🚀 Create Neon API

A beautiful CLI tool to bootstrap clean, production-ready Rust backend projects with JWT authentication and Neon PostgreSQL database integration.

📦 Available on crates.io/crates/create-neon-api!

✨ Features

• 🎨 Beautiful CLI Interface - Colorful and interactive prompts
• 📦 Template-based - Clones from a pre-configured Rust backend template
• 🔧 Auto-configuration - Automatically updates project name in Cargo.toml
• 🏗️ Ready to Build - Runs initial cargo build to fetch dependencies
• ✅ Validation - Ensures project names follow Cargo package naming conventions
• 🔐 Production Ready - Includes JWT authentication and PostgreSQL integration

📋 Prerequisites

• Rust (latest stable version)
• Git
• Internet connection for cloning the template

🛠️ Installation

Option 1: Install from Crates.io (Recommended)

cargo install create-neon-api

Option 2: Install from Source

git clone https://github.com/peterkyle01/create-neon-api.git
cd create-neon-api
cargo install --path .

🚀 Usage

You can use the tool in two ways:

Option 1: Interactive Mode

Run the tool and follow the prompts:

create-neon-api

The tool will start with a beautiful interactive interface:

🚀 Rust Backend Project Generator
═══════════════════════════════════
📝 Enter your project name: my-awesome-api
🚀 Creating project 'my-awesome-api'...
✅ Template cloned successfully!
📝 Updated Cargo.toml with project name
📦 Running initial `cargo build`...
🎉 Project created successfully!
Next steps: `cd my-awesome-api`, configure your `.env` file, and run `cargo run`.

Option 2: Direct Project Name

Provide the project name directly as an argument:

create-neon-api my-new-project

This will skip the interactive prompt and create the project immediately.

Quick Start

1. Install the tool:

   cargo install create-neon-api
   

2. Create a new project:

   # Interactive mode
   create-neon-api
   
   # Or provide project name directly
   create-neon-api my-awesome-api
   

3. Follow the prompts (if using interactive mode) and enter your project name

4. Start developing:

   cd your-project-name
   cp .env.example .env
   # Edit .env with your configuration
   cargo run
   

Project Name Validation

The tool validates project names to ensure they follow Cargo package naming conventions:

• ✅ Lowercase letters, numbers, hyphens, and underscores only
• ✅ Cannot start or end with hyphens
• ✅ Cannot be empty

Examples:

• ✅ my-api-server
• ✅ user_service
• ✅ backend2024
• ❌ My-API (uppercase letters)
• ❌ -invalid-start (starts with hyphen)
• ❌ invalid@name (special characters)

📁 What You Get

The generated project includes:

• 🔐 JWT Authentication - Ready-to-use authentication system
• 🗄️ PostgreSQL Integration - With Neon database support
• 🌐 RESTful API Structure - Well-organized endpoints
• ⚙️ Environment Configuration - .env file support
• 🧪 Testing Setup - Unit and integration tests
• 📝 Documentation - Comprehensive API documentation
• 🚀 Production Ready - Optimized for deployment

🔧 Next Steps After Project Creation

1. Navigate to your project:

   cd your-project-name
   

2. Configure environment variables:

   cp .env.example .env
   # Edit .env with your database credentials and JWT secret
   

3. Run the development server:

   cargo run
   

4. Run tests:

   cargo test
   

🎯 Template Repository

This tool clones from the Rust Backend Template repository, which includes:

• Axum web framework
• SQLx for database operations
• JWT for authentication
• Serde for serialization
• Tokio async runtime
• Configuration management
• Error handling
• Logging

🤝 Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please feel free to submit a Pull Request. For major changes, please open an issue first to discuss what you would like to change.

1. Fork the repository
2. Create your feature branch (git checkout -b feature/AmazingFeature)
3. Commit your changes (git commit -m 'Add some AmazingFeature')
4. Push to the branch (git push origin feature/AmazingFeature)
5. Open a Pull Request

📝 License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.

👨‍💻 Author

Peter Mwangi

• Email: kylepeterkoine4@gmail.com
• GitHub: @peterkyle01

🙏 Acknowledgments

• Thanks to the Rust community for the amazing ecosystem
• Inspired by create-react-app and similar bootstrapping tools
• Built with love for the Rust backend development community

📊 Version History

• v0.1.1 - Latest release
  • Published and available on crates.io! 🎉
  • Updated documentation and examples
• v0.1.0 - Initial release
  • Interactive CLI interface
  • Template cloning and configuration
  • Project name validation
  • Automatic dependency building

Happy coding! 🦀✨