Conartist

Scaffold out and keep all your files in sync over time. Code-shifts for your file system.

Conartist is a tool that allows you to scaffold out and maintain your project configurations over time.

• ✋ Keeping separate repos in sync.
• 📦 Keeping monorepo packages in sync.
• 🏗 Scaffolding out new projects.
• 📐 Works well with workspaces.

Install

npm i -D conartist

Conartist can be configured by any one of the following:

• conartist field in the package.json
• .conartistrc
• .conartistrc.json
• .conartistrc.yaml
• .conartistrc.yml
• .conartistrc.js
• .conartist.config.js

If you use a .js file, you will be able to have finer-grained control over your configuration. More on this later.

CLI

$ conartist --help

  Description
    Declarative project scaffolding and synchronisation.

  Usage
    $ conartist <command> [options]

  Available Commands
    default    Run the default configuration.
    init       Creates a basic configuration file.

  For more info, run any command with the `--help` flag
    $ conartist default --help
    $ conartist init --help

  Options
    -v, --version    Displays current version
    -d, --dry        Perform a dry run.
    -h, --help       Displays this message

Getting started

You can run:

$ conartist init .

It will output:

/path/to/cwd
  A conartist.config.js

Which tells you that it added a conartist.config.js file to your current working directory.

If you open the new conartist.config.js you should see something like:

module.exports = { files: [] };

Simple example

If you put the following in a package.json.

{
  "conartist": {
    "files": {
      ".gitignore": "node_modules",
      ".nvmrc": "10.16.0",
      ".travis.yml": "language: node_js",
      "src/index.js": "module.exports = {};"
    }
  }
}

Now run conartist on the current working directory:

$ conartist .
/path/to/cwd
  A .gitignore
  A .nvmrc
  A .travis.yml
  A src/index.js

Resulting in the following file structure:

├─ src
│ └─ index.js
├─ .gitignore
├─ .nvmrc
└─ .travis.yml

The key from each entry is the file path relative to the cwd and the value becomes the file contents.

Configuration

The conartist configuration is a config object or a function that returns a config object.

All options are optional.

A files object is the simpler form of configuration when you don't need to specify any other options.

module.exports = {
  files: {
    "src/index.js": "module.exports = {};"
  }
};

A files array allows you to specify more options.

module.exports = {
  // The these are merged with each entry in `files` but do not
  // override them.
  fileDefaults: {
    merge: false,
    overwrite: false,
    remove: false
  },
  files: [
    {
      // The name of the file relative to the directory it is run in.
      // In the `files` object, this is the key.
      name: "src/index.js",

      // The contents of the file. In the `files` object this is the
      // value.
      data: "module.exports = {};",

      // Whether or not to attempt merging with any existing file if
      // supported by the data type.
      merge: false,

      // Whether or not to override the existing file.
      overwrite: false,

      // Whether or not the file should be removed. This superseces
      // any other option because the file is deleted.
      remove: false,

      // The data type to handle the file as. Built-in data types are
      // listed below. By default this is inferred from the file
      // extension. If a data type for the file extension cannot be
      // found, the typeof the value is used. If it still can't find
      // a data type, it coerces it to a string. To specify your own
      // data type, use a function.
      type: "js"
    }
  ]
};

Includes is just an array of configurations that also allow you to use module-specifier strings for loading external configurations.

module.exports = {
  // These only act as defaults for `files` in the config in which they
  // are specified and do not affect anything in `includes`.
  fileDefaults: {},
  includes: [
    [
      // This is just a standard config as specified for module.exports.
      {
        files: [
          {
            name: "src/index.js",
            data: "module.exports = {};"
          }
        ]
      }
    ]
  ]
};

As noted above, you can also specify includes using module-specifiers.

module.exports = {
  includes: [
    // Loaded via node_modules.
    "some-module-config",

    // Loaded relative to the CWD.
    "./path/to/config",

    // Use this form if your config will be used as an include because
    // paths are resolved relative to where the config is run from.
    require("some-module-config"),
    require("./path/to/config")
  ]
};

Making includes just standard configurations means that an include can just be any old configuration and they're resolved recursively down the tree. The outer configurations are applied after the inner configurations, but they do not override them, allowing them to be composed.

Built-in data types

These types correspond to the extname of the name option, or can be explicitly specified as a type.

• js takes data as a string and formats it using prettier.
  • overwrite: false Existing file is preserved.
  • overwrite: true New data overwrites existing file.
• jsx alias for js.
• json takes data as JSON and stringifies it.
  • merge: false, overwrite: false prefers existing values.
  • merge: false, overwrite: true prefers new values.
  • merge: true, overwrite: false merges values, preferring existing values.
  • merge: true, overwrite: true merge values, preferring new values.
• md takes data as a string and formats it using prettier.
  • overwrite: false Existing file is preserved.
  • overwrite: true New data overwrites existing file.
• mdx alais for md.

API

All exported API points are documented below.

async bin(opt) - automated CLI

The bin function automates a lot of the boilerplate in creating a CLI tool. It's intended to jump-start your ability for you to create a Conartist config that can be run by simply typing npx your-command. This idea was borrowed from https://www.npmjs.com/package/travis.yml.

