Orbit

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

Table Of Contents

• What is Orbit
• Installation
  • Installing via pip
  • Installing from source
• Usage
• Contributions

What is Orbit

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

Installation

Installing via pip

$ pip install orbit-client

Usage

• Cross-platform: Windows, Mac, and Linux are officially supported.
• You don't have to know/write Python code to use Cookiecutter.
• Works with Python 3.7, 3.8, 3.9, 3.10, 3.11
• 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.

For users of existing templates

• Simple command line usage:

  # Create project from the orbit-pypackage.git repo template
  # You'll be prompted to enter values.
  # Then it'll create your Python package in the current working directory,
  # based on those values.
  $ orbit <repo url>
  # For the sake of brevity, repos on GitHub can just use the 'gh' prefix
  $ orbit gh:audreyfeldroy/orbit-pypackage
  

• Use it at the command line with a local template:

  # Create project in the current working directory, from the local
  # orbit-pypackage/ template
  $ orbit orbit-pypackage/
  

• Or use it from Python:

  from orbit.main import orbit
  
  # Create project from the orbit-pypackage/ template
  orbit('orbit-pypackage/')
  
  # Create project from the orbit-pypackage.git repo template
  orbit('<repo url>')
  

• Unless you suppress it with --no-input, you are prompted for input:

  • Prompts are the keys in orbit.json.
  • Default responses are the values in orbit.json.
  • Prompts are shown in order.

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

  default_context:
    full_name: "haonv"
    email: "haonv@ftech.ai.com"
    github_username: "haonv"
  orbits_dir: "~/.orbits/"
  

• You can use local orbits, or remote orbits directly from Git repos or Mercurial repos on Bitbucket.

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

• Inject extra context with command-line arguments:

For template creators

• Supports unlimited levels of directory nesting.

• 100% of templating is done with Jinja2.

• Both, directory names and filenames can be templated. For example:

  {{orbit.repo_name}}/{{orbit.repo_name}}/{{orbit.repo_name}}.py
  

• Simply define your template variables in a orbit.json file. You can also add human-readable questions and choices that will be prompted to the user for each variable using the __prompts__ key. Those human-readable questions supports rich markup such as [bold yellow]this is bold and yellow[/] For example:

  {
    "full_name": "Audrey Roy Greenfeld",
    "email": "audreyr@gmail.com",
    "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",
    "linting": ["ruff", "flake8", "none"],
    "__prompts__": {
      "full_name": "Provide your [bold yellow]full name[/]",
      "email": "Provide your [bold yellow]email[/]",
      "linting": {
        "__prompt__": "Which [bold yellow]linting tool[/] do you want to use?",
        "ruff": "Ruff",
        "flake8": "Flake8",
        "none": "No linting tool"
      }
    }
  }
  

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

Author