create-mern

A powerful scaffolder for MERN stack projects with Vite + React frontend and Express + MongoDB backend.

Features

• 🚀 Fast Setup - Create full MERN stack projects in seconds
• ⚡ Vite + React - Modern frontend development with hot reload
• 🛠️ Express + MongoDB - Robust backend with Mongoose ODM
• 📦 Package Manager Choice - Support for npm and pnpm
• 🏗️ Flexible Structure - Choose full stack, frontend only, or backend only
• 🔧 Pre-configured - CORS, environment variables, and development scripts included

Usage

npm create mern

or,

pnpm create mern

Follow the interactive prompts to:

1. Enter your project name
2. Choose project structure (Full MERN, Frontend only, or Backend only)
3. Select package manager (npm or pnpm)

Project Structure Options

1. Full MERN Stack

Creates a complete MERN application with separate frontend and backend directories:

my-project/
├── frontend/          # React + Vite application
├── backend/           # Express + MongoDB API
├── package.json       # Root package.json with scripts
└── README.md          # Project documentation

2. Frontend Only

Creates a React + Vite application:

my-project/
├── src/               # React components
├── public/            # Static assets
├── package.json       # Frontend dependencies
└── vite.config.js     # Vite configuration

3. Backend Only

Creates an Express + MongoDB API:

my-project/
├── routes/            # API routes
├── models/            # Mongoose models
├── controllers/       # Route controllers
├── config/            # Configuration files
├── server.js          # Main server file
├── .env               # Environment variables
└── package.json       # Backend dependencies

Generated Project Features

Frontend (React + Vite)

• ⚡ Vite for fast development and building
• 🔄 React Router for navigation
• 📡 Axios for HTTP requests
• 🎨 Modern React setup with JSX

Backend (Express + MongoDB)

• 🌐 Express.js server with CORS enabled
• 🗄️ MongoDB connection with Mongoose
• 🔐 Environment variable configuration
• 🔄 Nodemon for development hot reload
• 📍 Pre-configured API endpoints:
  • GET /api/health - Health check
  • GET /api/welcome - Welcome message
  • GET /api/users - Sample users endpoint

Available Scripts (Full Stack)

# Install all dependencies
npm run install:dependencies

# Start frontend development server
npm run dev:frontend

# Start backend development server
npm run dev:backend

# Build for production
npm run build

Environment Variables

For backend projects, a .env file is created with:

PORT=5000
MONGODB_URI=mongodb://localhost:27017/your-project-name
NODE_ENV=development

Requirements

• Node.js >= 16.0.0
• MongoDB/Atlas (for backend/full stack projects)

Package Managers

Supports both npm and pnpm package managers. Choose your preferred one during project creation.

Development

To contribute to create-mern:

git clone https://github.com/kmdtaufik/create-mern.git
cd create-mern
npm install

License

MIT

Keywords

• MERN stack
• React
• Express
• MongoDB
• Vite
• Scaffolder
• Template
• Full-stack development