Templates: `anole new` and `anole init`

anole is a small command line (a std-only Zig program, never linked into your app) that makes a project from one of five templates:

anole new my-api                          # the minimal template
anole new my-api --template rest-postgres
anole templates                           # lists them
cd my-api && zig build run

It runs zig init -m (so the project gets its own name and fingerprint), writes the template’s files, adds Anole to build.zig.zon with zig fetch --save (the tag that matches the CLI) and writes a ready .env copied from .env.example. It never asks anything, so it works the same in a script.

Getting it

Download anole for your system from the latest release (Linux and macOS, x86_64 and aarch64, and Windows x86_64), check it against SHA256SUMS, make it executable and put it on your PATH. Or build it from a clone, with no download of C libraries:

zig build cli -Dprofile=minimal       # zig-out/bin/anole

The templates

Template	Profile	What it is
minimal (default)	web	typed routes (GET /, GET /users/:id, POST /echo with rules), health, the OpenAPI page, in-memory tests
rest-postgres	web	a todo API on PostgreSQL: typed CRUD, rules as 422, a missing row as 404, a duplicate as 409, /readyz pings the database, compose.yaml and db/schema.sql, typed config
realtime	web	a WebSocket chat with rooms, a browser page as static files, a typed GET /rooms, a test with two clients
grpc	full	a .proto service that answers gRPC, gRPC-Web, Connect and REST, with the comments in the OpenAPI document
full	full	most of Anole in one app that needs no outside service: typed routes with rules on SQLite, WebSocket rooms, server-sent event topics, background jobs and a cron schedule on SQLite, sessions with CSRF, JWT and roles, API keys, gRPC with transcoding, an outbound client with retry and a breaker, rate limit, metrics, health, tracing, typed config and .env, an OpenAPI page. PostgreSQL, Redis, NATS, Kafka, S3 and SMTP start when their URL is set in .env

Every template has src/main.zig with a routes function separate from main (so src/main_test.zig serves the same routes through anole.testing), build.zig (addApp plus a test step), .gitignore (zig-out/, .zig-cache/, zig-pkg/, .env, .env*.local), .env.example (committed; .env is not) and a README. zig build run starts the app, zig build test runs the tests and zig build openapi writes openapi.json.

There is no Dockerfile: a release build (zig build -Doptimize=ReleaseSafe) already runs in production mode, and The server says how to deploy it.

anole init

anole init does the same in the current directory. It refuses a directory that has files unless you give --force; with --force in an existing Zig project (one with a build.zig.zon) it keeps your manifest, adds Anole to it and writes the template’s files, stopping before it overwrites anything (including your build.zig).

Options

--template <name>	which template (default minimal)
--anole <ref>	the Anole tag, branch or commit to depend on (default: the CLI’s tag)
--anole-path <dir>	depend on a local checkout (a path dependency, written relative to the project)
--no-fetch	leave the dependency out and print the zig fetch line (offline)
--force	allow a non-empty directory (never overwrites a file)

Exit codes: 0 done; 1 usage; 2 the directory is not empty or a file exists; 3 zig not found; 4 zig init or zig fetch failed (the command to retry is printed).