create-smx

A modern CLI tool for quickly scaffolding TypeScript Express applications with various features.

Overview

create-smx helps you quickly bootstrap a TypeScript Express application with best practices and common utilities. It generates a clean, modern project structure that's ready for development.

Features

• Interactive Mode: Select features through an interactive prompt
• TypeScript with ES Modules: Modern TypeScript setup with ESM imports
• Express.js: Fast, unopinionated web framework for Node.js
• App/Server Separation: Clean separation of Express app and server initialization
• Environment Config: Built-in dotenv configuration
• Middleware: Essential middleware (CORS, Helmet) pre-configured
• Advanced Logger: Rich logging system with file rotation, colorized output, and request/error tracking
• API Response Utilities: Standardized API response format
• Clean Project Structure: Well-organized file structure following best practices
• Development Ready: Fast ts-node-dev setup for development

Quick Start

# Using npx (recommended, interactive mode by default)
npx create-smx my-app

# Install globally
npm install -g create-smx
create-smx my-app

There's no need to create a directory first - just run the command and create-smx will create the project folder for you.

Command Line Options

npx create-smx [options] <project-name>

Arguments

• project-name: Name of your project (required)

Options

• --interactive: Use interactive prompts to select features (default: true)
• --no-interactive: Skip interactive prompts
• --logger: Include advanced logger (default: true)
• --no-logger: Skip logger configuration
• --custom-api-response: Include custom API response utility
• --no-custom-api-response: Skip custom API response utility
• -v, --version: Output the current version
• -h, --help: Display help information

Examples

# Create a project using interactive prompts (recommended)
npx create-smx my-app

# Skip interactive mode and create a basic app
npx create-smx my-app --no-interactive

# Create an app with custom API response utilities
npx create-smx my-app --custom-api-response

# Create a minimal app without logger
npx create-smx minimal-app --no-logger

# Get help information
npx create-smx --help

Interactive Mode

When you run create-smx without any feature flags, it will start in interactive mode (unless --no-interactive is specified):

📋 Let's configure your Express + TypeScript application:
? Select the features you want to include: (Press <space> to select, <a> to toggle all)
❯◉ Advanced Logger (file rotation, colorized output, request tracking)
 ◯ Custom API Response utilities

Simply use the arrow keys to navigate, space to select/deselect features, and enter to confirm your choices.

Generated Project Structure

my-app/
├── .gitignore
├── .env
├── .env.example
├── package.json
├── README.md
├── tsconfig.json
├── logs/           (if logger is selected)
└── src/
    ├── app.ts       (Express application setup)
    ├── server.ts    (Server initialization)
    └── utils/
        ├── api-response.ts  (if selected)
        └── logger.ts        (if selected)

What's Included

Base Configuration

• TypeScript configuration optimized for Node.js
• Express setup with app/server separation
• Environment Variables with dotenv
• CORS and Helmet middleware for security
• ESLint for code quality
• ts-node-dev for fast development

Optional Features

Advanced Logger (enabled by default)

• Multi-level logging (error, warn, info, http, debug)
• Automatic file rotation by date
• Colorized console output
• Request timing with detailed metrics
• Structured logging with metadata support
• Production/development mode detection

Custom API Response (opt-in)

• Standardized success response format
• Consistent error response handling
• Type-safe response utilities

After Creating a Project

cd my-app
npm install
npm run dev

Your app will be running at http://localhost:3000

Development

Want to contribute to create-smx?

1. Clone this repository
2. Install dependencies:

   npm install

3. Build the project:

   npm run build

4. Link for local development:

   npm link

License

MIT

Roadmap

• Database integration options
• Authentication scaffolding
• GraphQL support
• Testing setup
• Docker configuration
• Deployment options