Templates

bun init

Scaffold an empty project with the interactive bun init command.

bun init

bun init helps you get started with a minimal project and tries to
guess sensible defaults. Press ^C anytime to quit.

package name (quickstart):
entry point (index.ts):

Done! A package.json file was saved in the current directory.
 + index.ts
 + .gitignore
 + tsconfig.json (for editor auto-complete)
 + README.md

To get started, run:
  bun run index.ts

Press enter to accept the default answer for each prompt, or pass the -y flag to auto-accept the defaults.

bun create

Template a new Bun project with bun create. This is a flexible command that can be used to create a new project with a create-<template> npm package, a GitHub repo, or a local template.

From npm

bun create <template> [<destination>]

Assuming you don't have a local template with the same name, this command will download and execute the create-<template> package from npm. The following two commands will behave identically:

bun create remix

bunx create-remix

Refer to the documentation of the associated create-<template> package for complete documentation and usage instructions.

From GitHub

This will download the contents of the GitHub repo to disk.

bun create <user>/<repo>

bun create github.com/<user>/<repo>

Optionally specify a name for the destination folder. If no destination is specified, the repo name will be used.

bun create <user>/<repo> mydir

bun create github.com/<user>/<repo> mydir

Bun will perform the following steps:

• Download the template
• Copy all template files into the destination folder
• Install dependencies with bun install.
• Initialize a fresh Git repo. Opt out with the --no-git flag.
• Run the template's configured start script, if defined.

From a local template

Bun's templater can be extended to support custom templates defined on your local file system. These templates should live in one of the following directories:

• $HOME/.bun-create/<name>: global templates
• <project root>/.bun-create/<name>: project-specific templates

To create a local template, navigate to $HOME/.bun-create and create a new directory with the desired name of your template.

cd $HOME/.bun-create

mkdir foo

cd foo

Then, create a package.json file in that directory with the following contents:

{
  "name": "foo"
}

You can run bun create foo elsewhere on your file system to verify that Bun is correctly finding your local template.

Setup logic

You can specify pre- and post-install setup scripts in the "bun-create" section of your local template's package.json.

{
  "name": "@bun-examples/simplereact",
  "version": "0.0.1",
  "main": "index.js",
  "dependencies": {
    "react": "^17.0.2",
    "react-dom": "^17.0.2"
  },
  "bun-create": {
    "preinstall": "echo 'Installing...'", // a single command
    "postinstall": ["echo 'Done!'"], // an array of commands
    "start": "bun run echo 'Hello world!'"
  }
}

The following fields are supported. Each of these can correspond to a string or array of strings. An array of commands will be executed in order.

After cloning a template, bun create will automatically remove the "bun-create" section from package.json before writing it to the destination folder.

Reference

CLI flags

Environment variables