swig-cli-init

An npm script to automatically setup a swig-cli project in an opinionated way with ESM and typescript support.

Requirements

• Globally installed Node.js version >= 20

It is also recommended to have pnpm globally installed so it can be used instead of npm for installing dev dependencies, but it isn't required.

Usage

In a terminal, change directory to the one you want swig initialized within.

Then run the following command:

// With npx:
npx swig-cli-init@latest

// With pnpx:
pnpx swig-cli-init@latest

Verify success by executing sample swig task:

// With global swig install
swig hello

// With local swig and npm exec
npm exec swig hello

// With local swig and pnpm exec
pnpm exec swig hello

What the Script Does

The swig-cli-init script performs all these actions in the current directory:

• Creates package.json if not present
• Set package.json type to module
• Detect if Node.js is installed globally and meets the minimum version requirement (currently 20)
• Add tsconfig.json if not present
• Install dev dependencies with latest versions with pnpm if detected and there isn't a package-lock.json file present, otherwise with npm (see Installed Dev Dependencies section below)
• Create swigfile.ts if not present with an example task hello

Installed Dev Dependencies

| Dev Dependency | Notes | |----------------|-------| | swig-cli@latest | This is required for swig to work. Contains the executable for using local swig install, and includes series and parallel methods for importing in your swigfile.ts to use for automating groups tasks. | | typescript@latest | Ensures typescript is available and set to a specific version. Useful for vscode support as well as referencing a specific known working version of tsc. | | tsx@latest | This is what allows swig to execute typescript files directly without transpiling them. If you try and execute a .ts swigfile without this installed, swig will output a message stating you need it (or to downgrade from Typescript to plain JavaScript). For documentation, see tsx repository. | | @mikeyt23/node-cli-utils | Contains a wide variety of useful functionality. The most used helper method in this package is spawnAsync since many automated dev tasks involve spawning processes (like lint, build and test processes for example). For more info check out the node-cli-utils repository or it's auto-generated documentation at https://mikey-t.github.io/node-cli-utils-docs/. | | @types/node@20 | Typescript type definitions for Node.js - supports vscode intellisense and auto import functionality for importing built-in Node.js functionality. It will pin it to whatever Node.js major version for the currently executing Node.js process (your global installed version). |

Notes

This script is re-runnable, so it can also act as a dev dependency updater since it installs the latest versions of dev dependencies and skips steps that are already complete.

The pnpm package manager is preferred and will be used if it is detected, but it is not required.

Another recommended dev dependency to add is swig-cli-modules (npm i -D swig-cli-modules@latest or with pnpm pnpm i -D swig-cli-modules@latest). This has useful functionality for automating tasks related to Docker and Entity Framework. The swig-cli-modules repository is also a useful source of example swig usage in general. Check out the DotnetReactSandbox module for an example of encapsulating automation of a template style project (in this case, dotnet-react-sandbox). Check out the project db-migrations-dotnet for an example of utilizing the EntityFramework module (specifically, look at swigfile.ts in the example project example-postgres).

Roadmap and Ideas

• Add additional options:
  • Output directory
  • Designate a Node.js version manager and what specific Node.js version to install/use (e.g. mise, nvm, volta)
  • Node and packageManager version pinning via package.json devEngines field
  • Whether or not to include the '@mikeyt23/node-cli-utils' package
• Additional integration tests