH public key setup.

GitHub

Bitbucket

GitLab

Use local skeleton folder

For developer, or just for personal usage, you can use a local folder as the skeleton provider. You have to use a relative path (start with ./ or ../) or absolute path (start with / or ~/ or C:\).

npx makes ./local/folder
npx makes ../../local/folder
npx makes ~/some/user/folder
npx makes /home/user/folder

Note ~/ is expanded by shell into full path before sending to “makes”. “makes” sees /some/full/path rather than ~/.

Define a skeleton

“makes” is designed to be super easy for skeleton authors. You can start with a local folder or a repo on GitHub.