Clegen, my first open source library

The Problem

A couple of months ago, I started getting interested in and researching software patterns and architectures, especially the repository pattern and hexagonal architecture.

Within everything I learned (and continue to learn), I noticed that generating new modules had something in common: they shared the same folder structure.

Let’s take two modules as an example: User and Product

.
├── ...
├── User
│   ├── application
│   │             └── UserService.ts # Use cases, services
│   ├── domain
│   │        ├── User.ts # Domain entity
│   │        └── UserRepository.ts # Interface
│   └── infrastructure
│                    └── Postgres
│                               └── PostgresUserRepository.ts # Interface implementation

.
├── ...
├── Product
│   ├── application
│   │             └── ProductService.ts # Use cases, services
│   ├── domain
│   │        ├── Product.ts # Domain entity
│   │        └── ProductRepository.ts # Interface
│   └── infrastructure
│                    └── Postgres
│                               └── PostgresProductRepository.ts # Interface implementation

What is different in their structure? As we can see, only the module name, which in turn generates variations in the file names and class names, which finally create their respective variations in the imports of those classes/functions/interfaces.

What if there was a way to automate the generation of this module structure with a simple command, and at the same time handle the imports of those files accordingly?

Solution: Clegen

Clegen (clean generator) is a command-line tool designed to help developers initialize modules in Typescript projects.

To start using it, simply run:

npx clegen@latest

This will execute the module generator, which will ask the developer a series of simple questions, such as the module name, its location, and whether to generate a repository implementation:

Finally, the result will be a folder structure similar to:

And that’s it! We now have our new module ready to start working on, adding use cases as needed, focusing on what we build instead of how we build it.

Future of the Library

Although the library is currently simple given its problem to solve, the idea is to extend its functionality to different types of architectures. The goal of Clegen is not just to generate folder structures but to serve as a reference point for project standardization, making it easier for development teams to follow a consistent software design and architecture approach.

Contributions? Absolutely!

Contributions to Clegen are welcome. If you have issues using the library or wish to add features you think could help the community, feel free to open an issue or a new pull request on our GitHub repository.