From 8fe7ce2102daa5d62c0dbbf158e4ce9a66522f03 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Steve Manuel <steve@dylib.so>
Date: Fri, 26 Apr 2024 08:43:42 -0600
Subject: [PATCH] docs: add generate information to README (#78)

---
 README.md | 61 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++--------
 1 file changed, 52 insertions(+), 9 deletions(-)

diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index 28f146e..6133fd4 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -1,6 +1,7 @@
 # extism CLI
 
-The [Extism](https://github.com/extism/extism) CLI can be used to execute Extism plugins and manage libextism installations.
+The [Extism](https://github.com/extism/extism) CLI can be used to generate or
+execute Extism plugins and manage libextism installations.
 
 ## Installation
 
@@ -30,22 +31,62 @@ nix-shell -p extism-cli
 
 ### Manual
 
-You can also download and extract the latest release from [https://github.com/extism/cli/releases](https://github.com/extism/cli/releases)
+You can also download and extract the latest release from
+[https://github.com/extism/cli/releases](https://github.com/extism/cli/releases)
+
+## Generate a Plugin
+
+To quickly start writing an Extism plugin in any of the supported PDK languages,
+using `extism` CLI to generate minimal boilerplate may be helpful:
+
+```sh
+mkdir js-plugin && cd js-plugin
+extism generate plugin 
+
+  Select a PDK language to use for your plugin:  
+                                                 
+    1. Rust                                      
+  > 2. JavaScript                                
+    3. Go                                        
+    4. Zig                                       
+    5. C#                                        
+    6. F#                                        
+    7. C                                         
+    8. Haskell                                   
+    9. AssemblyScript                            
+# or pass a path to the output via `-o`, see more options running `extism generate -h`
+```
+
+This will output a quickstart plugin project with the necessary configuration
+and dependencies ready. If no output directory was specified, the current
+directory will be used.
+
+**NOTE:**: You may still need to install language tools such as compilers or
+other system dependencies to compile the plugin to WebAssembly.
 
-### Call a plugin
+To further improve this, we will eventually include a `Dockerfile` in each
+generated project, so a build environment can be easily created with all tools
+necessary. If you're interested in contributing to this effort, please join us
+on [Discord](https://extism.org), and check out the PDK template repository of
+interest, listed in
+[pdk-templates.json](https://github.com/extism/cli/blob/main/pdk-templates.json)
 
-The following will call the `count_vowels` function in the `count_vowels.wasm` module with the input "qwertyuiop":
+## Call a plugin
+
+The following will call the `count_vowels` function in the `count_vowels.wasm`
+module with the input "qwertyuiop":
 
 ```shell
 PLUGIN_URL="https://github.com/extism/plugins/releases/latest/download/count_vowels.wasm"
 extism call $PLUGIN_URL count_vowels --input qwertyuiop
 ```
 
-> **Note**: The first parameter to `call` can also be a path to a Wasm file on disk.
+> **Note**: The first parameter to `call` can also be a path to a Wasm file on
+> disk.
 
 See `extism call --help` for a list of all the flags
 
-### Listing libextism versions
+## Listing libextism versions
 
 To list the available libextism versions:
 
@@ -61,7 +102,9 @@ extism lib versions v0.0.1-alpha
 
 ### Install libextism
 
-To install the latest version of `libextism` to `/usr/local` on macOS and Linux and `.` on Windows, this will overwrite any existing installation at the same path:
+To install the latest version of `libextism` to `/usr/local` on macOS and Linux
+and `.` on Windows, this will overwrite any existing installation at the same
+path:
 
 ```shell
 sudo PATH=$PATH env extism lib install
@@ -95,9 +138,9 @@ extism lib uninstall --prefix ~/.local
 
 ### Check a libextism installation
 
-The `lib check` command will print the version of the installed `libextism` library:
+The `lib check` command will print the version of the installed `libextism`
+library:
 
 ```shell
 extism lib check
 ```
-