Scaffolds and cf CLI Meta issue

[ericelliott]

CLI

• The CLI will be a binary called cf which can be installed globally. Packages that depend on it should install it locally as a devDependency.

API

If cf is invoked with missing arguments, it should:

• display usage
• prompt for missing arguments, one at a time

build

Create a new package from a Cloverfield scaffold. Scaffolds should be cached locally. See Scaffold Conventions

Usage

cf build <scaffold-name>

TODO:

• Settle on standard taskrunner (selected npm scripts)
• Scaffold conventions doc
• Use prod-module-boilerplate for the cf repo. See the blue-tape issue, first.
• Document plugin API for cf commands. Each command should describe its purpose, usage, each argument, and descriptions for each argument. Those args requirements and descriptions can be used for interactive help.
  (https://github.com/spion/blue-tape)
• Create the command line tool to invoke scaffolds
• Create cf-package based on prod-module-boilerplate
• Create cf-react-app based on universal-react-boilerplate
• Create a cf-react-component to generate stateless, reusable UI component (needs boilerplate - check out the react-transform-boilerplate for hot reload ideas)

[ericelliott]

@nkbt Now that the boilerplates are starting to shape up, are you interested in working on this?

[nkbt]

By all means, always wanted to build one for myself =)

[ericelliott]

Great. I've created the Scaffold conventions doc. Feel free to take on the build tooling at your convenience.

[ericelliott]

See JSHomes Platform Meta issue

[troutowicz]

This is looking great so far. I will be a little busy the next couple days but I plan on helping out!

[ericelliott]

👍

[ericelliott]

https://twitter.com/sethetter/status/618779021526970368

This is worth calling out. My primary problem with yeoman is the ecosystem signal to noise ratio. It got so bad, when I thought about scaffold solutions and realized we could probably just wrap yeoman, the idea of even having the project associated with yeoman mentally was bad enough it was worth starting from scratch.

How do we prevent the inevitably terrible scaffolds from turning off users?

I think the answer is that the CLI should have first class search and discovery for curated scaffolds, and no search/discovery for community scaffolds. If people want to search past the cf whitelist, they can use npm search, Google, or GitHub search.

We're not yeoman and we're not npm, where you search for needles in a giant haystack. We're a tool for eliminating choices, not adding to them.

[therealklanni]

👍

[ericelliott]

@nkbt It's been a while since we saw any activity here. Where are we on turning prod-module-boilerplate into a cf scaffold?

[nkbt]

The base for cf package is merged now, so we can go further... It's been a pretty busy time anyway :).