cookiecutter 0.7.0

A command-line utility that creates projects from project templates, e.g. creating a Python package project from a Python package project template.

A command-line utility that creates projects from cookiecutters (project templates), e.g. creating a Python package project from a Python package project template.

• Documentation: http://cookiecutter.rtfd.org

• GitHub: https://github.com/audreyr/cookiecutter

• Free software: BSD license

• PyPI: https://pypi.python.org/pypi/cookiecutter

Features

Did someone say features?

• Cross-platform: Windows, Mac, and Linux are officially supported.

• Works with Python 2.6, 2.7, 3.3, and PyPy. (But you don’t have to know/write Python code to use Cookiecutter.)

• Project templates can be in any programming language or markup format: Python, JavaScript, Ruby, CoffeeScript, RST, Markdown, CSS, HTML, you name it. You can use multiple languages in the same project template.

• Simple command line usage:

  # Create project from the cookiecutter-pypackage.git repo template
  # You'll be prompted to enter values.
  # Then it'll create your Python package based on those values.
  $ cookiecutter https://github.com/audreyr/cookiecutter-pypackage.git

• Can also use it at the command line with a local template:

  # Create project from the local cookiecutter-pypackage/ template
  $ cookiecutter cookiecutter-pypackage/

• Or use it from Python:

  from cookiecutter.main import cookiecutter
  
  # Create project from the cookiecutter-pypackage/ template
  cookiecutter('cookiecutter-pypackage/')
  
  # Create project from the cookiecutter-pypackage.git repo template
  cookiecutter('https://github.com/audreyr/cookiecutter-pypackage.git')

• Directory names and filenames can be templated. For example:

  {{cookiecutter.repo_name}}/{{cookiecutter.repo_name}}/{{cookiecutter.repo_name}}.py

• Supports unlimited levels of directory nesting.

• 100% of templating is done with Jinja2. This includes file and directory names.

• Simply define your template variables in a cookiecutter.json file. For example:

  {
      "full_name": "Audrey Roy",
      "email": "[e-mail]",
      "project_name": "Complexity",
      "repo_name": "complexity",
      "project_short_description": "Refreshingly simple static site generator.",
      "release_date": "2013-07-10",
      "year": "2013",
      "version": "0.1.1"
  }

• If generating a project from a git repo template, you are prompted for input:

  • Prompts are the keys in cookiecutter.json.

  • Default responses are the values in cookiecutter.json.

  • Prompts are shown in order.

• Cross-platform support for ~/.cookiecutterrc files:

  default_context:
      full_name: "Audrey Roy"
      email: "[e-mail]"
      github_username: "audreyr"
  cookiecutters_dir: "~/.cookiecutters/"

• Cookiecutters (cloned Cookiecutter project templates) are put into ~/.cookiecutters/ by default, or cookiecutters_dir if specified.

• In addition to git repos, you can also use cookiecutters directly from Mercurial repos on Bitbucket.

• Default context: specify key/value pairs that you want used as defaults whenever you generate a project

• Pre- and post-generate hooks: Python or shell scripts to run before or after generating a project.

• Paths to local projects can be specified as absolute or relative.

• Projects are always generated to your current directory.

Available Cookiecutters

Here is a list of cookiecutters (aka Cookiecutter project templates) for you to use or fork.

Make your own, then submit a pull request adding yours to this list!

Python

• cookiecutter-pypackage: @audreyr’s ultimate Python package project template.

• cookiecutter-flask : A Flask template with Bootstrap 3, starter templates, and working user registration.

• cookiecutter-flask-env: A lucuma-flavored flask app template.

• cookiecutter-simple-django: A cookiecutter template for creating reusable Django projects quickly.

• cookiecutter-django: A bleeding edge Django project template with Bootstrap 3, customizable users app, starter templates, and working user registration.

• cookiecutter-djangopackage: A template designed to create reusable third-party PyPI friendly Django apps. Documentation is written in tutorial format.

• cookiecutter-openstack: A template for an OpenStack project.

• cookiecutter-docopt: A template for a Python command-line script that uses docopt for arguments parsing.

• cookiecutter-django-crud: A template to create a Django app with boilerplate CRUD around a model including a factory and tests.

