Installation

The fastest path is the create-better-fullstack CLI. It can run as a wizard, accept flags, or execute commands copied from the Stack Builder.

Prerequisites

• Node.js 20 or newer.
• A terminal.
• Git only if you want the CLI to initialize a repository.
• Ecosystem-specific tools only for the generated language you choose.

Launchers

npm create better-fullstack@latest

With npm create, pass Better Fullstack flags after a -- separator. The generated npm command may use npx create-better-fullstack@latest; both target the same package entrypoint.

Wizard mode

Run the CLI without stack flags to answer prompts:

npm create better-fullstack@latest my-app

The wizard asks for the project name, ecosystem, stack options, optional addons, Git, and dependency installation.

Scripted mode

Explicit flags skip the prompts for those categories. Omitted categories can still prompt unless defaults are being used, the CLI is running non-interactively, or you pass --yes.

npm create better-fullstack@latest my-app -- \
  --ecosystem typescript \
  --frontend tanstack-router \
  --backend hono \
  --runtime node \
  --database sqlite \
  --orm drizzle \
  --api orpc \
  --auth better-auth \
  --db-setup none \
  --ai-docs none \
  --version-channel stable \
  --package-manager npm \
  --no-install \
  --no-git

Use --ai-docs none when you do not want generated AI instruction files.

Templates

The CLI includes shorthand templates:

npm create better-fullstack@latest my-app -- --template t3

Ecosystem toolchains

For non-TypeScript projects, generated install or verification commands use the ecosystem tooling, such as cargo build, uv sync, go mod tidy, ./mvnw test, or ./gradlew test.

Next steps

• Walk through the First Project flow.
• Browse every flag in CLI Create.
• Compare language support in Ecosystems.