@onlyoffice/create-app

Scaffold a demo application that integrates the ONLYOFFICE Docs editors, the same way create-next-app scaffolds a site:

npx @onlyoffice/create-app my-app
cd my-app
# edit .env: DOCUMENT_SERVER_URL, DOCUMENT_SERVER_JWT_SECRET, APP_URL
npm start

The generated project is a small file manager built with Next.js + React + TypeScript that:

• lists, uploads, downloads and deletes files;
• creates blank docx, xlsx, pptx and pdf files from ONLYOFFICE document templates, downloaded over HTTPS the first time the app starts;
• asks the Document Server which formats it supports (GET /meta/formats) and opens each file either in the editor or, for read-only formats, in the viewer;
• signs the editor configuration with JWT and verifies JWT on the save callback;
• saves edited documents back to disk through the callback handler.

Everything about the Document Server connection is configured through environment variables in .env. See the generated project's README.md for the full list and a walkthrough of the integration.

Usage

npx @onlyoffice/create-app [project-directory] [options]

Options:
  --skip-install     do not install dependencies
  --use-npm          install with npm (default: the package manager that ran this command)
  --use-pnpm         install with pnpm
  --use-yarn         install with yarn
  --use-bun          install with bun
  -v, --version      print the version
  -h, --help         show help

Equivalent invocations: npm init @onlyoffice/app my-app, pnpm create @onlyoffice/app my-app, yarn create @onlyoffice/app my-app.

The scaffolder only copies files: it creates no git repository and downloads nothing besides the dependencies. The blank documents behind "New document" are fetched by the generated project itself — scripts/fetch-templates.mjs downloads them from ONLYOFFICE/document-templates into document-templates/ before npm run dev and npm start, and skips the download once they are there.

Requirements

• Node.js 20.12 or newer.
• An ONLYOFFICE Docs (Document Server) 8.2 or newer that can reach the machine where the demo runs. The quickest way is Docker: docker run -i -t -d -p 80:80 -e JWT_SECRET=developer-only-not-a-real-secret onlyoffice/documentserver

Repository layout

bin/create-app.js                 CLI entry point
src/                              CLI implementation (plain ESM JavaScript, no build step)
templates/default/                the demo application (a complete Next.js project)
templates/default/scripts/fetch-templates.mjs   downloads the blank documents before the app runs
scripts/smoke-test.js             runs the CLI into a temp dir and checks the result

This repository has no submodules and the CLI never runs git: scaffolding is a file copy plus npm install. The blank documents are the app's own business — it downloads them over HTTPS on its first start.

Development

git clone https://github.com/ONLYOFFICE/create-app.git
cd create-app
npm install
npm test                        # smoke test of the CLI
npm run lint

To work on the demo application itself, run it in place:

cd templates/default
npm install
cp .env.example .env            # then edit it
npm run dev

The template's node_modules, .next, .env, lock file and uploaded files are excluded both from git and from the npm package, and are skipped by the CLI when it copies the template.

To try the CLI end to end from a tarball:

npm pack
npx ./onlyoffice-create-app-*.tgz my-app

Updating the blank templates

There is nothing in this repository to bump: templates/default/scripts/fetch-templates.mjs always downloads the current state of the main/default branch of ONLYOFFICE/document-templates. To pull newer files locally, delete templates/default/document-templates/ and run npm --prefix templates/default run fetch-templates.