create-aron-app

CLI scaffolding tool that stamps out a production-ready Nx monorepo with Convex, Clerk, and either Next.js 15 or React Router v7.

Usage

npm create aron-app
# or
npx create-aron-app
# or
bunx create-aron-app

The CLI will ask a few questions and scaffold a new project:

• Project name — lowercase alphanumeric + hyphens
• Framework — Next.js 15 (App Router) or React Router v7 (SPA/Vite)
• Output directory — where to create the project (defaults to ~/Desktop/<name>)
• Package manager — Bun (recommended), pnpm, npm, or Yarn
• Install dependencies — run install automatically
• Initialize git — create an initial commit

What gets scaffolded

The output is an Nx monorepo with two apps:

my-app/
├── apps/
│   ├── api/          # Convex backend (convex-ents + Zod validation)
│   └── web/          # Next.js 15 or React Router v7 frontend
├── shared/
│   ├── ui/           # ~20 shadcn/Radix UI components + hooks
│   ├── utils/        # Convex client helpers, date utils
│   └── assets/       # global.css (Tailwind 4)
├── emails/           # React Email templates
├── scripts/          # sync_convex_env.ts
├── .cursor/          # Pre-configured Cursor AI rules and skills
└── .github/
    └── workflows/ci.yml

A working Todos feature is wired end-to-end as the canonical example of the data model pattern.

Stack

• Backend — Convex with convex-ents for relational modeling and Zod-validated function wrappers
• Frontend — Next.js 15 (App Router) or React Router v7 (SPA/Vite)
• Auth — Clerk wired to both Convex and the frontend
• Data fetching — TanStack Query v5
• UI — Radix UI + Tailwind CSS 4 + shared component library
• Monorepo — Nx with Bun workspaces
• Linting — Biome
• AI — Pre-baked Cursor rules and skills for the entire stack

Development

Build

bun run build

Bundles src/index.ts into dist/index.js (a single Node.js-compatible file with a shebang).

Test locally

# Run the CLI directly with Bun (no build needed):
bun run start

# Or build and run the output file:
node dist/index.js

# Or link globally for the full `npm create` experience:
npm link
npm create aron-app

# Unlink when done:
npm unlink -g create-aron-app

Publish

# Patch release (bumps version + publishes):
npm run release

# Or manually:
npm publish --access public

Publishing is also automated via GitHub Actions — creating a GitHub Release triggers .github/workflows/publish.yml, which builds and publishes to npm.

Project structure

create-aron-app/
├── src/
│   ├── index.ts          # CLI entrypoint (prompts + orchestration)
│   ├── types.ts          # Shared TS types
│   └── utils/
│       ├── constant.ts   # Framework/PM options + dependency lists
│       └── helpers.ts    # File ops, template merging helpers
├── templates/
│   ├── _base/            # Shared monorepo skeleton (copied first)
│   ├── nextjs/           # Next.js 15 App Router variant
│   └── react-router/     # React Router v7 SPA variant
├── dist/                 # Built CLI output
└── .github/
    └── workflows/
        └── publish.yml   # Auto-publish on GitHub Release

How scaffolding works

1. Copy templates/_base/ into the output directory
2. Copy the framework-specific template into apps/web/
3. Rename _gitignore files to .gitignore (npm strips dotfiles on publish)
4. Merge framework deps into the root package.json
5. Inject the right Nx plugins into nx.json
6. Replace the project: placeholder with the actual project name in all project.json files
7. Promote apps/web/.env.example to the root as .env.example
8. Optionally: git init + initial commit
9. Optionally: <pm> install