{
  "id": 19394034,
  "title": "Why create-next-app Isn't Enough: Scaffolding by Product Type, Not Stack",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/11/10/why-create-next-app-isnt-enough-scaffolding-by-product-type-not-stack",
  "topic": "tech",
  "section": "Tech",
  "published": "2026-11-10T20:35:00.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Dev.to",
    "slug": "dev-to",
    "url": "https://dev.to/theyclonedbjorn/why-create-next-app-isnt-enough-scaffolding-by-product-type-not-stack-18mi"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "Two main families of tools exist for starting software projects: scaffolders and starter kits. Scaffolders, like create-next-app, generate a project based on chosen technologies without any preconceived opinions about additional features like authentication, payment processing, or databases. Starter kits, on the other hand, are clone-and-customize templates that come with a predefined product shape, such as a SaaS app with billing. These kits are ready-to-use but lack flexibility in terms of technology selection and customization.\n\nThe author argues that there's a gap between these two families, where one would ideally have a product-shaped solution that is modular and easily swappable. This would allow developers to specify the type of project they're building through a command-line interface, and then choose from a range of modular, pre-built components for features like payments, authentication, email, and SMS. For example, the command \"npx create-scaffoldr@latest my-event --type ticketing --payments paystack\" would generate a ticketing site project with Paystack as the payment processor.\n\nThe author believes this approach would be particularly useful for African developers, who often face the same repetitive work of integrating African payment providers, handling local currency formatting, and setting up SMS services for every new project. By having these components as separate modules, developers could save time and effort, rather than reinventing the wheel each time. The author mentions that if there already exists a starter kit that implements this idea, they would prefer to use and build upon that rather than creating everything from scratch.",
  "summary": "In the last article, I said I keep rebuilding the same app. Before writing any code, I wanted to answer a fair question: don't tools for this already exist? They do, and they're good. So here's what I found. Two families of tools Starting a project today usually means picking from one of two families. Family 1: Scaffolders. You run a command, answer questions about your tech, and get a project.…",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}