Quick Start

Project templates

Project templates are folders that contain other directories and files.

Given the following directory tree, lets create a Project Template which contains the same files and folders.

mytemplate
├── cmd
│   └── ${PROJECT_NAME}
│       └── main.go
├── docs
├── .gitignore
├── README.md
└── scripts
    └── ${PROJECT_NAME}.sh

Create a folder to hold templates.

mkdir ~/templates
cd ~/templates

Create the Project Template mytemplate.

mkdir mytemplate
mkdir -p 'mytemplate/cmd/${PROJECT_NAME}/'
touch 'mytemplate/cmd/${PROJECT_NAME}/main.go'

# Create git ignore
cat <<'EOF' > mytemplate/.gitignore
.DS_Store # MacOS files
.*.swp    # Vim buffer file
EOF

touch mytemplate/README.md
mkdir -p mytemplate/docs
mkdir -p mytemplate/scripts
touch 'mytemplate/scripts/${PROJECT_NAME}.sh'

Verify that the structure matches the layout above.

tree -an mytemplate
mytemplate
├── cmd
│   └── ${PROJECT_NAME}
│       └── main.go
├── docs
├── .gitignore
├── README.md
└── scripts
    └── ${PROJECT_NAME}.sh

Examine the .gitignore file in your project.

cat mytemplate/.gitignore

Install the template using kick by specifying the path to the mytemplate directory. In the example below we will use the handle of myhandle.

kick install myhandle ~/templates/mytemplate

To see the installed template run the kick start -l or kick start --long.

kick start --long
+----------+----------+-------------+------------------------------------+
|  HANDLE  | TEMPLATE | DESCRIPTION |              LOCATION              |
+----------+----------+-------------+------------------------------------+
| myhandle | -        | -           | /home/vagrant/templates/mytemplate |
+----------+----------+-------------+------------------------------------+

Create a projects directory to create new projects.

mkdir ~/projects

Lets now use myhandle to create directories

kick start myhandle ~/projects/myproject

Upon examining the folder tree, one will see that any file or folder using the variable ${PROJECT_NAME} has been replaced with myproject. Any file or folder that contains a variable in its name will be interpolated by the variables value.

cd ~/projects
tree -an myproject
myproject
├── cmd
│   └── myproject
│       └── main.go
├── docs
├── .gitignore
├── README.md
└── scripts
    └── myproject.sh

4 directories, 4 files

Variables

Variables are either...

  1. predefined variables
  2. environment variables
  3. variables stored in ~/.env

The order of precedence is as above.

The variables stored in ~/.env are key value pairs and take the form key=value.

Create some environment variables which will be used later. Using your favorite editor add the following variables to ~/.env

author="JOHN SMITH"
email=john.smith@email.com

NOTE: The ~/.env file isn't just for the kick utility but can be used by any other program in the same way that ~/.profile is not for just one tool.

Variable Functions

For a list of supported variable functions see Supported Variable Functions in the reference section.

Template files

Templates files are any text file which contains a modeline. A modeline is a piece of text that informs kick that the file is a template. A modeline takes up the form kick:render and should be placed within the first 5 lines of a text file. Modeline lines are stripped from the file and can be placed inside any comment type.

Example modelines

kick:render

# kick:render

// kick:render

<!--- kick:render -->

The next exercise is to add 4 template variables to the README.md file in our template.

  • ${PROJECT_NAME} - Predefined variable
  • ${USER} - Environment variable built into shells (E.G. Bash) which contains the current username.
  • ${author} - Variable from "~/.env"
  • ${email} - Variable from "~/.env"

Change the contents of the ~/templates/mytemplate/README.md by cutting and pasting the whole text below...

cat <<'EOF' > ~/templates/mytemplate/README.md
<!--- kick:render -->
# ${PROJECT_NAME}

AUTHOR: ${author}
EMAIL: ${email}
USER: ${USER}

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor
incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis
nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat.
Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu
fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in
culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.
EOF

Create a new project using the same handle myhandle ...

kick start myhandle ~/projects/project2

Inspect the contents of the README.md file.

cat ~/projects/project2/README.md

# project2

AUTHOR: JOHN SMITH
EMAIL: john.smith@email.com
USER: vagrant

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor
incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis
nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat.
Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu
fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in
culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.

Git Project Templates

Kick can use remote git repositories as stores for project templates. Using our freshly minted project template we can upload this to a git repository and use kick install to install the directory.

Create a git repository and upload it to a remote repository.

cd ~/templates/mytemplate
git init
git add .
git commit -m 'Initial commit'
git remote add origin git@github.com/username/mytemplate.git
git push -u origin master

Remove the old handle

kick remove mytemplate

Add a remote location

kick install mytemplate git@github.com/username/mytemplate.git

Start a new project

kick start mytemplate ~/project/project3

If you would like to find out how to create a repository of project templates, head to the repositories section.