A big bonus of doing things this way is that your consumers don't need conartist to be installed and serveral commands can work in harmony even if they depend on different versions of conartist.

The available options are:

• name the name of your CLI. Defaults to "".
• description the description of your CLI. Defaults to "".
• version the version of your CLI. Defaults to "0.0.0".
• conartist the conartist configuration as normally specified in a config file. Defaults to {}.
• options custom CLI options. Each key is the option name and each value can either be a string and will be the description, or it allows an object that may contain:
  • alias the option alias (i.e. -a).
  • default the default value.
  • description the option description.
  • question an inquirer question object.
• commands custom CLI sub-commands. Each key is the command name and each value can either be a string and will be the description, or it allows:
  • description the command description.
  • options an object of options as described above for global options.

The following example creates a npx license-mit command.

package.json

{
  "name": "license-mit",
  "description": "Creates and maintains an MIT license in your projects.",
  "author": "Your Name <you@yourdomain.com>",
  "version": "1.0.0",
  "bin": "."
}

bin.js

The following bin.js uses information from your package.json to define metadata, and then specifies the conartist option to specify the conartist configuration. You could have specified conartist in your package.json, but we wanted the ability to use template literals, thus opted to specify it as a JavaScript object instead.

#! /usr/bin/env node

const { bin } = require("conartist");
const pkg = require("./package.json");

bin({
  ...pkg,
  conartist: {
    files: {
      LICENSE: `
        Copyright 2019 ${pkg.author}

        Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

        The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

        THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.
      `
    }
  }
});

Resulting LICENSE

Copyright 2019 Your Name <you@yourdomain.com>

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.

Testing

You can now test to see if your command works by running npx .:

$ npx . .
/path/to/cwd
  A LICENSE

Customize using CLI arguments

In the above example, the configuration is specified using an object. However, you could also specify a function returning an object that gets the following options passed in:

• cli the arguments parsed from the CLI. This allows you to add custom options and use them to generate your config.
• cmd the sub-command that was run. Defaults to "default".
• cwd the current working directory that the config is running in.
• opt the options that you originally passed in to bin(opt).

If you wanted to accept a custom author, you could set it up as an option and default it to what's in the package.json.

#! /usr/bin/env node

const { bin } = require("conartist");
const pkg = require("./package.json");

bin({
  ...pkg,
  options: {
    author: {
      alias: "a",
      default: pkg.author,
      description: "The package author."
    }
  },
  conartist: ({ cli }) => ({
    files: {
      LICENSE: `
        Copyright 2019 ${cli.author}

        Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

        The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

        THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.
      `
    }
  })
});

Now you can run:

$ npx . . -a "Custom Author"
/path/to/cwd
  A LICENSE

Accepting input via prompts

You could take this a step further and prompt the user for input if an option isn't provided. It won't prompt the user for input if a default is provided, so you must remove the default from the option. If you want to provide a default for the question, then just add it as the default for the question, as seen below.

#! /usr/bin/env node

const { bin } = require("conartist");
const pkg = require("./package.json");

bin({
  ...pkg,
  options: {
    author: {
      alias: "a",
      description: "The package author.",
      question: {
        default: pkg.author,
        message: "What author should we use?"
      }
    }
  },
  conartist: ({ cli }) => ({
    files: {
      LICENSE: `
        Copyright 2019 ${cli.author}

        Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

        The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

        THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.
      `
    }
  })
});

Now when you run the command without the --author option, it will prompt you to fill it in.

$ npx . .
? What author should we use? Your Name <you@yourdomain.com>
/path/to/cwd
  O LICENSE

Built-in features

The bin function automates quite a bit for you.

Running in specific directories:

$ npx . path/to/new path/to/existing
A path/to/new/LICENSE
U path/to/existing/LICENSE

Help:

$ npx . --help

  Description
    Creates and maintains an MIT license in your projects.

  Usage
    $ mit-license <command> [options]

  Available Commands
    default    Run the default configuration.

  For more info, run any command with the `--help` flag
    $ mit-license default --help

  Options
    -v, --version    Displays current version
    -h, --help       Displays this message

Version:

$ npx . --version
1.0.0

Publishing and running

You can now run np and your command is runnable via npx license-mit anywhere.

async sync(cfg, opt) - programmatic config application

The sync function takes a configuration as cfg, normalizes it with opt and applies it to your cwd.

The available options are:

• cwd a custom current working directory to apply the configuration to. Defaults to ".".
• dry perform a dry run (does not modify any files, just outputs what would happen to them).
• events an instance of an EventEmitter (use via the built-in module: require("events")). Supported events are:
  • file, { action, file } when a file is affected. The file argument is the file, relative to the cwd and action is the action that was taken on the file.
  • info, message when info is logged. The message argument is the info message.
  • warn, message when warn is logged. The message is the warning.

const { sync } = require("conartist");

sync(
  {
    files: {
      ".travis.yml": "language: node_js"
    }
  },
  {
    cwd: "packages/sub-package"
  }
);

Just like with bin, if you specify a function as cfg, the options you pass in are passed to it:

const { sync } = require("conartist");

sync(
  ({ language }) => ({
    files: {
      ".travis.yml": "language: node_js"
    }
  }),
  {
    language: "node_js"
  }
);