create-app

sillo-start create-app myapp

The tool has one command. This is it.

Argument forms

sillo-start create-app myapp                        # the default starter
sillo-start create-app sillohq/starter myapp        # named explicitly
sillo-start create-app sillohq/starter@v1.2 myapp   # pinned to a tag
sillo-start create-app acme/our-template myapp      # your own starter

With one argument it is the project name, and the default starter (sillohq/starter) is used. With two the first is the starter and the second is the name.

That asymmetry is the point: create-app myapp does the obvious thing, and you only name a starter when you actually mean a different one.

A full GitHub URL works too, so pasting what is in your address bar does what you expect:

sillo-start create-app https://github.com/sillohq/starter myapp

Trailing .git and a www. prefix are both stripped.

Flags

Flag	Default	Meaning
--ref <branch|tag>	main	Which revision to take
-d, --directory <path>	./<name>	Where to create the project
--install / --no-install	off	Install dependencies after fetching
--git / --no-git	on	Initialise a git repository
--force	off	Allow a directory that is not empty

Plus the global flags: -v, -q, -h.

--ref

Takes precedence over an @ref in the starter argument, so these are the same thing and the flag wins when both are given:

sillo-start create-app sillohq/starter@v1.2 myapp
sillo-start create-app sillohq/starter myapp --ref v1.2

Any branch or tag a public repository has. See Custom starters.

-d, --directory

sillo-start create-app myapp --directory ~/code/myapp
sillo-start create-app myapp -d .

Where to put the files. The project is still called myapp. The directory and the name are separate, which is what lets you create a project into a repository you have already cloned.

--install

Off by default, so creating a project takes a second rather than a minute.

With it, dependencies are installed straight away using whichever package manager is available:

sillo-start create-app myapp --install

A failing install is reported with the manager’s own output and exits 1. The project is still on disk, and you can fix the cause and install by hand. The output is never swallowed.

--no-git

A git repository is initialised by default. --no-git skips it.

It is also skipped automatically when git is not installed, or when the directory is already a repository, creating a project inside an existing checkout does not reinitialise it.

Note what this does not do: no commit is made. The files are there for you to look at, and the first commit is yours.

--force

A directory that is not empty is refused:

✗ /Users/you/code/myapp is not empty.
  Choose another directory, or pass --force.

--force allows it. Existing files are left in place; the starter’s files are written alongside them, overwriting on a name collision.

What it prints

Creating myapp
from sillohq/starter@main

  › Fetching sillohq/starter…
✓ Fetched sillohq/starter and renamed 3 file(s)

Next steps
  cd myapp
  uv sync
  uv run sillo db:migrate
  uv run uvicorn app:app --reload

  The starter's README covers configuration, migrations and deployment.

The next steps are phrased for the tooling you actually have: uv when it is on your PATH, plain pip and a bare sillo when it is not. Printing uv run … at someone without uv would be printing a command that cannot work.

With --install the install step is dropped from the list, since it has already happened.

The order of operations

1. Validate the name. Before anything is fetched: it becomes both a directory and a Python package, so an unusable name is worth refusing early. See Project names.
2. Parse the starter. owner/repo, owner/repo@ref or a URL.
3. Check the destination. Non-empty is refused without --force.
4. Fetch and unpack the tarball.
5. Personalise: rewrite the name into the files that carry it, and create .env with fresh secrets. See Personalisation.
6. git init, unless skipped.
7. Install, if --install was given.

Steps 1 to 3 all happen before a byte is downloaded. A run that is going to fail on your input fails immediately rather than after a download.

Exit codes

Code	Meaning
0	Created
1	Something failed: a fetch, an install
2	A usage error: a bad name, a non-empty directory, an unparseable starter
130	Ctrl-C

See Errors and exit codes.