Create a PlayCanvas project in seconds

A simple one line command to sin up a read-to-code PlayCanvas project in seconds.

# npm (recommended)
npm create playcanvas@latest

# pnpm
pnpm create playcanvas

# yarn
yarn create playcanvas

# bun
bun create playcanvas

The CLI will prompt you for:

1. Project name – folder to create (defaults to playcanvas-project).
2. Overwrite behavior if the folder exists.
3. Package name – used in package.json.
4. Framework & variant – pick from templates below.
5. Scaffolding – project files are copied and tweaked; a final cheat-sheet is printed.

Non-interactive / flags

Skip the questions when scripting or if you know what you want:

npm create playcanvas@latest my-game -t react-ts --overwrite

Flags:

| Flag | Shorthand | Description | | ---------------------------- | --------- | ---------------------------------------------------- | | --template <name> | -t | Directly choose template variant (see list below). | | --overwrite | | Remove existing files in target directory. | | --help | -h | Show help/usage information. |

🎨 Templates

(TBD)

| Template | Description | | ------------ | --------------------------- | | vanilla-ts | Plain Typescript PlayCanvas | | react-ts | React + TypeScript |

_To add your own template, drop a folder in templates/<name> and update the templates/index.js

🛠 Development

Clone the repo, then:

npm install     # or npm, yarn, bun
npm run dev     # compile TypeScript → dist (if needed)
npm link        # you can now run `npx create-playcanvas` to test 

🤝 Contributing

Bug reports, feature requests and PRs are welcome! Want to create a new template? Please file an issue first if you plan major changes.

1. Fork / clone.
2. Create a branch: git checkout -b feat/my-awesome-idea.
3. Commit with conventional-commit messages.
4. Push and open a PR.