Kickstart Express
A scaffolder CLI to quickly generate an Express app
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- weekly downloads
- 2
- github stars
A CLI that scaffolds a production-shaped Express.js project in one command — TypeScript or JavaScript, optional Docker, and a structured controllers/services/routes layout — then keeps extending it after the fact with an add command.
The problem
Every new Express service starts with the same twenty minutes: init the package, wire TypeScript, add CORS and dotenv, decide on a folder layout, write a Dockerfile. It is not hard work, it is just repeated work, and it is easy to do slightly differently every time.
One command, running server
The CLI runs interactively by default and asks five questions — name, language, Docker, src folder, structured architecture. Pass the same answers as flags and it skips the prompts entirely, which is what makes it usable inside other scripts.
npx kickstart-express --name my-api --language ts --docker --src --structured
cd my-api && pnpm devv2: adding features to projects that already exist
Scaffolders usually help once and then get in the way. v2 added an add command so the tool stays useful past minute one: add database wires up MongoDB or Postgres with Mongoose, Prisma or Drizzle, and add auth sets up JWT or Clerk. Each works interactively or with flags.
v2 also dropped the create subcommand — scaffolding is now the default behaviour — and added graceful Ctrl+C handling that cleans up half-written project directories instead of leaving them behind.
kickstart-express add db --db-type postgres --orm prisma
kickstart-express add auth --auth-type jwtWhat generated projects come with
Express with CORS and dotenv configured, hot reload via tsx or nodemon, build and start scripts, and — when asked for — a multi-stage Dockerfile plus docker-compose. The structured template ships a small calculator API as a worked example of the controller/service/route split.