C

• bootstrap.c: A template for simple projects written in C with autotools.

JS

• cookiecutter-jquery: A jQuery plugin project template based on jQuery Boilerplate.

• cookiecutter-jswidget: A project template for creating a generic front-end, non-jQuery JS widget packaged for multiple JS packaging systems.

• cookiecutter-component: A template for a Component JS package.

LaTeX/XeTeX

• pandoc-talk: A cookiecutter template for giving talks with pandoc and XeTeX.

HTML

• cookiecutter-complexity: A cookiecutter for a Complexity static site with Bootstrap 3.

Similar projects

• Paste has a create option that creates a skeleton project.

• Diecutter: an API service that will give you back a configuration file from a template and variables.

• Django’s startproject and startapp commands can take in a –template option.

• python-packager: Creates Python packages from its own template, with configurable options.

• Yeoman has a Rails-inspired generator system that provides scaffolding for apps.

• Pyramid’s pcreate command for creating Pyramid projects from scaffold templates.

• mr.bob is a filesystem template renderer, meant to deprecate tools such as paster and templer.

• grunt-init used to be built into Grunt and is now a standalone scaffolding tool to automate project creation.

• scaffolt consumes JSON generators with Handlebars support.

• init-skeleton clones or copies a repository, executes npm install and bower install and removes the .git directory.

Community

Stuck? Try one of the following:

• See the Troubleshooting page.

• You are strongly encouraged to file an issue about the problem, even if it’s just “I can’t get it to work on this cookiecutter” with a link to your cookiecutter. Don’t worry about naming/pinpointing the issue properly.

• Ask for help on Stack Overflow.

• Ask for help in #cookiecutter if you must (but please try one of the other options first, so that others can benefit from the discussion)

Development on Cookiecutter is community-driven:

• Huge thanks to all the contributors who have pitched in to help make Cookiecutter an even better tool.

• Everyone is invited to contribute. Read the contributing instructions, then get started.

Connect with other Cookiecutter contributors and users in IRC:

• #cookiecutter on irc.freenode.net (note: due to work and commitments, @audreyr might not always be available)

Encouragement is unbelievably motivating. If you want more work done on Cookiecutter, show support:

• Star Cookiecutter on GitHub.

• Please, please join the Cookiecutter Gittip community.

Got criticism or complaints?

• File an issue so that Cookiecutter can be improved. Be friendly and constructive about what could be better. Make detailed suggestions.

• Keep us in the loop so that we can help. For example, if you are discussing problems with Cookiecutter on a mailing list, file an issue where you link to the discussion thread and/or cc [e-mail] on the email.

• Be encouraging. A comment like “This function ought to be rewritten like this” is much more likely to result in action than a comment like “Eww, look how bad this function is.”

Waiting for a response to an issue/question?

• Be patient and persistent. All issues are on audreyr’s radar and will be considered thoughtfully, but due to the growing to-do list/free time ratio, it may take time for a response. If urgent, it’s fine to ping audreyr in the issue with a reminder.

• Ask others to comment, discuss, review, etc.

• Search the Cookiecutter repo for issues related to yours.

• Need a fix/feature/release/help urgently, and can’t wait? audreyr is available hourly for consultation or custom development.

History

0.7.0 (2013-11-09)

This is a release with significant improvements and changes. Please read through this list before you upgrade.

New features:

• Support for –checkout argument, thanks to @foobacca.

• Support for pre-generate and post-generate hooks, thanks to @raphigaziano. Hooks are Python or shell scripts that run before and/or after your project is generated.

• Support for absolute paths to cookiecutters, thanks to @krallin.

• Support for Mercurial version control system, thanks to @pokoli.

• When a cookiecutter contains invalid Jinja2 syntax, you get a better message that shows the location of the TemplateSyntaxError. Thanks to @benjixx.

• Can now prompt the user to enter values during generation from a local cookiecutter, thanks to @ThomasChiroux. This is now always the default behavior. Prompts can also be supressed with –no-input.

• Your cloned cookiecutters are stored by default in your ~/.cookiecutters/ directory (or Windows equivalent). The location is configurable. (This is a major change from the pre-0.7.0 behavior, where cloned cookiecutters were deleted at the end of project generation.) Thanks @raphigaziano.

