ts-lib-template

An easy way to create a TypeScript library without hassle.

ts-lib-template is a template for creating a TypeScript library. It comes built in with many common utilities, such as git hooks, documentation generators, version bumps, and more.

Getting Started

First, install the template. There are two ways to do this.

1. Create a copy of the template on Github and clone the new repo to your machine
2. In the terminal run npx degit snek152/ts-lib-template new-project

Then, install the dependencies.

cd new-project
npm install

The project comes preinstalled with Husky (git hooks), Typedoc (documentation), and the Barreler CLI (make barrel exports automatically).

The commands below are available to you.

# Build the library
npm run build

# Development - watch for changes and rebuild library + remake barrels
npm run dev

# Build the docs for the library - default in docs folder
npm run make:docs

Make sure to edit your package.json file to include your library name, description, and other information.

The project also comes with a deploy action that will build the library and docs and publish them to npm and Github Pages, respectively. The action is triggered on a push or pull request to the master branch. The action also bumps the package.json version depending on your commit message, so make sure to use the following syntax for commits:

# Increment minor version
feat: your_commit_msg

# Increment patch version
fix: your_commit_msg

# Increment major version
MAJOR: your_commit_msg

# Increment release candidate version
alpha: your_commit_msg

WARNING - The deploy action will need to authenticate with npm in order to publish your package. Make sure to set the npm_token secret in the repository settings to your own token, generated from npmjs.com.

WARNING - The Github action triggers are commented out at the time of creation. Make sure to uncomment them. Additionally, the action by default triggers on a push to the master branch. Make sure to change this to your default branch if it is not master.

Motivation

In August of 2022, I decided to start developing npm packages using Typescript, starting with basic CLIs and later moving to more complex libraries. The common problem I found with all of these was that there was hardly any information out there on how to start building these kinds of packages from the ground up, and thus ts-lib-template was born.