1. Getting Started

To get started with AppCraft, follow these steps:

1.1. Installation

This version of the documentation (0.6.0b0) is a pre-release. pip never installs a pre-release by default, so grab it explicitly with --pre:

pip install --pre appcraft

Plain pip install appcraft (no --pre) installs the latest stable release instead, which won’t include what’s described on this version of the docs — switch to that release’s own documentation via the version selection page if that’s what you’re running.

1.2. Starting a New Project

To start a new project, follow these steps:

1. Create a new directory for your project:

   mkdir project_name
   cd project_name
   

2. Initialize the project using one of the following commands:

• To initialize the project with the desired templates using the following command:

  appcraft init <template_names>
  

• Where <template_names> should be replaced by the names of the templates you want to use, separated by spaces. For example:

  appcraft init flask_ui flask_api sqlalchemy docker
  

  This will initialize your project with the specified templates. Make sure to separate each template name with a space.

• Or, to list available templates

  appcraft list_templates
  

  For more details on available templates, refer to the Templates Documentation.

1.3. Adding Templates to an Existing Project

Already have a project and want to add more templates to it? Run add_template from inside the project directory instead of init — init is only for starting a brand new project (and would overwrite what’s already there):

appcraft add_template <template_names>

For example, adding SQLAlchemy to a project that doesn’t have a database template yet:

appcraft add_template sqlalchemy

Requesting a template that’s exclusive with one you already have (e.g. a different package manager) swaps it in automatically, converting your existing configuration along the way — see Template Types.