A new, simpler alternative to clj-new
.
Intended to be installed as a "tool" (Clojure CLI 1.11.1.1149 or later).
clojure -Ttools install-latest :lib io.github.seancorfield/deps-new :as new
Note: if you get an error about
No known ancestor relationship between git versions
then you probably installedclj-new
:as new
previously, so you will need to remove that first:clojure -Ttools remove :tool new
.clj-new
should be installed:as clj-new
if you want to use both tools.
deps-new
only supports :local/root
and git
-based coordinates, not Maven/Clojars coordinates. If you want an alternative that supports distributing your templates using Maven/Clojars look at clj-new but bear in mind I am no longer actively maintaining that.
Note: if you see instructions to use a template that look like
clojure -A:new some-template :name whatever
orclojure -Tnew some-template :name whatever
, wheresome-template
is not one of the built-in templates (app
,lib
,pom
,scratch
,template
), those probably refer to clj-new rather thandeps-new
. Any templates other than the built-in ones are created and maintained by the community in repositories elsewhere, so please open issues or ask questions of the appropriate maintainer (not me).
The documentation here is structured as follows:
- Motivation -- why does
deps-new
exist? - Create an Application -- how to create a basic application project, that can build an uberjar
- Create a Library -- how to create a basic library project, that can build a JAR and deploy to Clojars
- Create a Template -- how to create your own
deps-new
template project - Additional projects/files that
deps-new
can create (scratch,pom.xml
) - More General Usage -- this includes links to additional documentation:
- Project Names and Variables to see how the project name (
:name
) is used to derive the default values of all the built-in substitution variables - All the Options for the full list of command-line options available when invoking
deps-new
- Writing Templates for documentation on how to write your own templates
- Project Names and Variables to see how the project name (
Followed by sections listing some community deps-new
templates, integration with Emacs, some notes about the generated LICENSE
file, and finally how to use
deps-new
with the Babashka CLI library.
clj-new
inherently carries along all of the baggage of lein new
and boot new
, including a modified chunk of Leiningen itself, as well as depending on Pomegranate for loading dependencies (so as to be compatible with Leiningen and Boot), and Stencil for the variable substitution in templates. The recently-released tools.build
library, from the core Clojure team, provides all of the functionality needed to create new projects from templates, so deps-new
aims to provide a wrapper around tools.build
, some standard templates "out of the box", and machinery to allow you to easily write your own templates, mostly with no code needed at all.
The app
and lib
templates in deps-new
are currently almost identical to those in clj-new
, in terms of what
they provide in generated projects, although they need no code: deps-new
templates are primarily declarative,
using a template.edn
file to describe how parts of the template are copied into the target project folder.
You can get help on the available functions like this:
clojure -A:deps -Tnew help/doc
clojure -Tnew app :name myusername/mynewapp
Creates a directory mynewapp
containing a new application project, with myusername
as the
"top" namespace and mynewapp
as the main project namespace:
;; mynewapp/src/myusername/mynewapp.clj
(ns myusername.mynewapp
(:gen-class))
(defn greet
"Callable entry point to the application."
[data]
(println (str "Hello, " (or (:name data) "World") "!")))
(defn -main
"I don't do a whole lot ... yet."
[& args]
(greet {:name (first args)}))
In this new project, you can run clojure -A:deps -T:build help/doc
to see what tasks are available
in build.clj
. You can run the following in the freshly-generated project:
clojure -T:build test
-- run the tests (they'll fail until you fix them!)clojure -T:build ci
-- run the tests and build the (AOT-compiled) uberjar
Consult the generated README.md
file for additional details on how to run the
source code, run the tests, and build and run the uberjar.
clojure -Tnew lib :name myusername/mycoollib
Creates a directory mycoollib
containing a new library project, with myusername
as the "top" namespace
and mycoollib
as the main project namespace under that.
If you want to generate the project into a different directory than the project name, use
the :target-dir
option to specify a path to the directory that should be created:
clojure -Tnew lib :name myusername/mycoollib :target-dir projects/newlib
Creates a directory projects/newlib
containing a new library project, with myusername
as
the "top" namespace and mycoollib
as the main project namespace under that.
In this new project, you can run clojure -A:deps -T:build help/doc
to see what tasks are available
in build.clj
. You can run the following in the freshly-generated project:
clojure -T:build test
-- run the tests (they'll fail until you fix them!)clojure -T:build ci
-- run the tests and build the library jar
Consult the generated README.md
file for additional details on how to run
functions from the source code, run the tests, build the jar, install it
locally or deploy it to Clojars.
clojure -Tnew template :name myusername/mytemplate
Creates a directory mytemplate
containing a new template project, with myusername
as the "top" namespace
and mytemplate
as the main project namespace under that. The generated template
project will work as a template that produces a library project, but you can
change it to produce whatever you want.
If you want to generate the project into a different directory than the project name, use
the :target-dir
option to specify a path to the directory that should be created:
clojure -Tnew template :name myusername/mytemplate :target-dir projects/newtemplate
Creates a directory projects/newtemplate
containing a new library project, with myusername
as
the "top" namespace and mytemplate
as the main project namespace under that.
In this new project, you can run clojure -A:deps -T:build help/doc
to see what tasks are available
in build.clj
. You can run the following in the freshly-generated project:
clojure -T:build test
-- run the tests (they'll fail until you fix them!)
Consult the generated README.md
file for additional details on how to work
with the newly-generated template project.
If you just want a very minimal deps.edn
project to experiment with:
clojure -Tnew scratch :name play
Creates a directory play
containing an empty deps.edn
file and src/scratch.clj
with a simple exec
function (you can invoke via clojure -X scratch/exec
) and a
simple -main
function (you can invoke via clojure -M -m scratch
). This is intended
to be a minimal "playground" to get started with deps.edn
and the CLI.
