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.

bun create <template> <destination>

A template can take a number of forms:

bun create <template>         # an official template (remote)

bun create <username>/<repo>  # a GitHub repo (remote)

bun create <local-template>   # a custom template (local)

Running bun create performs the following steps:

• Download the template (remote templates only)
• Copy all template files into the destination folder. By default Bun will not overwrite any existing files. Use the --force flag to overwrite existing files.
• 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.

Official templates

The following official templates are available.

bun create next ./myapp
bun create react ./myapp
bun create svelte-kit ./myapp
bun create elysia ./myapp
bun create hono ./myapp
bun create kingworld ./myapp

Each of these corresponds to a directory in the bun-community/create-templates repo. If you think a major framework is missing, please open a PR there. This list will change over time as additional examples are added. To see an up-to-date list, run bun create with no arguments.

bun create

Welcome to bun! Create a new project by pasting any of the following:
  <list of templates>

GitHub repos

A template of the form <username>/<repo> will be downloaded from GitHub.

bun create ahfarmer/calculator ./myapp

Complete GitHub URLs will also work:

bun create github.com/ahfarmer/calculator ./myapp

bun create https://github.com/ahfarmer/calculator ./myapp

Bun installs the files as they currently exist current default branch (usually main or master). Unlike git clone it doesn't download the commit history or configure a remote.

Local templates

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.

Each of these can correspond to a string or array of strings. An array of commands will be executed in order. Here is an example:

{
  "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!'"
  }
}

When 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