🚀 Create Backlist

Tired of manually creating backend boilerplate every time you build a frontend? create-backlist is an intelligent CLI tool that analyzes your frontend project and automatically generates a backend with all the necessary routes and controllers, saving you hours of repetitive work.

It's not just another scaffolder; it's a context-aware, dynamic code generator that builds a backend tailor-made for your frontend's specific API needs.

✨ Key Features

• 🤖 Intelligent Code Analysis: Scans your frontend codebase (React, Vue, etc.) using Abstract Syntax Trees (ASTs) to detect API calls (fetch requests).
• 🌐 Multi-Language Support: Generate a backend in your preferred stack.
  • ✅ Currently Supports:
    • Node.js (with TypeScript & Express)
    • C# (with ASP.NET Core Web API)
  • ⏳ Coming Soon:
    • Python (with FastAPI)
    • Java (with Spring Boot)
• ⚡️ Fully Automated: A single command handles everything from project scaffolding to dependency installation.
• 🔧 Zero-Configuration: No complex config files needed. Just run the command and answer a few simple questions.
• 🧼 Clean Code Generation: Creates a well-structured backend, ready for you to implement your business logic.

📦 Installation & Usage

No global installation needed! Just run this command inside your existing frontend project's root directory:

npm create backlist@latest

The tool will then guide you through an interactive setup process:

1. Enter a name for your backend directory: (default: backend)
2. Select the backend stack: (e.g., Node.js (TypeScript, Express))
3. Enter the path to your frontend src directory: (default: src)

That's it! The tool will analyze your code, generate the backend in a new directory, and install all the necessary dependencies.

Example

Let's say your frontend has this API call:

// in your React component
fetch('/api/products/123', { method: 'PUT' });

create-backlist will automatically generate a backend with a products controller and a PUT route for products/:id.

💡 How It's Different from Other Tools

| Tool | Approach | Use Case | | --------------------- | -------------------------------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------- | | Express Generator | Static Scaffolding | Quickly start a new, empty Express project. | | NestJS CLI | Static Scaffolding & Code Generation | Start a new, structured NestJS project and add parts manually. | | create-backlist | Dynamic & Context-Aware Scaffolding | Generate a backend that is tailor-made for an existing frontend. |

While traditional generators give you a blank canvas, create-backlist looks at your finished painting (the frontend) and builds the perfect frame (the backend) for it.

🗺️ Roadmap

create-backlist is actively being developed. Here are some of the features planned for future releases:

• [ ] Python Support: Generate a backend using FastAPI.
• [ ] Java Support: Generate a backend using Spring Boot.
• [ ] Database Model Generation: Automatically create basic database models (e.g., Mongoose, Prisma) based on POST/PUT request bodies.
• [ ] Authentication Boilerplate: Add an option to generate basic JWT-based authentication routes (/login, /register).

Have an idea for a new feature? Feel free to open an issue on GitHub!

🛠️ Contributing

Contributions are what make the open-source community such an amazing place to learn, inspire, and create. Any contributions you make are greatly appreciated.

1. Fork the Project
2. Create your Feature Branch (git checkout -b feature/AmazingFeature)
3. Commit your Changes (git commit -m 'Add some AmazingFeature')
4. Push to the Branch (git push origin feature/AmazingFeature)
5. Open a Pull Request

📄 License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.

🙏 Acknowledgements

• Babel for the amazing AST parser.
• Inquirer.js for the interactive CLI prompts.
• fs-extra for making file system operations a breeze.
• Google's Gemini for assistance with brainstorming and debugging.

Built with ❤️ by W.A.H. ISHAN.