Programmatic API

Projen exposes a programmatic API that allows you to create new projects through code instead of the regular CLI command npx projen new. This allows projen to be used to create new projects within scripts and other contexts.

Example

const { Projects } = require('projen');

Projects.createProject({
  dir: '/path/to/mydir',
  projectFqn: 'projen.typescript.TypeScriptProject',
  projectOptions: {
    name: 'my-test-project',
    defaultReleaseBranch: 'main',
    projenrcTs: true,
    eslintOptions: {
      dirs: ['src', 'test'],
      prettier: true,
      aliasMap: {
        '@src': './src',
        '@components': './src/components',
      },
    },
  },
  post: false,
  // synth: true (default)
  // optionHints: 'featured' (default)
});

This script creates a new TypeScript project at /path/to/mydir in my file system. The .projenrc.ts file it generates comes pre-included with options specified, including complex values for fields that cannot normally be provided through the CLI, like eslintOptions (because the field requires an object value).

In the above example, the provided option post: false was also added to disable post-installation steps such as installing NPM dependencies.

Note: It is important that you provide all fields that are required by the project type, otherwise the project may not synthesize properly.

It is also possible to use this for installing external project types. Currently, this requires you to install the package so that it can be used by projen.

Projects.createProject({
  // ...
  projectFqn: '@myorg/my-package.MyJsiiProject',
});