Gutenberg is a small utility which allows you to create templates and scaffolding for any file asset creation you're doing redundantly. For example, if you're a Java software developer and you find yourself creating the same Spring-Boot application boiler plate or scaffolding repeatedly, you can use Gutenberg to create your perfect Spring-Boot template and generate your projects with ease.

To install with Homebrew you'll need to add the tap and install. The commands are listed below.

brew tap sourcefoundryus/gutenberg
brew install gutenberg

Once its installed you can run gutenberg to make sure its installed. You should see:

Gutenberg is installed! See help for usage.

Gutenberg is small, which means that everything it does it needs to be principled and thoughtful as to not create confusion in terms of purpose and usage.

• Templates consist of a Forme file, Mustache templates, and static assets.
• Template instructions / definition files are called Formes and are written in YAML. These files must be in the root of the template.
• Templates are written using Mustache.
• Templates should be single purposed. Meaning a single template should not generate both a Spring-Boot and a Play project. This would require two templates.

The target audience is humans looking to reduce the amount of time spent on redundant/predicable asset creation. While I'm sure Gutenberg can be used in a continuous deployment / server capacity, this is not directly supported.

The first thing you need to know to start using Gutenberg is two actions:

• add - This action will add templates from a Github location.
• build - This action will build out file assets.

To add the getting started template run the following command:

gutenberg add sourcefoundryus/gbg-getting-started

You should see something like the following:

> Add from sourcefoundryus/gbg-getting-started
# Downloading https://api.github.com/repos/sourcefoundryus/gbg-getting-started/tarball/master
# 1 formes found: gbg-getting-started
> gbg-getting-started added

Notice the last line? It states that the getting-started template was added to your local inventory. So now you can build that template anytime you need to.

Now lets build. First we need a directory to hold our built assets. Make a new directory called 'hello-world' and change directory into it.

mkdir hello-world && cd hello-world

Now run the build process using the template you added before:

gutenberg build gbg-getting-started

When prompted type your name or hit enter for the default. You should now see the following:

Building Forme "gbg-getting-started"
What is your name? [world]: 
+ Creating File... /PATH/TO/FOLDER/hello-world/helloworld.txt

When you list the contents of the directory, you'll notice a new file named 'helloworld.txt' and inside that file it says 'hello, ' and the answer your provided at the prompt. Here is the source to the template on Github.

To use Gutenberg, the first thing you need to do is create a forme.yml file. This file will contain all the instructions which Gutenberg will perform on your behalf.

The Forme file will contains the following sections:

• Maintainer Information - The name and contact information of the person responsible for the forme.
• Forme Variables - Variables available to all directories and files.
• Forme Meta Data - Meta data available to all directories and files.
• Variable Prompts - Any variables which will need to supplied by the user at runtime via command line prompts. These are a great way to allow the user to customize at runtime.
• Directories - Any directories which need to be created.
• Files Templates - Any files which need to be created. These can be templated using Mustache.
• Static Copies - Any files which need to be copied AS IS into place.

Gutenberg takes advantage of Mustache templates to produce files.