An fzf powered "Project creator from a GitHub template"

[brpaz]

Build this script today. It´s a pretty basic usage of fzf, but still, I think it´s a nice example of the power of fzf to unlock new workflows.

But basically, it´s a shell script, that shows an list of project templates in GitHub, prompt the user to select a template, and then proceeds to create a new repo from that template.

This script uses:

• GitHub CLI
• Glow - Markdown viewer. You can replace it with bat, if you want, but I find glow to be nicer for markdown files.

Unfortunately, GitHub CLI, doesn´t allow to filter the user repositories to return only templates, so I needed to add the topic template to all the template repos. A bit redundant, but it what it is.

Here is the script: Feel free to use it, and suggest improvments.

#!/bin/bash
# Create a new GitHub repository from a template
# This script will list all of the user's repository templates and allow the user to select one to create a new repository from.
# The new repository will be created on GitHub and cloned to the local machine, in the current directory.

# Check if GitHub CLI is installed and authenticated
if ! command -v gh &>/dev/null; then
    echo "GitHub CLI (gh) is not installed. Please install it first."
    exit 1
fi

if ! gh auth status &>/dev/null; then
    echo "You are not authenticated with GitHub. Please run 'gh auth login'."
    exit 1
fi

# Get the GitHub username
GITHUB_USERNAME=$(gh api user | jq -r .login)
if [[ -z "$GITHUB_USERNAME" ]]; then
    echo "Failed to retrieve GitHub username. Please ensure you are authenticated."
    exit 1
fi

# Get the list of repository templates for the user
templates=$(gh repo list --topic template --json name --jq '.[].name' | sort 2>/dev/null)

if [[ -z "$templates" ]]; then
    echo "No templates found for user '$GITHUB_USERNAME'."
    exit 1
fi

# Use fzf to select a template
selected_template=$(
    echo "$templates" | fzf \
        --prompt="Select a template: " \
        --preview "gh api repos/$GITHUB_USERNAME/{1}/readme --jq .content | base64 --decode | glow --style dark 2>/dev/null || echo 'No README available.'" \
        --preview-window=right:70%:wrap
)

if [[ -z "$selected_template" ]]; then
    echo "No template selected. Exiting."
    exit 1
fi

# Prompt for the new project name
read -rp "Enter the new project name: " new_project_name

if [[ -z "$new_project_name" ]]; then
    echo "No project name provided. Exiting."
    exit 1
fi

# Create a new project from the selected template
echo "Creating repository '$new_project_name' from template '$selected_template'..."
gh repo create "$new_project_name" --template "${GITHUB_USERNAME}/$selected_template" --private --clone

# cd into the new project directory
cd "$new_project_name" || exit