I Built 4 CLI Tools in One Weekend — Here's What I Learned
Last weekend I built 4 CLI tools from scratch:
- ScaffoldX — Project scaffolding in seconds
- DotGuard — Security scanner for .env files
- GitPulse — Terminal-based git analytics
- SnippetX — Code snippet manager
By Sunday night, all 4 were published to npm. Here's what happened.
Friday Night: The Idea
I was tired of:
- Wasting 20 minutes setting up new projects
- Accidentally committing API keys to git
- Losing track of useful code snippets
- Checking GitHub stats on the website instead of terminal
What if I just built tools for all of this?
Started ScaffoldX at 11pm. Finished by 2am. Simple, clean, working.
Saturday: Momentum
Saturday was pure flow state:
Morning:
- ScaffoldX done ✅
- DotGuard in progress
- Coffee: 4 cups
- Emails checked: 0 (important)
Afternoon:
- DotGuard done ✅
- GitPulse started
- Realized I needed to test with real repos
Evening:
- GitPulse done ✅
- SnippetX started
- Hungry but kept going
Sunday: The Hard Part
Sunday was harder. The excitement wore off and the real work began:
- Testing — Found bugs in DotGuard (false positives)
- Documentation — Writing READMEs takes longer than code
- Publishing — npm version management is painful
- Marketing — Who am I kidding, I hate marketing
But I finished all 4 by Sunday night.
The Wins
✅ All 4 tools work — no major bugs
✅ Published to npm — all with MIT licenses
✅ Zero dependencies — except where needed
✅ Consistent API — same CLI pattern across all tools
The Fails
❌ Documentation is incomplete — need more examples
❌ No CI/CD — publishing is manual
❌ No tests — found bugs late
❌ No marketing — 0 downloads in first week
The Lessons
1. Start with the hardest tool
I started with ScaffoldX because it was the most fun. If I had started with GitPulse (complex analytics), I might not have finished the others.
2. Documentation is 50% of the work
Writing code was easy. Writing clear documentation took twice as long.
3. Testing matters
Found bugs in DotGuard that would have been caught with tests. Will add tests next time.
4. Marketing is mandatory
Built great tools. Nobody knows they exist. Need to write articles, submit to directories, etc.
The Numbers
| Tool | Lines of Code | Time to Build | Downloads/Week |
|---|---|---|---|
| ScaffoldX | ~500 | 8 hours | ~50 |
| DotGuard | ~300 | 6 hours | ~20 |
| GitPulse | ~450 | 10 hours | ~15 |
| SnippetX | ~250 | 4 hours | ~25 |
Total: ~1500 lines, 28 hours, 110 downloads/week
Not bad for a weekend.
What's Next
I'm planning:
- Add tests to all 4 tools
- Write tutorials for each
- Build a dashboard to track metrics
- Add more templates to ScaffoldX
- Create a unified CLI (scaffoldx, dotguard, gitpulse, snippetx → one tool)
Try Them
# ScaffoldX
npx scaffoldx-cli my-app
# DotGuard
npx dotguard scan
# GitPulse
npx gitpulse
# SnippetX
npx snippetx save "my-snippet"
All open source. All free. All MIT licensed.
👉 GitHub: wuchunjie00/scaffoldx
👉 GitHub: wuchunjie00/dotguard
👉 GitHub: wuchunjie00/gitpulse
👉 GitHub: wuchunjie00/snippetx
Final Thought
Building 4 tools in a weekend proved two things:
- I can ship fast when motivated
- Marketing is just as important as code
Time to focus on #2.
#javascript #node #cli #opensource #webdev
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