I built a CLI that scaffolds any stack in one command — pic-li

Dhaya nithi — Tue, 28 Apr 2026 15:28:11 +0000

I built a CLI that scaffolds any stack in one command

Every time I started a new project I was doing the same things:

Create folders
Install dependencies
Write the same boilerplate config
Set up .env files
Initialize git

Multiply that by FastAPI, React, Spring Boot, Flutter — it gets old fast.

So I built pic-li.

What it does

One command. Any stack. Everything ready to run.

npm install -g pic-li
pic create my-app

Arrow-key menus walk you through stack → template → name.
Or skip the prompts entirely:

pic create my-api --stack fastapi --template with-mongodb
pic create my-app --stack react-vite --template tailwind-shadcn
pic create my-svc --stack spring-boot --template rest-api-mysql
pic create my-mobile --stack flutter --template with-riverpod

What gets generated

Every project comes with:

✅ Full folder structure
✅ Dependencies installed
✅ .env + .env.example configured
✅ Git initialized
✅ Tests included
✅ README with quick start

For FastAPI specifically, the full-stack template gives you:

SQLAlchemy models + Alembic migrations
JWT auth with register/login endpoints
Protected routes with dependency injection
Pydantic schemas
pytest test suite

Just uvicorn app.main:app --reload and you're at /docs.

Supported stacks

Category	Stacks
Frontend	React + Vite, Next.js, Vue 3, Angular
Backend (Python)	FastAPI, Flask, Django
Backend (Node)	Express, NestJS
Backend (Java)	Spring Boot (Maven + Gradle)
Mobile	Flutter, React Native
Fullstack	MERN
Backend (Go)	Go + Gin

Other commands

pic run       # starts dev server — works for any stack
pic doctor    # checks all tools installed on your machine
pic add tailwind / docker / eslint   # add integrations
pic check fastapi   # check if Python stack deps are installed

It's open source

I just released it on GitHub and npm.

If you work with any of these stacks and want to:

Add a template
Fix a bug
Improve Windows/Linux/macOS support
Write tests

There are good first issue labels in the repo waiting for you.

GitHub: https://github.com/yourusername/pic-li

npm: https://www.npmjs.com/package/pic-li

npm install -g pic-li
pic create my-app

Would love to hear what stacks or templates you'd want added.