Flask-Boilerplate cookiecutter template

This is a CookieCutter template for generating a generic Flask project. It provides simple starting points for using some of the popular best-practices:

• Proper setuptools-compatible package layout.
• Several of nearly-standard extensions (Flask-SQLAlchemy, Flask-Login, Flask-Admin, Flask-Script)
• py.test-based tests.
• Usage of the Travis-CI continuous integration service.

Installation

Before you can use this template you should install cookiecutter via easy_install or pip:

$ pip install cookiecutter

The cookiecutter executable should appear in your Python's bin/ (in Windows Scripts/) directory. You might need to add that directory to your PATH to run the executable. You should also have git installed in your system.

Usage

To initialize a new project, ensure that cookiecutter is in your path and run:

 $ cookiecutter https://github.com/konstantint/cookiecutter-flask-boilerplate.git

After asking some basic questions, the tool will create the following project layout for you::

<package_root>/
|
+-- .gitignore              # Git configuration
+-- .travis.yml             # Travis-CI configuration
+-- .bowerrc                # Bower configuration
+-- bower.json              # Javascript dependencies (using Bower)
+-- setup.cfg               # Configuration for py.test and other tools
+-- setup.py                # Package metadata
+-- MANIFEST.in             # Files to include in the package
+-- README.rst              # Package description
+-- LICENSE.txt             # License text (MIT, replace if not applicable)
+-- CHANGELOG.txt           # Changelog
+-- requirements.txt        # List of "last known good" versions of package dependencies
+-- sample_pasteconfig.ini  # Sample config for Webapp deployment using PasteDeploy
+-- sample_settings.py      # Sample configuration file
|
+-- tests/                  # PyTest-based tests
|   |
|   +-- conftest.py         # Global test configuration and fixtures
|   +-- test_***.py         # Sample tests
|
+-- <package>/              # Package code root directory
    |
    +-- static/             # Flask static directory.
    +-- templates/          # Jinja2 templates
    +-- views/              # Views (index, login, admin)
    |
    +-- app.py              # Flask app configuration
    +-- manage.py           # Flask-Script management script
    +-- model.py            # Flask-SQLAlchemy data model
    +-- config.py           # Configuration logic
    +-- i18n.py             # Flask-Babel
    +-- assets.py           # Flask-Assets

Typically you would want to add the newly created project to the version control before doing anything else:

$ git init
$ git add .
$ git commit -m "Initial package structure"

To give a quick test run of the resulting project, proceed as follows:

$ python setup.py develop
$ <project>-manage createdb
$ <project>-manage assets build
$ <project>-manage runserver

Common development tasks

• Specifying a local configuration

  $ cp sample_settings.py settings.py
  ... edit settings.py ...
  $ export CONFIG=/path/to/settings.py  
  ... (can be just "settings.py",
   if you plan to run everything from the same directory) ...
  

• Testing

  $ py.test
  .. or ..
  $ python setup.py test
  

• Specifying dependencies for your package
  Edit the install_requires line in setup.py by listing all the dependent packages.

• Using the debug shell Run <project>-manage shell. The resulting shell provides variables app, model and db for convenience.

• Publishing the package on Pypi

  $ python setup.py register sdist upload
  

• Travis-CI integration
  To use the Travis-CI continuous integration service, follow the instructions at the Travis-CI website to register an account and connect your Github repository to Travis. The boilerplate code contains a minimal .travis.yml configuration file that might help you get started.

See also

• Alternative flask templates:
  • https://github.com/sloria/cookiecutter-flask
  • https://github.com/zachwill/flask_heroku
  • https://github.com/berlotto/flask-app-template
  • https://github.com/kamalgill/flask-appengine-template
• Buildout project boilerplate template: https://github.com/konstantint/cookiecutter-python-boilerplate
• Blog post: http://fouryears.eu/2015/04/21/a-flask-project-template/

Copyright & License

• Copyright 2015, Konstantin Tretyakov
• License: MIT