I Was Tired of Setting Up the Same Express Project Every Time, So I Built a CLI
I kept bootstrapping the same Express setup over and over. So I built a CLI to do it for me. Here's how the scaffolding and addon merge system works under the hood..
Every new Express project started the same way — install express, set up Prisma, configure Zod, wire up error handling, same auth configuration, repeat. After doing it for the nth time, I stopped and asked: why isn't there a create-react-app equivalent for Express backends? So I built one. Here's how the addon merging system works, and what it taught me about building CLIs and developer tools in general.
WIP
This blog is coming out soon! I want to share the story of how I built the create-express-preset npm package, the technical challenges I faced with merging addon configurations, and why I think it can save developers a ton of time on new projects. Stay tuned!