create-zerotal

Scaffold a new Zerotal application in seconds with bun create zerotal.

create-zerotal is the interactive scaffolding CLI for the Zerotal framework. It prompts for a project name, a starter template, and (for the API template) a database, then generates the project and runs bun install.

Part of the Zerotal framework. Requires Bun ≥ 1.3.14.

Bun is required. The CLI entry (src/index.ts) uses a #!/usr/bin/env bun shebang and the Bun runtime APIs (Bun.file, Bun.env). It cannot run under Node — npx create-zerotal / npm create zerotal will fail; use bun create zerotal.

Usage

bun create zerotal my-app
# or
bunx create-zerotal my-app

The CLI is interactive: if you omit the project name it prompts for one (default my-zerotal-app), then asks you to choose a template and, for the api template, a database. It aborts rather than overwrite a directory that already contains a package.json.

Templates

| Template | Description | | --------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | api | JSON REST API — core, ORM, auth, validation, testing. Prompts for a database. | | admin | Admin panel — resources, auth, dashboard widgets, seeded demo data. | | flow | Server-driven UI — Flow pages, top nav, Tailwind. | | react | Inertia + React SPA — file-based routes, Tailwind. | | vue | Inertia + Vue SPA — file-based routes, Tailwind. | | minimal | Single page, JSX views, Tailwind — the bare framework. |

Databases (api template only)

| Choice | Notes | | ---------- | --------------------------------------------------- | | sqlite | Zero setup, file-based — great for getting started. | | postgres | Requires a DATABASE_URL env var. | | mysql | Requires a DATABASE_URL env var. |

Next steps

After scaffolding, the CLI prints the next commands:

cd my-app
# (set DATABASE_URL in .env for a non-sqlite api project)
bun zt migrate   # api template only
bun zt db:seed   # admin template — demo data plus the first account
bun zt serve --dev

The admin template's panel is behind a sign-in, so seeding is what makes a fresh app usable rather than a locked door: it creates [email protected] with the password password, alongside a small demo catalogue. Open /admin.

Documentation

• Scaffolding