Snapcube

📖 Full Documentation → https://snapcube.netlify.app

Clone and recreate complete project structures in seconds! 🚀

Snapcube is a lightweight CLI tool that snapshots your project's entire directory tree (including or excluding file contents) into a single JSON file — and recreates it anywhere instantly. Perfect for templates, backups, AI-assisted reviews, and team sharing.

✨ Features

• 📦 Local Project Cloning – Save your project's structure and contents into JSON
• 🌐 GitHub Repo Cloning – Fetch any public GitHub repository directly into JSON (no manual download needed)
• 🦊 GitLab Repo Cloning – Fetch GitLab repositories with full support for public and private repos
• 🔑 Private Repo Cloning – Clone private GitHub/GitLab repositories by passing a Personal Access Token (--token)
• 🏗 Project Creation – Rebuild projects exactly from saved JSON
• 🚫 Smart Filtering – Skips unnecessary directories like node_modules
• 🔄 Recursive Scanning – Handles deeply nested folder structures
• 📝 Content Control – Choose to include all, only non-binary, or no file contents
• 📂 Structure-Only Mode – Return only an array of file paths (no metadata/contents) — lightweight for AI/LLM project analysis
• ⚡ Fast & Efficient – Minimal disk and memory overhead
• ✅ Validation – Detects and warns if a .snapcube.json is invalid before creation

📦 Installation

Global Install (recommended for frequent use)

npm install -g snapcube

Then use it anywhere:

snapcube clone ./my-project

Using Without Installation (npx)

If you don't want to install globally, you can run Snapcube directly:

npx snapcube clone ./my-project

💡 Notes for npx usage:

• On first run, npx downloads the package temporarily.
• You must have Node.js installed (version 18+ recommended).
• If you get command not found, try again — sometimes the first run only fetches dependencies.

Example workflow with npx:

# Clone a project structure without binary contents
npx snapcube clone ./my-project --ignore-binaries

# Restore it later
npx snapcube create my-project.snapcube.json

🚀 Usage Examples

1. Clone a Local Project

snapcube clone <directory-path>

Example:

snapcube clone ./my-awesome-project

This will generate:

my-awesome-project.snapcube.json

2. Clone a GitHub Repository

snapcube clone-repo github:<username/repo>@<branch>

Examples:

# Clone Snapcube repo itself (main branch)
snapcube clone-repo github:tanmayvaij/snapcube@main

# Clone without binary file contents
snapcube clone-repo github:tanmayvaij/artistly@main --ignore-binaries

# Clone only structure (no file contents)
snapcube clone-repo github:tanmayvaij/artistly@main --ignore-all

📄 Generates {username}_{repo-name}.snapcube.json.

3. Clone a GitLab Repository

snapcube clone-repo gitlab:<username/repo>@<branch>

Examples:

# Clone a GitLab repo
snapcube clone-repo gitlab:username/my-project@main

# Clone with authentication token
snapcube clone-repo gitlab:username/private-project@main --token <your_gitlab_token>

🔑 Clone a Private Repository

Private repositories require authentication with a Personal Access Token.

snapcube clone-repo github:username/private-repo@main --token <your_github_token>
snapcube clone-repo gitlab:username/private-repo@main --token <your_gitlab_token>

Examples:

# Clone a private GitHub repo fully
snapcube clone-repo github:myorg/secret-project@main --token ghp_xxx123abc

# Clone private GitLab repo but skip binary files
snapcube clone-repo gitlab:myorg/secret-project@main --ignore-binaries --token glpat_xxx123abc

⚠️ If you try cloning a private repo without --token, Snapcube will throw an error.

👉 How to generate tokens:

GitHub:

1. Go to GitHub Settings → Developer Settings → Personal Access Tokens.
2. Click Generate new token → Choose classic token.
3. Select scopes: repo (to access private repos)

GitLab:

1. Go to GitLab Settings → Access Tokens
2. Create token with read_repository scope

4. Recreate a Project

snapcube create <json-file>

Example:

snapcube create my-awesome-project.snapcube.json

The project will be recreated inside a folder named after the original project.

