Add New Templates within An Existing Project

This guide covers using Flexlate to add new templates within an existing project that was not generated from cookiecutter or copier.

If you already have a project that was previously generated from a template using cookiecutter or copier and you want to update it with Flexlate, you should follow the existing project guide. If you want to create a new project with Flexlate, you should follow the new project guide.

Initialize the Flexlate Project

The fxt init command is used to initialize a new Flexlate project. You must have a Flexlate project before you can add any template sources or outputs.

    $ fxt init
 Initializing flexlate project with default add mode local and user=False in 
/tmp/tmp3dpbo39z
⠋  Initializing...
⠋  Initializing...
⠙  Initializing...

✔ Finished initializing flexlate project

Add the Template Source

The fxt add source command registers a template source in the Flexlate configuration file.

    $ fxt add source https://github.com/nickderobertis/copier-simple-example
 Adding template source...
 Adding template source copier-simple-example from 
https://github.com/nickderobertis/copier-simple-example
⠋
⠙
⠹
 Sucessfully added template source copier-simple-example
⠹
⠹


$ cat flexlate.json
{
  "template_sources": [
    {
      "name": "copier-simple-example",
      "path": "https://github.com/nickderobertis/copier-simple-example",
      "type": "copier",
      "version": "f3fa2c9526c12b3011e0a26108ce141373539bca",
      "git_url": "https://github.com/nickderobertis/copier-simple-example",
      "target_version": null,
      "render_relative_root_in_output": ".",
      "render_relative_root_in_template": "output"
    }
  ],
  "applied_templates": []
}

You can also specify the --version option to specify which version of the template you would like to be able to output.

fxt add source https://github.com/nickderobertis/copier-simple-example --version c7e1ba1bfb141e9c577e7c21ee4a5d3ae5dde04d

Add Template Output(s)

The fxt add output command renders the template at the specified location.

    $ fxt add output copier-simple-example some/path
 Applying template copier-simple-example to /tmp/tmplz_7p19c
 Updating 1 applied templates

question1? Format: yaml
my answer

The second question
question2? Format: float
10

    create  my answer.txt



    create  temp.txt


✔ Successfully updated template output
✔ Successfully applied template copier-simple-example to /tmp/tmplz_7p19c

$ ls some/path
 flexlate.json	'my answer.txt'

If you don’t specify a path to render the template to, the template will be rendered in the current working directory.

fxt add output copier-simple-example

Next Steps

See how to update your project to a newer template version.