nextjsinit

A blazingly fast, intelligent CLI tool for scaffolding Next.js projects with automatic GitHub repo creation and optional Vercel deployment. Written in Rust 🦀

🚀 Features

Smart detection - Automatically detects existing components (Next.js, Git, GitHub, Vercel)
Git-GitHub validation - Verifies local Git is connected to GitHub before deployment
Push verification - Checks for unpushed commits and offers to push automatically
Interactive mode - Choose specific operations when no project name is provided
Zero-config setup - Create a Next.js project with one command
Automatic GitHub integration - Creates and pushes to a new GitHub repository
Public/Private repo selection - Choose repository visibility interactively
Optional Vercel deployment - Deploy to production with URL extraction
Organized workspace - All projects stored in ~/dev/nextjs/
Idempotent operations - Safely skip already-completed steps
Input validation - Validates all user responses before proceeding
Robust Next.js detection - Supports .js, .mjs, and .ts config files
Zero runtime dependencies - Single compiled binary, no interpreter needed

📋 Prerequisites

Before using nextjsinit, ensure you have the following installed:

Node.js & npm - Required for Next.js
Git - Version control

GitHub CLI (gh) - For automatic repo creation

# Install GitHub CLI
brew install gh  # macOS
# or
sudo apt install gh  # Ubuntu/Debian

# Authenticate
gh auth login

Vercel CLI (optional) - For deployment
```
npm install -g vercel
vercel login
```

Note: The nextjsinit binary itself has no runtime dependencies once compiled!

🔧 Installation

Prerequisites for Building

Rust & Cargo - Install from rustup.rs

curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSf https://sh.rustup.rs | sh

Method 1: Install from Source

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/vehutech/nextjsinit.git
cd nextjsinit

# Build and install (automatically installs to ~/.cargo/bin)
cargo install --path .

# Make sure ~/.cargo/bin is in your PATH
# Add to ~/.zshrc or ~/.bashrc:
# export PATH="$HOME/.cargo/bin:$PATH"

Method 2: Build and Copy Manually

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/vehutech/nextjsinit.git
cd nextjsinit

# Build release binary
cargo build --release

# Copy to system path
sudo cp target/release/nextjsinit /usr/local/bin/

# Verify installation
which nextjsinit

Method 3: Download Pre-built Binary (Coming Soon)

# Download from GitHub releases
curl -L https://github.com/vehutech/nextjsinit/releases/latest/download/nextjsinit-macos -o nextjsinit
chmod +x nextjsinit
sudo mv nextjsinit /usr/local/bin/

Renaming from Previous Version

If you have the Lua version of newnextjs or nextjsinit installed:

# Remove old version
sudo rm /usr/local/bin/newnextjs
sudo rm /usr/local/bin/nextjsinit  # if Lua version exists

# Install new Rust version as shown above

📖 Usage

Basic Command

nextjsinit <project-name>

Interactive Mode (No Arguments)

nextjsinit

When run without arguments, nextjsinit enters interactive mode:

If you're in a Next.js project directory:

🔍 Detected current project: my-app

🎯 Interactive Mode
📁 Current location: /Users/you/dev/nextjs/my-app

📊 Current Status:
  Next.js Project: ✅
  Git Initialized: ✅
  GitHub Repo: ✅
  Git → GitHub Connected: ✅
  All Changes Pushed: ⚠️
  Vercel Deployed: ❌

What would you like to do?
1. Full setup (Next.js + Git + GitHub + Vercel)
2. Next.js project bootstrapping only
3. Git initialization only
4. GitHub repository creation only
5. Vercel deployment only
6. Exit

Enter your choice (1-6):

If you're not in a project directory:

🤔 No project name provided and not in a Next.js project directory.

Enter project name: my-new-app

Example Workflows

1. Create New Project (Full Setup)

nextjsinit my-awesome-app

Output:

🚀 Initializing project: my-awesome-app
📁 Location: /Users/you/dev/nextjs/my-awesome-app

📁 Creating project directory...

🚀 Creating Next.js project: my-awesome-app
[Next.js setup output...]
✅ Next.js project created successfully!

📦 Initializing Git repository...
✅ Git initialized successfully!

🐙 Creating GitHub repository...
Should the GitHub repository be public? (y/n): y
✅ GitHub repository created and pushed successfully!

Would you like to deploy this project to Vercel now? (y/n): y

🌍 Deploying to Vercel...
✅ Successfully deployed to Vercel!
🔗 URL: https://my-awesome-app-xyz123.vercel.app

✅ Project 'my-awesome-app' setup complete!

2. Add GitHub to Existing Project

cd ~/dev/nextjs/existing-project
nextjsinit
# Choose option 4: GitHub repository creation only

3. Deploy Existing Project to Vercel

cd ~/dev/nextjs/my-project
nextjsinit
# Choose option 5: Vercel deployment only

Smart validation:

❌ Git is not initialized. Please initialize Git first (option 3).