5. Structure-Only Mode

If you only want the directory tree (without file contents, sizes, encodings, etc.), use --structure-only.

snapcube clone ./my-project --structure-only

Example Output:

[
  "my-project/package.json",
  "my-project/src/index.js",
  "my-project/src/App.jsx",
  "my-project/public/index.html"
]

This is extremely useful for AI/LLM project understanding, lightweight snapshots, or tech stack analysis.

📋 Commands & Flags

| Command / Option | Description | Example | | ------------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------ | | clone | Save local project structure to JSON | snapcube clone ./my-project | | clone-repo | Save structure of a remote repo to JSON | snapcube clone-repo github:user/repo@main | | create | Restore project from JSON | snapcube create my-project.snapcube.json | | --ignore-binaries | Ignore content of binary files (images, PDFs, videos, etc.) | snapcube clone ./my-project --ignore-binaries | | --ignore-all | Ignore content of all files — only structure & metadata saved | snapcube clone ./my-project --ignore-all | | --structure-only | Save only the file paths (no metadata/contents) | snapcube clone ./my-project --structure-only | | --token <token> | Provide authentication token for private repos | snapcube clone-repo github:user/private@main --token xxx | | --help | Show help information | snapcube --help | | --version | Show version number | snapcube --version |

💡 Tip: If both --ignore-all and --ignore-binaries are provided, --ignore-all takes priority. 💡 Note: --structure-only overrides everything else and just outputs an array of file paths.

📁 JSON File Structure

Example output:

[
  {
    "fileName": "package.json",
    "filePath": "my-awesome-project",
    "content": "{\n  \"name\": \"my-project\"...\n}",
    "isBinary": false,
    "encoding": "utf-8"
  },
  {
    "fileName": "logo.png",
    "filePath": "my-awesome-project/assets",
    "content": null,
    "isBinary": true,
    "encoding": "base64"
  }
]

📌 Structure-only mode simplifies this to just file paths:

[
  "my-awesome-project/package.json",
  "my-awesome-project/assets/logo.png"
]

🎯 Use Cases

• 📋 Project Templates – Distribute starter kits instantly
• 🔄 Backup & Restore – Keep lightweight project backups
• 🌐 Clone Remote Repos to JSON – Store snapshots for later use
• 🔑 Private Repo Snapshots – Archive or share internal projects securely
• 🤝 Collaboration – Share codebases without using Git
• 📚 Education – Distribute coding examples & tutorials
• 🤖 AI Code Review – Send .snapcube.json for AI-assisted debugging
• 🧠 LLM Project Analysis – Use --structure-only to let AI quickly identify frameworks, languages, and project setup

⚙️ How It Works

Cloning Process

1. Scans the target directory or remote repo recursively
2. Skips ignored folders (node_modules, .git, etc.)
3. Reads file content (Base64 for binary, UTF-8 for text) unless ignored
4. Saves everything to a .snapcube.json file

Creation Process

1. Validates the .snapcube.json format
2. Creates necessary folders
3. Restores files with their original content (if available)
4. Recreates the exact directory structure

🚫 Ignored by Default

• node_modules/
• .git/ and hidden directories
• .next/, dist/, out/, and build output folders
• __pycache__/, venv/, vender/
• Temporary files like .DS_Store, thumbs.db, and cache directories

🤝 Contributing

1. 🍴 Fork the repo
2. 🌱 Create a branch: git checkout -b feature/AmazingFeature
3. 💾 Commit changes: git commit -m "Add some AmazingFeature"
4. 📤 Push: git push origin feature/AmazingFeature
5. 🎉 Open a Pull Request

🐛 Issues & Support

• 🐞 Report a Bug
• 💡 Request a Feature
• 📧 Email: [email protected]

🙏 Acknowledgments

• Built with ❤️ using Node.js + Commander.js
• Inspired by the need for quick project structure sharing
• Thanks to all contributors and early adopters

⭐ If you like Snapcube, star the repo to support development!

Made with 💖 by Tanmay Vaij