Archie

Archie is a command line utility that helps building folder structures based on a template. You can provide templates based on a configuration file passed in one of the following ways, sorted by priority:

1. --config <path/to/file>option
2. .archierc.yaml file in current directory
3. archie.yaml in global configuration directory
   • $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/archie or $HOME/.config/archie on Linux
   • %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Roaming\archie on Windows
   • $HOME/Library/Application Support/archie on macOS

Installation

Homebrew

You can install Archie via Homebrew, you just have to add my tap:

brew tap essay97/harrysthings
brew update
brew install archie

Cargo

If you are a Rust user and are familiar with the tools, you can install Archie directly from crates.io using cargo:

cargo install archie

Configuration

Whatever method you choose to pass the configuration file, the format is always the same: a YAML file with a single root object templates.

You define a new template by adding a key to the templates object. A template can contain 2 types of nodes:

• a folder node: name ends with a /
• a file node: no trailing /

Compose and nest these 2 types of nodes to shape your templates.

Example

Let's say I want to define a template called "example":

templates:
  example:            # creates the "example" template
    foo/:             # creates the "foo" folder
      hello.txt:      # creates the "hello.txt"
      my_folder/:     # creates the empty folder "my_folder"
    bar/:             # creates the "bar" folder at the same level of "foo"
    file:             # creates the "file" file at the same level of "foo" and "bar"

Notice that Archie takes into account only the keys of the configuration file, so even files have to be objects, just without body (i.e. with a null body).

As a rule of thumb, every YAML element that you want to turn into a file or a folder, has to be followed by a colon.

Usage

Your starting point should be archie help to have an overview of the functionalities of this tool. It does these simple things:

• archie build <path> <template> creates the folder structure defined by template in the given path
• archie list shows the available templates based on the provided configuration file
• archie info <template> shows the structure created by the given template. Think of it like some sort of "dry run"

Example

Based on the configuration file defined on the previous section:

> archie list
example
> archie info example
example
├── bar
├── foo
│   ├── hello.txt
│   └── my_folder
└── file
> archie build . example 
## Creates example template in current directory