Code Generation & Templates

Table of Contents

• Overview
• When to Use
• Quick Start
• Reference Guides
• Best Practices

Overview

Comprehensive guide to code generation techniques including template engines, AST manipulation, code scaffolding, and automated boilerplate generation for increased productivity and consistency.

When to Use

• Scaffolding new projects or components
• Generating repetitive boilerplate code
• Creating CRUD operations automatically
• Generating API clients from OpenAPI specs
• Building code from templates
• Creating database models from schemas
• Generating TypeScript types from JSON Schema
• Building custom CLI generators

Quick Start

Minimal working example:

// templates/component.hbs
import React from 'react';

export interface {{pascalCase name}}Props {
  {{#each props}}
  {{this.name}}{{#if this.optional}}?{{/if}}: {{this.type}};
  {{/each}}
}

export const {{pascalCase name}}: React.FC<{{pascalCase name}}Props> = ({
  {{#each props}}{{this.name}},{{/each}}
}) => {
  return (
    <div className="{{kebabCase name}}">
      {/* Component implementation */}
    </div>
  );
};

Reference Guides

Detailed implementations in the references/ directory:

Guide	Contents
Template Engines	Template Engines
AST-Based Code Generation	AST-Based Code Generation
Project Scaffolding	Project Scaffolding
OpenAPI Client Generation	OpenAPI Client Generation
Database Model Generation	Database Model Generation
GraphQL Code Generation	GraphQL Code Generation
Plop.js Generator	Plop.js Generator

Best Practices

✅ DO

• Use templates for repetitive code patterns
• Generate TypeScript types from schemas
• Include tests in generated code
• Follow project conventions in templates
• Add comments to explain generated code
• Version control your templates
• Make templates configurable
• Generate documentation alongside code
• Validate inputs before generating
• Use consistent naming conventions
• Keep templates simple and maintainable
• Provide CLI for easy generation

❌ DON'T

• Over-generate (avoid unnecessary complexity)
• Generate code that's hard to maintain
• Forget to validate generated code
• Hardcode values in templates
• Generate code without documentation
• Create generators for one-off use cases
• Mix business logic in templates
• Generate code without formatting
• Skip error handling in generators
• Create overly complex templates