Feat: use cookiecutter

[erezrokah]

You can test this branch by running cookiecutter gh:netlify/node-template --checkout feat/use_cookiecutter once you install cookiecutter.

We can further automate using https://cli.github.com/manual/gh_repo_create

TODO:

• Add contributing guide for the parent repo (not the generated template)

[ehmicky]

Good call 👍

[erezrokah]

Going to update this as an additional step is required for Windows machines:
https://github.com/netlify/cli/runs/1373808824?check_suite_focus=true#step:8:8
netlify/cli@efc2143#diff-7829468e86c1cc5d5133195b5cb48e1ff6c75e3e9203777f6b2e379d9e4882b3R40

[ehmicky]

This should be fixed by [email protected] (see https://github.com/netlify/cli/pull/1542/files)

[erezrokah]

Resolved by ff887c8

[ehmicky]

Could we use the new test coverage setup?
See netlify/cli#1542

[erezrokah]

Sure, going to update this soon

[erezrokah]

Done in 6f25f9f

[ehmicky]

This is a good idea @erezrokah!
I did not know cookiecutter. How does it compare with yo?

I have been re-inventing the wheel in build-plugin-template implementing what this type of tool is actually doing in using a npm run init task. Would it be useful to use such tool there as well?

[erezrokah]

I did not know cookiecutter. How does it compare with yo?

I'm not familiar with yo but it seems like the barrier to write a template is higher:
https://yeoman.io/authoring/index.html

I have been re-inventing the wheel in build-plugin-template implementing what this type of tool is actually doing in using a npm run init task. Would it be useful to use such tool there as well?

Yes, I completely missed that when I used build-plugin-template.
Only downside is that plugin authors would need to install a new tool

[ehmicky]

Only downside is that plugin authors would need to install a new tool

Would a Node.js based templating generator be better in this case? So people can just npx it.
I did not realize cookiecutter would need to be installed separately.

[erezrokah]

Would a Node.js based templating generator be better in this case? So people can just npx it.

If we can find a good one yes.

[ehmicky]

What do you think of hygen?

[erezrokah]

What do you think of hygen?

Seems like it works best for specific files (e.g. we would need a template for README.md and another for package.json, and less at the repo level. Also it requires custom syntax (markdown and ejs).

All we need is a utility that wraps strings replacements in a CLI. cookiecutter does that very well and it is very easy to reason about (just add a template variable in any file, making it very easy to take a specific file and make it a generic file).

[ehmicky]

Yes, that's definitely a simpler approach, better for our use case.
However, I do think having to install/update this dependency using pip for non-Python developers (like myself) is not optimal. Also, the version of cookiecutter would be left unspecified (unless we add a requirements.txt), which might break things on major releases of cookiecutter.
That being said, there does not seem to be a perfect solution, so let's go with it if you think this is best 👍

[ehmicky]

Should we add an issue to this in build-plugin-template too?

[erezrokah]

should we add an issue to this in build-plugin-template too?

See netlify/build-plugin-template#17