• User config in a ~/.cookiecutterrc file, thanks to @raphigaziano. Configurable settings are cookiecutters_dir and default_context.

• File permissions are now preserved during project generation, thanks to @benjixx.

Bug fixes:

• Unicode issues with prompts and answers are fixed, thanks to @s-m-i-t-a.

• The test suite now runs on Windows, which was a major effort. Thanks to @pydanny, who collaborated on this with me.

Other changes:

• Quite a bit of refactoring and API changes.

• Lots of documentation improvements. Thanks @sloria, @alex, @pydanny, @freakboy3742, @es128, @rolo.

• Better naming and organization of test suite.

• A CookiecutterCleanSystemTestCase to use for unit tests affected by the user’s config and cookiecutters directory.

• Improvements to the project’s Makefile.

• Improvements to tests. Thanks @gperetin, @s-m-i-t-a.

• Removal of subprocess32 dependency. Now using non-context manager version of subprocess.Popen for Python 2 compatibility.

• Removal of cookiecutter’s cleanup module.

• A bit of setup.py cleanup, thanks to @oubiga.

• Now depends on binaryornot 0.2.0.

0.6.4 (2013-08-21)

• Windows support officially added.

• Fix TemplateNotFound Exception on Windows (#37).

0.6.3 (2013-08-20)

• Fix copying of binary files in nested paths (#41), thanks to @sloria.

0.6.2 (2013-08-19)

• Depend on Jinja2>=2.4 instead of Jinja2==2.7.

• Fix errors on attempt to render binary files. Copy them over from the project template without rendering.

• Fix Python 2.6/2.7 UnicodeDecodeError when values containing Unicode chars are in cookiecutter.json.

• Set encoding in Python 3 unicode_open() to always be utf-8.

0.6.1 (2013-08-12)

• Improved project template finding. Now looks for the occurrence of {{, cookiecutter, and }} in a directory name.

• Fix help message for input_dir arg at command prompt.

• Minor edge cases found and corrected, as a result of improved test coverage.

0.6.0 (2013-08-08)

• Config is now in a single cookiecutter.json instead of in json/.

• When you create a project from a git repo template, Cookiecutter prompts you to enter custom values for the fields defined in cookiecutter.json.

0.5 (2013-07-28)

• Friendlier, more simplified command line usage:

  # Create project from the cookiecutter-pypackage/ template
  $ cookiecutter cookiecutter-pypackage/
  
  # Create project from the cookiecutter-pypackage.git repo template
  $ cookiecutter https://github.com/audreyr/cookiecutter-pypackage.git

• Can now use Cookiecutter from Python as a package:

  from cookiecutter.main import cookiecutter
  
  # Create project from the cookiecutter-pypackage/ template
  cookiecutter('cookiecutter-pypackage/')
  
  # Create project from the cookiecutter-pypackage.git repo template
  cookiecutter('https://github.com/audreyr/cookiecutter-pypackage.git')

• Internal refactor to remove any code that changes the working directory.

0.4 (2013-07-22)

• Only takes in one argument now: the input directory. The output directory is generated by rendering the name of the input directory.

• Output directory cannot be the same as input directory.

0.3 (2013-07-17)

• Takes in command line args for the input and output directories.

0.2.1 (2013-07-17)

• Minor cleanup.

0.2 (2013-07-17)

Bumped to “Development Status :: 3 - Alpha”.

• Works with any type of text file.

• Directory names and filenames can be templated.

0.1.0 (2013-07-11)

• First release on PyPI.

Roadmap

If something is not listed here, check the issues under each milestone.

This is subject to change depending on the needs and contributions of the community. Feedback on pull requests/issues affects the priority of items on the roadmap.

Also, please be patient and keep in mind that this is a volunteer effort, and that the review process takes time.

0.7.1

This is a patch release to fix minor bugs and any potential problems with 0.7.0.

• Various README enhancements.

• TODO

0.8.0

This release will include a number of features and bug fixes proposed and implemented by the community in pull requests.

• TODO

0.9.0

This release is for new features proposed through issues. Note: some issues tagged 0.9.0 might be moved to 0.8.0 if anyone implements them and submits a pull request.

• Support for alternate config location as per XDG Base Directory Spec

• TODO