If you want the scratch.clj
file to have a different name, you can override the
default with :scratch
:
clojure -Tnew scratch :name play :scratch ground
The created file will be src/ground.clj
in the play
folder. :scratch
can be
a path:
clojure -Tnew scratch :name play :scratch play/ground
The created file will be src/play/ground.clj
in the play
folder.
clojure -Tnew pom :name com.acme/cool-lib :target-dir .
Creates a pom.xml
file in the current directory (overwriting any existing file!)
that has all the fields needed to publish a project to Clojars and have cljdoc.org
generate the documentation, e.g.,
<groupId>com.acme</groupId>
<artifactId>cool-lib</artifactId>
<version>0.1.0-SNAPSHOT</version>
<name>com.acme/cool-lib</name>
<description>FIXME: my new org.corfield.new/pom project.</description>
<url>https://github.com/com.acme/cool-lib</url>
...
<scm>
<url>https://github.com/acme/cool-lib</url>
<connection>scm:git:https://github.com/acme/cool-lib.git</connection>
<developerConnection>scm:git:ssh:git@github.com:acme/cool-lib.git</developerConnection>
<tag>v0.1.0-SNAPSHOT</tag>
</scm>
You should run clojure -X:deps mvn-pom
to synchronize the <dependencies>
from your deps.edn
file.
Currently those are the only five built-in templates (app
, lib
, pom
, scratch
, and template
).
More general usage:
clojure -A:somealias -Tnew create :template com.acme.project/cool-lib :name myusername/mynewproject
Looks for com/acme/project/cool_lib/template.edn
on the classpath (based on the :somealias
alias) and,
if present, uses that template to create a project, in mynewproject
. Instead of -A:somealias
, you
could use -Sdeps
to specify the dependencies needed to make the template available:
clojure -Sdeps '{:deps {com.acme.project/cool-lib COORDINATES}}' -Tnew create :template com.acme.project/cool-lib :name myusername/mynewproject
The COORDINATES
could be something like {:local/root "/path/to/cool-lib"}
for a template that exists on the local filesystem, or it could be based on :git/url
/:git/sha
etc
for a template that exists in a git
repository.
Note: if you are on Windows, read Quoting keys and values in the official Deps and CLI Reference documentation to understand how the above command needs to look on Powershell. Or take a look at the Babashka CLI library support.
Note: because
deps-new
is based ontools.build
and uses its file copying functions, the template must ultimately live on the filesystem, so:local/root
andgit
-based coordinates are supported, but Maven/Clojars coordinates are not.
See Project Names and Variables to see how the project name (:name
)
is used to derive the default values of all the built-in substitution variables.
See All the Options for the full list of command-line options available
when invoking deps-new
. See Writing Templates for documentation on
how to write your own templates.
Practical.li also has an excellent
guide to writing deps-new
templates.
The following templates are available externally. If you have written a template and would like to add it to the list, please make a PR.
- avil-template - A template for projects using anvil and blocks
- clerk-utils - Create a fully-configured Clerk notebook project
- Clojure Live Reload HTML Server Template
- deps-new-lib-adoc-template - The default
lib
template, but using AsciiDoc - practical.li templates - Well-documented, well-maintained, fully-fleshed out templates for creating applications and services (with more to come)
- re-marfer - A minimal re-frame SPA template
- Hoplon project template - A template for Hoplon projects
- clj-polyglot-app - A template to create a polyglot app in Clojure using
devcontainer
.
An emacs package is available which provides a Magit-style interface to clj-new
and deps-new
. It includes some community templates and welcomes for recommendations for more.
The generated projects (from the built-in app
, lib
, and template
templates) all
contain a LICENSE
file which is the Eclipse Public License (version 1.0) and that
is also mentioned in the generated README.md
files. This is a tradition that started
with Leiningen's lein new
and carried over into boot new
and now clj-new
. The
idea is that it's better to ensure any open source projects created have a valid
license of some sort, as a starting point, and historically most Clojure projects use
the EPLv1.0 because Clojure itself and the Contrib libraries have all used this license
for a long time.
You are not required to open source your generated project! Just because the projects
are generated with an open source LICENSE
file and have a License section in their
README.md
files does not mean you need to keep that license in place, if you do not
want your project to be open source.
You are not required to use EPLv1.0 for your project! If you prefer a different license,
use it! Replace the LICENSE
file and update the README.md
file to reflect your personal
preference in licensing (I have tended to use the
Apache License 2.0 in most of my open
source projects, prior to working with Clojure, but see
Prefer the MIT License for an alternative
viewpoint from the folks who wrote XTDB).
Note: if you incorporate any source code from other people's open source projects, be aware of the legal implications and that you must respect whatever license they have used for that code (which may require you to release your enhancements under the same license and will, most likely, require you to include their copyright notices, etc). Do not copy other people's code without attribution!
The babashka CLI library allows you to call
an -X
(exec) function in a more Unixy way, without writing EDN on the command
line. If you are dealing with quoting issues in your shell, this could be a
viable alternative:
:new {:deps {org.babashka/cli {:mvn/version "0.2.15"}
io.github.seancorfield/deps-new {:git/tag "v0.5.3"
:git/sha "c899135"}}
:ns-default org.corfield.new
:exec-args {} ;; insert default arguments here
:main-opts ["-m" "babashka.cli.exec"]}
This allows you to call deps-new
on the command line as:
$ clj -M:new app --name foo/bar --overwrite delete
Copyright © 2021-2023 Sean Corfield
Distributed under the Eclipse Public License version 1.0.