WICG starter kit

**marcosc** · August 23, 2016, 10:04am

I’ve put together a “starter kit” for the WICG. It helps get a repository set up with the files you need to get started with editing a spec, etc.

Installation

To install it:

npm install wicg

Then go to some directory where you want to start a project (or to an existing repo):

wicg init "My Awesome API"

And follow the prompts.

Contributing/Issues

Would appreciate any feedback and suggestion to improving it.

I slapped it together rather quickly, so it’s still a bit rough… PRs/issues welcomed!

Repository:

https://github.com/WICG/starter-kit/

Limitations (wish list)

Currently, it only supports adding a ReSpec document. However, if someone wants to contribute a BikeShed template, I would gladly accept it. Then I can have the program prompt the end-user for which spec processor they would like to use.

I hear it doesn’t work in Windows (Bash). Can’t confirm tho. Can someone check?

**marcosc** · August 24, 2016, 5:16am

I’ve now added a simple BikeShed template:

github.com

WICG/starter-kit/blob/master/templates/index.bs

<pre class='metadata'>
Title: {{name}}
Shortname: {{repo}}
Level: 1
Status: CG-DRAFT
Group: WICG
Repository: WICG/{{repo}}
URL: http://example.com/url-this-spec-will-live-at
Editor: {{userName}}, {{affiliation}} {{affiliationURL}}, {{userEmail}}
!Tests: <a href=https://github.com/w3c/web-platform-tests/tree/master/{{repo}}>web-platform-tests {{repo}}/</a> (<a href=https://github.com/w3c/web-platform-tests/labels/{{repo}}>ongoing work</a>)
Abstract: A short description of your spec, one or two sentences.
</pre>

Introduction {#intro}
=====================

See https://github.com/tabatkins/bikeshed to get started.

The utility also now prompts for a pre-processor to use, defaulting to ReSpec.

**tabatkins** · September 1, 2016, 9:44pm

I’d note tho that using an npm script just to generate a Bikeshed template probably isn’t the most useful, since Bikeshed needs Python to run instead. (Also, bikeshed template > index.bs generates roughly the same thing already.)

**marcosc** · September 6, 2016, 3:59am

I know. We could do better here. The idea is to help people get started by pointing them in the right direction. Writing specs for those that have never done it is going to be really hard - even just getting the right tools in place. The idea is to help minimize a bit of the friction.

**tabatkins** · September 8, 2016, 6:38pm

Right, but adding an entire build tool (npm) that is used solely to generate a template for something that doesn’t use NPM at all isn’t a great move. Like, even if they’re npm users already, they can’t do anything with that Bikeshed template until they start using Bikeshed. Maybe if the tool also had a function to curl to the API endpoint? Then it would be useful on its own.

**marcosc** · September 12, 2016, 4:13am

True. Good suggestion re-curl’ing… then I guess they can upgrade to a local bikeshed if they need more advanced functionality.