Skip to content

Prompt-to-repo scaffold

bernstein scaffold "<prompt>" materialises a small project skeleton from a single goal prompt. A deterministic keyword heuristic picks one template family from the registry, the template is rendered to disk, and the generator returns the list of created paths.

Why it exists

Real project starts spend the first hour on the same scaffolding: README.md, a stub entry point, a test directory, a license file, a one-line CI config. None of that is interesting; all of it is reproducible from a single sentence describing the goal.

The CLI ships the smallest viable slice of that workflow: pick a template, render it, write to disk. The full goal-to-deploy flow (architect, backend, frontend, reviewer; preview tunnel; deploy adapter) composes on top of this primitive in follow-up slices.

How to use it

# Auto-pick a template via keyword heuristic on the prompt
bernstein scaffold "Build me a habit tracker"

# Pin a specific template
bernstein scaffold "CLI to convert markdown to PDF" --template python-cli

# Custom output directory (defaults to ./<slug-of-prompt>)
bernstein scaffold "static landing page" --output ./my-site

# Allow writing into a non-empty directory
bernstein scaffold "habit tracker" --output ./existing --force

The output is a populated directory with a working entry point, a README.md that paraphrases the prompt, and the next-step command printed at the end:

Scaffolded python-cli into /path/to/habit-tracker
  - README.md
  - pyproject.toml
  - src/habit_tracker/__init__.py
  - src/habit_tracker/cli.py
  - tests/test_cli.py

Next: cd /path/to/habit-tracker && cat README.md

Configuration

Flag Default Meaning
PROMPT required The free-form prompt; drives auto template pick and slug.
--template NAME auto One of the registered templates. auto runs the keyword heuristic.
--output DIR ./<slug-of-prompt> Destination directory.
--force off Allow writing into a non-empty directory.

Run bernstein scaffold --help to see the live template list.

Limitations

  • The keyword heuristic is intentional but coarse. When the prompt matches several template families weakly, pin one with --template NAME rather than rely on auto.
  • Templates are static. Variable substitution is limited to slug and prompt; richer parameterisation lives in follow-up slices.
  • No git initialisation, no commit, no remote push. The generator writes files and returns; downstream tooling decides what to do with them.
  • Source: src/bernstein/cli/commands/scaffold_cmd.py
  • Templates: src/bernstein/cli/scaffold/templates.py