The project you create from this template has a few features to be aware of including:

• A Click application to get you going
• Pytest unit tests
• A documentation project based on Sphinx.

Let's pretend you want to create a CLI tool called "redditcli". Rather than using standard lib argparse and then editing mundane details to include your basic cli tool configuration that always get forgotten until the worst possible moment, get cookiecutter to do all the work.

First, get Cookiecutter. Trust me, it's awesome:

pip install "cookiecutter>=1.4.0"`

Now run it against this repo:

cookiecutter https://github.com/patdaburu/cookiecutter-click

You'll be prompted for some values. Provide them, then a cli tool will be created for you.

Warning: After this point, change 'Vlad Doster', 'vladdoster', etc to your own information.

Answer the prompts with your own desired options. For example:

Cloning into 'cookiecutter-click'...
remote: Counting objects: 550, done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (310/310), done.
remote: Total 550 (delta 283), reused 479 (delta 222)
Receiving objects: 100% (550/550), 127.66 KiB | 58 KiB/s, done.
Resolving deltas: 100% (283/283), done.
project_name [my-click-project]: Reddit CLI
package_name [my-click-project]: reddit_cli
cli_name [my_click_project]: reddit-cli
project_version [0.0.1]: 0.0.1
project_description [This is my click command-line app]: Browse Reddit from a cli tool!
Select python_version:
1 - 3.6
2 - 3.7
3 - 3.8
Choose from 1, 2, 3 (1, 2, 3) [1]: 1
Select virtualenv:
1 - virtualenv
2 - python3
Choose from 1, 2 (1, 2) [1]: 1
Select linter:
1 - flake8
2 - pylint
Choose from 1, 2 (1, 2) [1]:
Select sphinx_theme:
1 - alabaster
2 - readthedocs
Choose from 1, 2 (1, 2) [1]: 1
Select auto_readme:
1 - None
2 - pandoc
Choose from 1, 2 (1, 2) [1]: 1
author_name [my_name]: Vlad Doster
author_email [my_email]: [email protected]
Select license:
1 - MIT
2 - BSD
3 - GPLv3
4 - Apache Software License 2.0
5 - None
Choose from 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) [1]: 1
github_user [my_github_user]: vladdoster

Enter the project and take a look around:

cd reddit_cli/
source venv/bin/activate
reddit_cli --help
ls -a

Create a git repo and push it there:

git init
git add .
git commit -m "first awesome commit"
git remote add origin [email protected]:vladdoster/reddit_cli.git
git push -u origin master

The template contains a cookiecutter post-generate hook that will attempt to do the following using targets in the project's Makefile:

You may want to go about this differently according to your processes, but if you want to create a virtual environment for the project, install the dependencies, and set up the comman-line application, you can use the make targets defined in the project like so.

There are several other make targets so have a look at the Makefile if you're interested.

cd <project-name>
make venv
make install
make build

If you have performed the steps above, you should now be able to run the application by the project name.

<project-name> --help

If you get the template help message, you're ready to start building.

Would you like to learn more? Check out the links below!

• Cookiecutter Project Documentation
• Cookiecutter: Project Templates Made Easy
• Click
• Pytest
• Sphinx

This program was created by Pat Daburu.

This project is hosted on GitHub. Please feel free to submit pull requests.

Copyright © 2018–2020 Pat Daburu. This program is released under the GPLv3 license, which you can find in the file LICENSE.