create-light-cms

Scaffold a fresh Next.js app that is ready for light-cms.

Prompt flow

When you run create-light-cms, it asks for:

1. Project name (if not passed as the first argument)
2. ORM (drizzle)
3. Database provider (turso or supabase)
4. Package manager (pnpm, npm, or bun) - default: pnpm
5. Admin username
6. Admin password

Usage

pnpm create light-cms@latest

Or pass the project name directly:

pnpm create light-cms@latest my-app

CLI options:

• --skip-install: scaffold the Next app and skip setup/install steps
• -h, --help: show help
• -v, --version: show version

The selected package manager is used for all scaffold commands:

• pnpm + pnpm dlx
• npm + npx
• bun + bunx

What it does

1) Creates a Next.js app

Uses create-next-app with:

• TypeScript
• Tailwind
• ESLint
• App Router
• @/* import alias
• pnpm

Note: it intentionally creates app/ at project root (no src/app).

It also updates next.config.ts to enable:

• cacheComponents: true

2) Installs shadcn/ui and starter components

• Runs shadcn init --defaults
• Adds: button, input, textarea, select, switch, separator, sidebar, sonner, sheet, tooltip, skeleton

3) Installs dependencies

Base dependencies:

• drizzle-orm
• zod
• @tanstack/react-form

Provider-specific dependency:

• Turso: @libsql/client
• Supabase: postgres

Dev dependency:

• drizzle-kit

4) Boots light-cms via its own CLI

• pnpm dlx light-cms@latest init --yes
• Creates app/(marketing)
• pnpm dlx light-cms@latest create about --yes

This ensures lightcms.config.ts and pageSchema.ts match the current light-cms templates.

5) Writes DB and env files

• drizzle.config.ts
• .env
• db/index.ts
• db/schema.ts

Generated examples

Supabase db/index.ts

import { config } from "dotenv";
import { drizzle } from "drizzle-orm/postgres-js";
import postgres from "postgres";

config({ path: ".env" });

const client = postgres(process.env.DATABASE_URL!);
export const db = drizzle({ client });

Supabase drizzle.config.ts

import { defineConfig } from "drizzle-kit";

export default defineConfig({
  schema: "./db/schema.ts",
  out: "./migrations",
  dialect: "postgresql",
  dbCredentials: {
    url: process.env.DATABASE_URL!,
  },
});

Turso drizzle.config.ts

import { defineConfig } from "drizzle-kit";

export default defineConfig({
  schema: "./db/schema.ts",
  out: "./migrations",
  dialect: "turso",
  dbCredentials: {
    url: process.env.TURSO_DATABASE_URL!,
    authToken: process.env.TURSO_AUTH_TOKEN!,
  },
});

After scaffolding

Typical next steps:

cd <project-name>
# fill in env values
pnpm drizzle-kit generate
pnpm drizzle-kit migrate
pnpm dev