`npm init react-app` ignores `--template` directive

[RoystonS]

The commands npx create-react-app and npm init react-app behave differently.

Using npx create-react-app my-app --template typescript correctly creates a React app with the typescript template.

$ npx create-react-app my-app --template typescript
Creating a new React app in /home/user/my-app.

Installing packages. This might take a couple of minutes.
Installing react, react-dom, and react-scripts with cra-template-typescript...
...

Using npm init react-app my-app --template typescript (as documented at https://create-react-app.dev/docs/getting-started/#npm) does not work correctly. The --template directive is silently ignored:

$ npm init react-app my-app --template typescript
Creating a new React app in /home/user/my-app.

Installing packages. This might take a couple of minutes.
Installing react, react-dom, and react-scripts with cra-template...
...

Environment

Environment Info:

  current version of create-react-app: 5.0.0
  running from /home/royston/.npm/_npx/c67e74de0542c87c/node_modules/create-react-app

  System:
    OS: Linux 5.10 Ubuntu 20.04.4 LTS (Focal Fossa)
    CPU: (12) x64 Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-8850H CPU @ 2.60GHz
  Binaries:
    Node: 16.14.2 - ~/.volta/tools/image/node/16.14.2/bin/node
    Yarn: Not Found
    npm: 8.5.0 - ~/.volta/tools/image/node/16.14.2/bin/npm
  Browsers:
    Chrome: Not Found
    Firefox: Not Found
  npmPackages:
    react: Not Found
    react-dom: Not Found
    react-scripts: Not Found
  npmGlobalPackages:
    create-react-app: Not Found

[brownieboy]

We're seeing this issue too.

We can't use the npx method because were using the --scripts-version tag (ignored by npx) to specify an older version of CRA/react-scripts.

yarn create react-app will observe the --template switch (and the --scripts-version switch) correctly, but that's an extra barrier to entry; not all users will necessarily have Yarn installed.

[mtusk]

Adding -- seems to work:

- npm init react-app . --scripts-version=my-scripts --template=my-template
+ npm init react-app . -- --scripts-version=my-scripts --template=my-template
+ npm init react-app . -- --scripts-version my-scripts --template my-template # (equals-sign or space both seem to work)