cat-doubler

Universal scaffolder generator that converts any project into reusable templates.

What is this?

Looking for a simple way to turn your existing project into a reusable generator (scaffolder)? cat-doubler is the tool you need.

It analyzes your source code, identifies naming patterns, and generates a ready-to-use CLI tool that can scaffold new projects with different names. No complex configuration required - just point it at your project and specify the symbol name to replace.

cat-doubler itself runs in a Node.js environment, but the target project for conversion can be any type (Python packages, Go modules, Ruby gems, Java, .NET, C/C++, etc... any codebase).

For example, if you have a React component library project called MyAwesomeComponent into ./my-component directory:

cat-doubler ./my-component MyAwesomeComponent

This generates a scaffolder that can create new components with any name. The following creates a new project named NewShinyComponent:

# Run scaffolder
cd ./scaffolder
npm run start

Welcome to MyAwesomeComponent scaffolder [0.0.1]

# Enter new project details
Enter the new project name (in PascalCase): NewShinyComponent
Output directory [./output/my-new-project]: ./new-shiny-component

The generated CLI automatically handles all case variations (PascalCase, camelCase, kebab-case, snake_case, CONSTANT_CASE) throughout your entire codebase.

If you publish the scaffolder as a package, you can run it with just the npx command:

# Run the scaffolder with the npx command
npx my-awesome-component-generator

Key Features

• Automatic case detection: Analysing and replaces all case variations of your symbol name
• Any target project type: Supports all types of projects, mixed projects, and management of text files that are not programming-language specific projects
• Standalone output: Generated templates have zero runtime dependencies
• Zero configuration: Works out of the box with sensible defaults
• Flexible ignore patterns: Support for .catdoublerignore files similar to .gitignore
• Automatic text/binary file detection: Automatically analyzes file contents to identify text files

Installation

Install as a global command:

npm install -g cat-doubler

Or, if you use it in your local project:

npm install -D cat-doubler

Examples

Example of converting a React component project in the current directory.

This project is called MyAwesomePage and uses symbol names like MyAwesomePage and my-awesome-page internally. You can convert this symbol name into a scaffolder that end users can re-specify:

cat-doubler . MyAwesomePage

This will generate a scaffolder project like the following:

scaffolder/
├── scaffolder.js    # Standalone CLI
├── package.json     # Minimal package configuration
├── README.md        # Usage instructions
└── templates/       # Project containing placeholders
    ├── src/
    │   ├── __pascal1__.js
    │   │        :
    │   │        :
    │   └── index.html
    └── package.json

See more features in repository documentation

License

Under MIT.