Creating Templates

Templates are files that will be referenced when creating files using Gnerate.

Templates Directory

Gnerate will look for a templates directory in a order of highest -> lowest priority. This is the directory that will be searched for template files.

• If a --templatePath= is provided through the cli, Gnerate will look there first
• Next, Gnerate will use the templatePath provided in gnerate.config.js
• Lastly, if the two above methods aren’t provided, Gnerate will look for a root directory called __templates__

Creating a Template

We use Nunjucks as our templating engine, so any template being consumed by Gnerate has the full potential of what Nunjucks has to offer!

In our templatePath, generally __templates__, create a new file called component.njs (.njs is the common extension for Nunjucks, but any extension would work). Populating the file with any Nunjucks valid template would work. In this case, let’s say we want a ReactJS boilerplate component. We could define our template like:

export default class {{ filename }} extends React.Component {
    render() {
        return (
            <div>
                Gnerate!
            </div>
        );
    }
}

Some variables get provided automatically by Gnerate, like filename. We can provide our own variables to templates through params; this will be covered later.