create-cartwright

A real site — design, database, backend — live in minutes.

CLI scaffolder for AI-first sites and webshops powered by Cartwright.

Quick start

npx create-cartwright@latest my-shop
cd my-shop
npx prisma migrate deploy
npx prisma db seed
pnpm dev

Or with all defaults (no prompts):

npx create-cartwright@latest my-shop --yes --db=turso --ai

Profiles

One engine, two scaffold profiles — never a separate light codebase.

| Profile | What you get | |---|---| | light (default) | The lean "real site in minutes" kit: website-mode default, a curated design set (aurora-site, fable, stillwater, halo, jungle, meridian, brutalist, apex + the structural aurora-shop/studio), full mode-gated webshop, builder/mixer, genome, MCP/JSON-LD discovery, admin, database. Heavy full-only modules are pruned from the scaffold: A2A/agent-marketplace, UCP identity-linking, WebMCP, hoptify, and the 16 non-curated design packs. | | full | Everything the engine ships — identical to the pre-profile scaffold. Required for --template agent-marketplace. |

npx create-cartwright@latest my-site                  # light (default)
npx create-cartwright@latest my-shop --profile full   # everything

Pruned designs can be added back to a light project at any time:

npx cartwright design install <slug>

Flags

| Flag | Default | What it does | |---|---|---| | --yes, -y | false | Skip prompts, use defaults | | --profile=<light\|full> | light | Scaffold profile (see above) | | --template=<slug> | website-corporate (light) / generic (full) | Mode + seed-data preset | | --help, -h | — | Print usage | | --db=<turso\|postgres\|sqlite> | (prompt) | Database choice — drives next-steps guidance | | --ai / --no-ai | (prompt) | Enable / disable the AI commerce features hint | | --ref=<stable\|next\|tag\|branch> | stable | Template channel (see below) | | --pm=<pnpm\|npm\|yarn\|bun> | auto-detect | Package manager for install | | --no-install | false | Skip dependency install | | --no-git | false | Skip git init + initial commit |

Template channels

| Channel | What it is | When to use | |---|---|---| | stable (default) | Latest tagged release of the template. Battle-tested across the maintainer's canary deploys before tagging. | Production scaffolds. New shops. | | next | Bleeding-edge: the next branch on cartwright-template, updated on every push to the template's source repo. | Trying features that haven't been cut into a stable release yet. Not for production. | | vX.Y.Z (any tag) | Pin to a specific historical release. | Reproducing a known-good scaffold. | | <branch> (any branch) | Pin to a branch on the mirror. | Power-user experimentation. |

Examples:

npx create-cartwright@latest my-shop                    # → stable (default)
npx create-cartwright@latest my-shop --ref next         # → bleeding-edge
npx create-cartwright@latest my-shop --ref v0.1.0-beta  # → pin to a tag

The spinner shows the channel and the resolved ref so you can see exactly what you pulled — useful when reporting issues.

What it does

1. Three prompts (project name, database, AI features) — skippable with --yes.
2. Downloads a sanitised snapshot from cartwright-template at the resolved --ref channel (default stable).
3. Generates a random 32-byte AUTH_SECRET and writes .env.local.
4. Patches brand.config.ts — storeName (Title Case of project name) + storeSlug (kebab-case).
5. Optional: git init + initial commit.
6. Optional: install dependencies with the detected (or specified) package manager.
7. Prints database-aware next-steps with copy-pastable commands.

Requirements

• Node.js ≥ 22
• (Optional) git, for the initial commit
• (Optional) pnpm/npm/yarn/bun, for dependency install

Where the template comes from

The CLI scaffolds from cartwright-template — the public, MIT-licensed engine template repo, auto-synced on every release tag. No GitHub token required, and the code you scaffold is yours to fork, modify, and ship.

Source

This CLI is part of the cartwright-app monorepo. PRs welcome.

License

MIT