# dexa

A CLI tool that allows developers and teams to capture their preferred tech stacks as a project template and a set of code generators.

Each of these stacks is captured as a git repository. Create them in a publicly available service such as Github to encourage usage and sharing across the wider community. But you are also free to use dexa with private repositories.

You can install it from npm

npm install -g dexa

See the official documentation at https://github.com/kaizendorks/dexa#readme

# How can dexa help you?

Imagine you work in a team that frequently creates web applications with Vue3 and fastify. Over time you will develop an opinionated way of setting these up, which you can capture as a project template in a git repo. With dexa you can dx stack add your repo as a stack, so you can later create projects with dx init my-vue-fastify-template.

You might sometimes use docker, you can then expand your stack repo with another template that adds docker and compose files so you can dx add docker. In some projects you might use postgre while in others you might use mongoDB, you can then capture 2 further templates that allow you to dx add postgre or dx add mongo to your project.

You will likely find yourself regularly creating elements like pages or apis when creating these applications. Dexa can also help you by expanding your stack with template generators so you can dx generate page new-page or dx generate api new-api!

In summary, you can capture your stack as a git repository structured as a project template and optionally additional code generators, following a structure like:

/stack-root
|__ /init
|   |__ fileA // can be any extension (and copied as is) or `.hbs` (a handlebars dynamic template)
|   |__ /some/folder/fileB
|   |__ ... more template files and folders
|__ /add
|   |__ /docker
|   |   |__ ... template files. They are copied/generated as if this was the project root
|   |__ /postgre
|   |   |__ ...
|   |__ /mongo
|       |__ ...
|__ /generate
|   |__ /api
|   |   |__ ...
|   |__ /page
|       |__ ...
|__ dexa.js // optional file, defines additional metadata/options/arguments for each template

Once the stack is defined in a git repo:

Install the stack using dx stack add as in

dx stack add git@github.com:DaniJG/my-stack.git

Create new projects using the stack as the project template with the dx init command, as in
```
dx init my-stack my-project
# project generated in ./my-project !
```

Add features to a generated project with the dx add commands, as in

dx add docker
# dockerfile and compose files added to the project!

Generate code with the dx generate commands, as in

dx generate page my-new-page
# new Vue components and route added to the project!

# Is it limited to JavaScript projects?

Absolutely not! While dexa is written in JavaScript, you can define stack templates for any language. In a nutshell, dexa will render the templates you define, what those templates contain is entirely up to you.

For example, you could create a terraform stack so you can dx init terraform. This stack could define features such as S3 or azure blob remote storage so you can dx add remote-aws-s3 or dx add remote-azure-blob. In a similar fashion, you could then create generators for any common terraform modules you typically use, allowing you to dx generate s3-bucket or dx generate aws-kubernetes.

# Can I use a project template without generators?

You can define a stack by pointing to a repo that contains just a project template like this vue-vite-tailwind starter

dx stack add vue-vite https://github.com/web2033/vite-vue3-tailwind-starter

You will be able to create new projects using that template as in dx init vue-vite, but here will be no dx add or dx generate commands available for those generated projects.

This is similar to using degit, except you can keep track of these templates as dexa stacks.

# Source

Check it on GitHub: