@chewygumxx/create-repo

Creates a GitHub repository from one of the templates bundled in this package, whose first CI run passes, including the repository metadata sync.

bun create @chewygumxx/repo my-thing

It asks for anything not given as a flag, shows a summary, and on confirmation copies the chosen template, installs its toolchain with mise and its dependencies with Bun, rewrites its identity, and commits once bun run check passes. Only then does it create the repository, set the metadata App's METADATA_APP_CLIENT_ID variable and METADATA_APP_PRIVATE_KEY secret, and push. A failure before that leaves nothing on GitHub.

It needs Bun 1.4 or later, git, mise, and gh logged in with gh auth login. The zsh template also needs zsh, which mise does not install.

Run with npm create instead, it still needs Bun: the CLI runs on it.

The templates

| Template | For | | ------------ | --------------------------------------------------------- | | standard | Any repository: commit rules, lint and format checks, CI | | | and Claude Code settings | | typescript | A Bun library or CLI in TypeScript, run without a build; | | | --with publish compiles it and publishes it to npm as | | | @owner/name by trusted publishing | | cloudflare | A Cloudflare Worker in TypeScript, tested in the Workers | | | runtime, with a workflow that deploys it | | rust | A Rust crate without Bun, checked with mise: a binary, or | | | with --with lib a library | | nvim | A Neovim plugin in Lua without Bun, tested in headless | | | Neovim with mini.test, checked with mise | | zsh | A zsh plugin without Bun, following the Zsh Plugin | | | Standard, tested with zsh and linted with shuck |

--template chooses one, standard by default, and --with turns on its optional features; --help lists both. A package version always creates the same repository, and the first commit names the version and template that made it.

At the prompt, typescript takes publish unless the reply chooses other features or none. --with, and a run without a terminal, choose only what they name.

Each template is an ordered list of layers under templates/, declared in lib/templates.js: a later layer's file replaces the same file from an earlier one. common holds what every repository carries, bun the Bun-based checks, typescript its sources, typescript-publish what --with publish replaces and adds, and cloudflare the Worker. native is the hygiene layer without Bun: mise pins the tools and aggregates the tasks, committed lints commit messages, and Biome, rumdl, yamlfmt and yamllint carry copies of the shared configurations. rust adds Cargo and its mise tasks, and rust-bin or rust-lib the source. nvim adds the plugin, its tests and the Lua tools' mise tasks, and zsh the plugin, its tests, shuck's configuration and its mise tasks. A layer that holds a package.json holds its bun.lock; regenerate it with bun install --lockfile-only in the layer's directory, and delete the node_modules that leaves, if any. rust holds its Cargo.lock: materialise the template, run cargo generate-lockfile there, and copy the file back.

The templates' identity stays chewygumxx/repo-tmpl: ~chewygumxx/repo-tmpl.git in every file header and the slug in .repo-metadata.jsonc are what lib/init.js finds and rewrites for each new repository. They look stale but are not, so .gitattributes keeps the header sync out of templates/. After its edits, init fails if repo-tmpl, or the identifier form repo_tmpl, remains anywhere. rust with lib names its crate in a doc test as repo_tmpl, and nvim and zsh name their module so in code and in paths (lua/repo_tmpl/, repo_tmpl.plugin.zsh); the moduleName edit rewrites them.

A layer stores .gitignore as _gitignore, since npm drops nested .gitignore files from the package, and it is renamed back on copy. The last layer's applies to all of them.

Development

bun run check runs the typecheck, the lint checks (Biome, remark, Prettier, yamllint, tombi, the em dash check and lint:editorconfig on this repository), bun run lint:templates (each template's own Biome rules and editorconfig-checker, run on every combination materialised under .templates/) and the tests. The Create Repo workflow runs --dry-run on every template and combination of features, so it also catches a template drifting from lib/init.js or failing its own bun run check.

bun scripts/materialize.js <template> [--with <features>] <dir> writes a template as it is before init.

Dependabot reads a bun.lock only up to lockfileVersion 1, and Bun 1.4 writes 2, so its bun updates fail, here and in every repository a bun template creates, until dependabot-core#16071 ships. Its github-actions updates are unaffected.

To release, bump version in package.json, commit, and push a matching v* tag. The Publish workflow runs the check and the dry run, then stages the version with npm stage publish, the one thing Node is still pinned for; approve it on npmjs.com to publish it.

Flags

bun create @chewygumxx/repo \
    my-thing \
    --template standard \
    --description "…" \
    --topics a,b \
    --scopes api,"cli:Command Line" \
    --yes

Run with --help for every flag. Without a terminal, the name and --description are required, topics and scopes default to none, and --yes is required. --dry-run does everything locally and prints the GitHub commands instead of running them. --no-metadata skips the App variable and secret.

The metadata App private key

The client ID is read from the chewygumxx/create-repo repository's variable. The private key comes from the first of:

1. --metadata-key-file <path>, or - for standard input
2. METADATA_APP_PRIVATE_KEY, the key itself
3. METADATA_APP_PRIVATE_KEY_FILE, a path
4. The output of --metadata-key-command or CREATE_REPO_METADATA_KEY_COMMAND, such as pass show github/metadata-app

Variables may be set in an env-file, ~/.config/chewygumxx/create-repo.env by default or --env-file. Setting the command there once is enough:

CREATE_REPO_METADATA_KEY_COMMAND="pass show github/metadata-app"

The key is only ever written to the standard input of gh secret set. It is not printed or stored, and the variables above are removed from the environment of every other command it runs, including bun install.