create-tessera

Scaffold a new Tessera course.

Tessera is a toolkit for building interactive online courses that play in any LMS (SCORM 1.2, SCORM 2004, cmi5, or static Web), designed for AI-assisted authoring: open the scaffolded project in Claude Code, Cursor, or any tool that reads AGENTS.md, and describe the course you want in plain English. This package is the entry point — it generates the project, wires up the runtime, and drops AGENTS.md at the root so the agent knows the conventions.

Prerequisites

Requires Node.js 24 or later (which includes npm). If you already have it, jump to Usage. Otherwise:

• macOS: Download the macOS Installer (.pkg) from nodejs.org/en/download and run it. The default options are fine.
• Windows: Download the Windows Installer (.msi) from nodejs.org/en/download and run it. The default options are fine.

Open a new Terminal (macOS) or PowerShell / Command Prompt (Windows) window after installing and confirm:

node --version    # should print v24.x.x or higher

Usage

npm create tessera@latest my-course

Or equivalently:

pnpm create tessera my-course
yarn create tessera my-course

The scaffolder creates a new directory with:

• course.config.js: course metadata, navigation, completion, and export settings
• vite.config.js: Vite config wired up with the Tessera plugin (do not modify)
• pages/: starter section, lesson, and page
• AGENTS.md: the full authoring guide, right in the project root (read by humans and any LLM agent working in the project)
• .gitignore

Both templates also create assets/ (drop images, audio, video here) and styles/. The default template seeds styles/custom.css with optional CSS overrides; the bare template leaves both folders empty and additionally creates a layout.svelte at the project root for you to customise, plus a project README.md.

Then:

cd my-course
npm install
npm run dev       # local dev server at http://localhost:5173
npm run export    # build + package for the configured LMS standard
npm run validate  # check the project for structural errors, no server or build

Open the printed URL in your browser. The page hot-reloads as you edit course files. Stop the server with Ctrl+C. The scaffolded project's AGENTS.md is the full authoring guide.

Upgrading an existing project

Run from a project root to re-apply the latest framework files:

npx create-tessera@latest upgrade            # apply changes
npx create-tessera@latest upgrade --dry-run  # preview without writing

upgrade touches only framework-owned files: it overwrites AGENTS.md and vite.config.js, reconciles the reserved npm scripts (dev, export, validate) in package.json, and pins tessera-learn to the version this CLI ships. Authored files — course.config.js, pages/, styles/, layout.svelte, README.md — are never touched. If you've changed a reserved script, upgrade leaves your version in place and warns.

Flags

| Flag | Description | |------|-------------| | --template=<name> | default (full starter, components included) or bare (hooks-only, layout.svelte, no built-in components). Defaults to default. | | --dry-run | (upgrade only) Preview changes without writing any files. | | --help, -h | Print usage and exit. |

License

MIT