@khalidmh/capx

capx

A Laravel-style installer for SAP CAP Node.js projects.

What It Does

capx guides you through a small set of project choices and builds a ready-to-run CAP application around them. It runs cds init, adds the selected CAP facets, then applies the project configuration and starter files that make those choices work together.

It is deliberately an opinionated wrapper around @sap/cds-dk, not a replacement for the CAP tooling. Once the project exists, use the normal cds, npm, MTA, Cloud Foundry, and Docker commands you already use for CAP development and deployment.

Requirements

• Node.js 22 or later. Node.js 24 LTS is recommended.
• npm and Git. Git is required because capx initializes the generated project repository.
• @sap/cds-dk 10+ and mbt. Doctor checks for both and offers to install them globally.
• The Cloud Foundry CLI and the MTA CF plugin are detected but optional. Doctor shows installation guidance and lets you decide whether to continue without them.
• Docker with the Compose plugin is checked when you choose PostgreSQL for local development. You can continue without it, but the generated PostgreSQL development configuration requires Docker before it can run.

Doctor runs as the first step of capx new; there is no standalone capx doctor command.

Install

npm install --global @khalidmh/capx

The package is published as @khalidmh/capx; the installed command is capx.

Quickstart

capx new my-app
cd my-app
npm run watch

The generated project is a standard CAP project. Run npm test, npm run lint, and npm run build from its root as needed.

Configuration Choices

capx new asks for the following choices:

For PostgreSQL on BTP, capx preserves the generated development service plan. PostgreSQL entitlements and available plans vary between BTP subaccounts and regions, so adjust that plan in mta.yaml to one available in your landscape before deployment.

What You Get

The exact layout depends on your choices. A fully featured project contains these areas:

my-app/
├── app/
│   ├── frontend/       # Optional Vite React or Vue application
│   └── router/         # Optional approuter
├── db/
│   └── schema.cds      # Sample domain model
├── srv/
│   └── cat-service.*   # Sample CAP service
├── test/
│   └── smoke.test.*    # Service smoke test
├── .cdsrc.json         # CAP configuration
├── docker-compose.yml  # Present for PostgreSQL development
├── mta.yaml            # Cloud Foundry deployment descriptor
└── package.json

CAP facets may add their own files, including authentication descriptors and deployment modules. The generated project also has scripts for watch, build, lint, test, and, when PostgreSQL development is selected, starting and stopping its database container.

Upgrading A Generated Project

Use the CAP tooling to upgrade the generated application. With current @sap/cds-dk, run cds upgrade from the generated project directory to inspect dependencies and migration guidance, then review and test the proposed changes. capx does not maintain a parallel upgrade path.

Non-Goals

Version 0.1.0 does not provide Java backends, Fiori Elements scaffolding, CommonJS projects, non-interactive flags, capx add, standalone doctor, self-updates, generated project CI, multitenancy, Kyma or Helm deployment, Event Mesh, AI, attachments, audit logging, npm workspaces, or pnpm, Yarn, and Bun workflows.

Roadmap

Future work will be considered from user feedback and CAP platform changes; the non-goals above describe the current v0.1.0 boundary, not release commitments.

Contributing

Run the local checks before opening a change:

npm ci
npm run lint
npm test
npm run format:check

License

MIT