giter8 is a command-line utility and templating tool used to generate new projects or code structures from templates. The core idea is that you can define a “template repository” (e.g. on GitHub) with placeholders, variables, and a folder structure, and giter8 will clone it and substitute in values (e.g. project name, package, author) to produce a ready-to-go scaffold. It’s commonly used in the Scala / JVM ecosystem to bootstrap new applications or libraries, letting developers avoid repetitive boilerplate setup. The tool supports interactive prompting (asking the user for variable values) or passing parameters non-interactively to generate customized templates. Because it's general, it can be used for anything that fits templating (microservices, builds, documentation, modules, etc.). giter8 is light, extensible, and well-adopted in Scala communities (e.g. many scaffolding tools or frameworks provide giter8 templates).
Features
- Supports using remote Git repositories (e.g. GitHub) for templates
- Supports local templates (via file://) and specifying branch, tag, sub-directory of repo
- Integration with sbt “new” command so Scala project bootstrapping is easy
- Allows templating parameters, with default values, interactive prompts or passed via command-line
- Licensed under Apache-2.0
- Offers installation via various mechanisms (Coursier, direct download/Maven)