create-nestjs-kit

Start a new NestJS backend from nestjs-starter-kit and skip the usual first-day setup. One command gets you auth, RBAC, TypeORM, migrations and Docker already wired together — plus a .env with real secrets and a fresh git repo.

pnpm create nestjs-kit my-app

┌  create-nestjs-kit
│
◇  Project name
│  my-app
│
◇  Fetching template…
│
◇  Initialising git repository…
│
◇  Install dependencies now (pnpm)?
│  Yes
│
◇  Start Docker (docker compose up -d)?
│  No
│
└  Next steps:
     cd my-app
     docker compose up -d
     pnpm migration:run
     pnpm seed
     pnpm start:dev

Why

nest new hands you an empty app. Most teams then spend the first day or two bolting on the same plumbing every time — authentication, refresh tokens, roles and permissions, a database layer with migrations, Swagger, logging, Docker.

This skips that. You get an opinionated starting point with those pieces already in place, and you delete what you don't need — which is quicker than adding what you do.

Usage

pnpm create nestjs-kit my-app        # into ./my-app
pnpm create nestjs-kit .             # into the current directory
npm create nestjs-kit@latest my-app  # npm is fine too — the project still uses pnpm

Run it with no name and it'll ask. Once the files are in place it asks whether to install dependencies and start Docker; answer those up front with flags to run it non-interactively.

Options

Flag	Description
--install / --no-install	Install dependencies (default: ask)
--docker / --no-docker	Run docker compose up -d (default: ask)
--ref <branch|tag|sha>	Template version to use (default: main)
--yes	Take the defaults: install yes, docker no
--force	Allow a non-empty target directory

Requirements

• Node 18+ to run the CLI.
• The generated project wants Node 22+ and pnpm.
• Docker is optional — only if you want the bundled Postgres via docker compose.

What you get

The template underneath comes with:

• JWT auth with refresh tokens, and Google + GitHub OAuth
• Role- and permission-based access control (RBAC)
• TypeORM + PostgreSQL, with migrations and seeds
• Swagger docs, request validation, structured logging (pino)
• Health checks, rate limiting, Helmet, a Dockerfile and docker-compose.yml

Laid out like this:

src/
  modules/     auth, users, roles, permissions, identities, health
  common/      filters, interceptors, pipes, logging, middleware
  config/      typed config + env validation
  database/    entities, migrations, seeds, data-source
  shared/      constants, enums, types, utils, validators
test/          end-to-end tests and helpers

After scaffolding

cd my-app
pnpm install
docker compose up -d      # starts Postgres
pnpm migration:run        # apply the schema
pnpm seed                 # optional: seed initial data
pnpm start:dev

The API comes up on http://localhost:3000, Swagger on http://localhost:3000/docs. Deeper docs (architecture, API, database, deployment) live in the generated project's own docs/ folder.

How it works

The CLI pulls the template as a tarball straight from GitHub — no git needed to fetch it. It drops the files that only belong to the template repo (.github/, its LICENSE, contributing and release notes), rewrites package.json, writes a .env with randomly generated secrets, and starts a fresh git history. If the optional install or Docker step fails, it tells you and leaves the project intact — it never rolls back what it already created.

Contributing

Issues and PRs are welcome. See CONTRIBUTING.md for the dev setup.

License

MIT © Gary Hu