After you have been developing code for a while, you eventually settle upon the way you want your build environment setup, the defaults you prefer, and the tools and libraries you want to use when building apps.

Rather than starting from scratch on every project, I would suggest that you create a boilerplate project that you can use to jump start your new projects.

You can build yours from scratch or if you find one that has some of the things you want, then you can fork that project and customize it to get it the rest of the way there.

I’ll walk you through this process as I fork a boilerplate of my own.

Why create a custom boilerplate?

  • Get productive on new project quickly
  • Favorite settings, tools, dependencies
  • Let your mind focus on project at hand

Goals

  • Fork existing repo
  • Customize some key parts
  • Commit and push

Video Info

  • Episode: CW V010
  • Skill level: Beginner with basic git skills
  • Prerequisites:
    • Basic Git skills
  • Published: May 1st, 2015
  • Tags: js, nodejs,git,npm,free
  • Duration: 4:36
  • Git version: 1.8.2.1

Notes

cd ~/working  # change dir to where clone will be created
# use your ssh git clone url, or others https
git clone git@github.com:codewinds/base-react-min.git
cd base-react-min
# customize files
git status  # see what files have changed
git diff    # see what changed in the files
git commit -a -m "customized for my prefs"
git push origin HEAD  # push back to github
  • git-clone-init - npm installable bash script which simplifies process of cloning a boilerplate repo when starting new project, re-initializing git, replacing tokens, and creating initial check in
  • codewinds/base-react-min - CodeWinds boilerplate for minimal React.js projects