Quick Start

This guide walks you through creating your first project with ForgeKit. You will have a running application in under 60 seconds.

Prerequisites

Before you begin, make sure you have the following installed:

Tool	Minimum Version	Notes
Node.js	18.0.0	Required for the CLI and web-app template
npm	8.0.0	Comes with Node.js
Python 3	3.11+	Required for api-service and ml-pipeline templates
Git	Any recent version	Required for version control setup
Docker	Any recent version	Optional, needed to run docker-compose

Not sure what you have installed? Run the doctor command:

npx forgekit-cli doctor

Scaffold Your First Project

Run the following command to start an interactive scaffold:

npx forgekit-cli new my-app

No global install needed

npx downloads and runs the CLI automatically. You do not need to install ForgeKit globally to get started.

Interactive Prompts

When you run forgekit new, the CLI walks you through two prompts:

1. Project name

If you did not pass a name as an argument, you will be prompted:

? Project name: my-app

2. Template selection

Choose from the available templates using your arrow keys:

? Choose a template:
  Web App (Node + React)      Full-stack web application with Node.js backend and React frontend
  API Service (Python + FastAPI)  REST API service with FastAPI, PostgreSQL, and Docker
  ML Pipeline (Python + Jupyter)  Machine learning workflow with Python, Jupyter, MLflow, and reproducible experiments

After you select a template, ForgeKit scaffolds the project and runs the post-scaffold install step automatically.

What Gets Created

For the web-app template, your project directory looks like this:

my-app/
  package.json
  tsconfig.json
  README.md
  .gitignore
  .env.example
  Dockerfile
  docker-compose.yml
  src/
    server/
      index.ts
      routes/
        health.ts
    client/
      index.html
      main.tsx
      App.tsx
      App.css

Every file is real and runnable. Nothing is left as a placeholder.

Run Your Project

After scaffolding completes, start your application:

cd my-app
npm install   # if you used --skip-install
npm run dev

Your app will be running at http://localhost:3000.

Dependencies

If you did not pass --skip-install, npm install runs automatically during scaffolding. You can go straight to npm run dev.

Next Steps

• Learn about all available templates
• See the full CLI reference for advanced options
• Read the configuration guide to customize ForgeKit's behavior