# After fixing Git:
❌ GitHub repository doesn't exist. Please create it first (option 4).

# After fixing GitHub:
❌ Local Git is not connected to GitHub.
   Run: git remote add origin https://github.com/YOUR_USERNAME/my-project.git

# After connecting:
⚠️  Warning: You have unpushed changes.
Push changes to GitHub before deploying? (y/n): y

📤 Pushing changes to GitHub...
✅ Changes pushed successfully!

🌍 Deploying to Vercel...
✅ Successfully deployed to Vercel!
🔗 URL: https://my-project-xyz123.vercel.app

4. Skip Existing Components

nextjsinit existing-project

Output:

📁 Project directory already exists.
⚠️  Next.js project already exists, skipping creation.
⚠️  Git already initialized, skipping.
⚠️  GitHub repository already exists, skipping creation.

Would you like to deploy this project to Vercel now? (y/n): n
🛑 Skipping Vercel deployment.

✅ Project 'existing-project' setup complete!

🎯 Smart Features

1. Automatic Detection

nextjsinit automatically detects:

Existing project directories
Next.js project configuration (.js, .mjs, .ts variants)
Git initialization status
GitHub repository existence
Git remote connection to GitHub
Unpushed commits
Vercel deployment status

2. Pre-deployment Validation

Before Vercel deployment, nextjsinit verifies:

✅ Vercel CLI is installed
✅ Git is initialized
✅ GitHub repository exists
✅ Local Git is connected to the correct GitHub repo
✅ All changes are pushed (or offers to push automatically)

This prevents deployment failures and ensures code consistency.

3. Input Validation

All user inputs are validated:

Yes/no prompts only accept y/Y/n/N
Menu choices must be valid numbers
Invalid inputs trigger helpful error messages

4. Idempotent Operations

Running nextjsinit multiple times safely skips completed steps:

Won't recreate existing directories
Won't reinitialize Git if already done
Won't create duplicate GitHub repositories
Warns before redeploying to Vercel

5. Context Awareness

When run without arguments, nextjsinit:

Detects if you're in a project directory
Shows current project status with connection details
Offers relevant operations based on current state

⚙️ Configuration

Change Base Directory

Edit line 4 in the script:

local baseDir = os.getenv("HOME") .. "/dev/nextjs"
-- Change to your preferred location:
local baseDir = os.getenv("HOME") .. "/projects"

Customize Next.js Options

Modify the createNextJsProject function (around line 95):

local cmd = string.format("cd \"%s\" && npx create-next-app@latest ./ --typescript --tailwind --app", projectPath)

🗂️ Project Structure

After running nextjsinit my-app:

~/dev/nextjs/
└── my-app/
    ├── .git/
    ├── .gitignore
    ├── next.config.js
    ├── package.json
    ├── README.md
    ├── app/
    ├── public/
    └── node_modules/

🐛 Troubleshooting

"command not found: nextjsinit"

Ensure the script is in your $PATH:

echo $PATH
# Move script to a directory in PATH
sudo mv nextjsinit /usr/local/bin/
chmod +x /usr/local/bin/nextjsinit

"gh: command not found"

Install GitHub CLI:

brew install gh  # macOS
sudo apt install gh  # Ubuntu/Debian
gh auth login

"vercel: command not found"

npm install -g vercel
vercel login

Permission Denied

chmod +x /usr/local/bin/nextjsinit

GitHub Authentication Failed

gh auth status
gh auth login --web

"Invalid input" Loop

Make sure you're entering exactly y or n (lowercase or uppercase) for yes/no prompts, and valid numbers for menu choices.

Vercel Deployment Fails

Check the pre-deployment validation:

# Verify Git is connected to GitHub
git remote -v

# Should show:
# origin  https://github.com/username/project.git (fetch)
# origin  https://github.com/username/project.git (push)

# Check for unpushed commits
git status

# Push if needed
git push origin main

"Local Git is not connected to GitHub"

# Add GitHub remote manually
git remote add origin https://github.com/YOUR_USERNAME/PROJECT_NAME.git

# Verify
git remote -v

# Push
git push -u origin main

🎮 Interactive Mode Options

Option	Description	When to Use
1. Full setup	Creates Next.js + Git + GitHub + Vercel	Starting a brand new project
2. Next.js only	Bootstraps Next.js project	You want to handle Git/GitHub manually
3. Git only	Initializes Git repository	Adding version control to existing project
4. GitHub only	Creates and pushes to GitHub	Publishing existing local project
5. Vercel only	Deploys to Vercel	Deploying already-configured project
6. Exit	Quits the program	Changed your mind

🤝 Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please follow these steps:

Fork the repository
Create a feature branch
```
git checkout -b feature/amazing-feature
```
Commit your changes
```
git commit -m "Add amazing feature"
```
Push to the branch
```
git push origin feature/amazing-feature
```
Open a Pull Request

📝 License

MIT License - see LICENSE file for details

🙏 Acknowledgments

Next.js - The React framework
Vercel - Deployment platform
GitHub CLI - GitHub automation

📮 Support

Issues: GitHub Issues
Discussions: GitHub Discussions

Name		Name	Last commit message	Last commit date
src		src
.gitignore		.gitignore
Cargo.lock		Cargo.lock
Cargo.toml		Cargo.toml
README.md		README.md
config		config

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