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Why Code Shaper

Starter templates and code generators are a popular way for developers to get started with a new language or a framework. However, many of them fail to support an efficient and robust development workflow.

The Problems​

  1. Lack of production-grade tooling: Many generators provide a minimal setup to get us started quickly, however they lack the tooling necessary for creating production-grade apps. For example, they might leave out linting, standalone component development, testing, or mocking APIs. With such generators, we end up wasting a lot of time selecting and integrating tools that can work nicely together.
  2. Limited code generation capabilities: Imagine you are a on a team that has very opinionated coding standards and patterns. You've also standardized on specific 3rd-party libraries and tooling. Then you want to write custom code generators to assist your developers to produce quality code. Many off-the-shelf generators provide minimal flexibility in generating code your way. Many are template-based, providing simple substitution mechanisms. However, these don't scale up if you want to do something more complex.
  3. Limited sharing capabilities: When you write a useful code generator, you may want to share it with other teams or repos – perhaps even open source it. Many generators were not designed with this kind of sharing in mind, or sharing was an after-thought.

How Code Shaper solves them?​

Imagine a code generator that was designed from the ground up to solve the problems above. Here's how we addressed these problems in Code Shaper:

  1. Provide production-grade tooling: Code Shaper was designed to be modular, so that teams could add production-grade tooling of their choice. Its plugin architecture allows you to build your repo layer-by-layer, adding the exact tooling you need. The off-the-shelf generators come with high-quality, opinionated tooling for linting, testing, component development, and mocking APIs. See the Next.js, Vite and Remix generators as examples.
  2. Powerful code generation capabilities: Instead of template-first approach, Code Shaper takes a code-first approach. While the generator is based on powerful EJS templates, it is still driven using JavaScript. If the pre-built template workflow doesn't match your needs, you're able to customize the workflow in code. Try writing your own custom code generator by following the instructions here.
  3. Full sharing capabilities: Code Shaper's plugin architecture allows you to bundle one or more generators into a plugin. Then publish it to an internal or external registry such as npm or artifactory. This allows you to share your generators with other teams or open source it. Not only that, when you publish a new version, anyone can get it using a simple npm update – no copying, no fuss.

Code Shaper Benefits​

  • Speed: Code Shaper saves you time whenever you start a new project because a robust starter repo can be created in minutes instead of days or weeks. Also, creating a new component, helper, or another artifact takes seconds instead of copying and pasting from other places. All this time adds up to huge savings.

  • Code consistency: By encapsulating best practices, the code you generate will be consistent and of high quality across projects and team members. When new patterns are introduced, you simply upgrade your generators to new standards. This approach also helps junior team members become productive faster.

  • Standardized tooling: Code generation allows you to embed standardized processes and tools into your projects. A member joining from another team is instantaneously familiar with the folder structure, development & testing tools and CI/CD pipeline.