🙌 I'm truly excited to release one of my best open source software packages called create-guten-block with which you can start creating blocks for the new WordPress editor (planned to be released in WordPress 5.0).

create-guten-block is an opinionated zero-config JavaScript toolkit with which you don't need to configure anything related to React, webpack, ESLint, etc.

So, here it goes...

📦 create-guten-block

create-guten-block is zero configuration dev-toolkit (#0CJS) to develop WordPress Gutenberg blocks in a matter of minutes without configuring React, Webpack, ES6/7/8/Next, ESLint, Babel, etc.

Create Guten Block is not like other starter-kits or boilerplates. It's a developer's toolbox which is continuously updated. Since it has zero-configuration, you can always update it without any changes in your code.

Imagine having just one dependency in your projects instead of 50.

create-guten-block is:

• 🥞 Versioned ✓
• 🤠 Updatable ✓
• 🗃 Set of sane-defaults ✓
• 🐎 ONE single cgb-scripts dependency ✓

GETTING STARTED!

It's really easy to get started with create-guten-block. Just install it as a global module and run it to create your next-gen Gutenberg block plugin for WordPress.

Let's get you started!

STEP #0 — If you don't have Node.js + npm installed then read this. (CLICK TO EXPAND!)

In case you are an absolute beginner to the world of Node.js, JavaScript, and npm packages — all you need to do is go to the Node's site download + install Node on your system. This will install both Node.js and npm, i.e., node package manager — the command line interface of Node.js.

You can verify the install by opening your terminal app and typing...

node -v
# Results into v9.1.0 — make sure you have Node >= 8 installed.

npm -v
# Results into 5.6.0 — make sure you have npm >= 5.2 installed.

→ STEP #1

Install create-guten-block via npx and creating your block plugin with it.

You’ll need to have Node >= 8 and npm >= 5.3 on your local development machine (but it’s not required on the server). You can use nvm (macOS/Linux) or nvm-windows to easily switch Node versions between different projects.

Now all you have to do is create a Gutenberg block and start building. It's done by running the create-guten-block command and providing it with a unique name for a WordPress plugin that will get created.

⚠️ Make sure run this command in your local WordPress install's plugins folder i.e. /local_dev_site.tld/wp-content/plugins/ folder — since this command will produce a WordPress plugin that you can go to WP-Admin ▶︎ Plugins to activate.

npx create-guten-block my-block

(npx comes with npm 5.2+ and higher, see instructions for older npm versions)

It will create a directory called my-block inside the current folder.
Inside that directory, it will generate the initial project structure and install the transitive dependencies:

INSIDE: /local_dev_site.tld/wp-content/plugins/my-block

├── plugin.php
├── package.json
├── README.md
|
├── dist
|  ├── blocks.build.js
|  ├── blocks.editor.build.css
|  └── blocks.style.build.css
|
└── src
   ├── block
   |  ├── block.js
   |  ├── editor.scss
   |  └── style.scss
   |
   ├── blocks.js
   ├── common.scss
   └── init.php

No configuration or complicated folder structures, just the files you need to build your app.

→ STEP #3

Once the installation is done, you can open your project folder and run the start script.

Let's do that.

cd my-block
npm start

You can also use yarn start if that's your jam

This runs the plugin in development mode. To produce production code run npm run build.
You will see the build messages, errors, and lint warnings in the console.

And just like that, you're building your next WordPress plugin with Gutenberg, React.js, ES 6/7/8/Next, transpiled with Babel, which also has ESLint configurations for your code editor to pick up and use automatically.

Workflow!

There are just three scripts that you can use in your create-guten-block workflow. With these three scripts, you can develop, build, and eject your plugin.

👉 npm start

• Use to compile and run the block in development mode.
• Watches for any changes and reports back any errors in your code.

👉 npm run build

• Use to build production code for your block inside dist folder.
• Runs once and reports back the gzip file sizes of the produced code.

👉 npm run eject

• Use to eject your plugin out of create-guten-block.
• Provides all the configurations so you can customize the project as you want.
• It's a one-way street, eject and you have to maintain everything yourself.
• You don't normally have to eject a project because by ejecting you lose the connection with create-guten-block and from there onwards you have to update and maintain all the dependencies on your own.

That's about it.

What’s Included?

Your environment will have everything you need to build a modern next-gen WordPress Gutenberg plugin:

• React, JSX, and ES6 syntax support.
• Webpack dev/production build process behind the scene.
• Language extras beyond ES6 like the object spread operator.
• Auto-prefixed CSS, so you don’t need -webkit or other prefixes.
• A build script to bundle JS, CSS, and images for production with source-maps.
• Hassle-free updates for the above tools with a single dependency cgb-scripts.

The tradeoff is that these tools are preconfigured to work in a specific way. If your project needs more customization, you can "eject" and customize it, but then you will need to maintain this configuration.

Philosophy

• One Dependency: There is just one build dependency. It uses Webpack, Babel, ESLint, and other amazing projects, but provides a cohesive curated experience on top of them.

• No Configuration Required: You don't need to configure anything. A reasonably good configuration of both development and production builds is handled for you so you can focus on writing code.

• No Lock-In: You can eject to a custom setup at any time. Run a single command, and all the configuration and build dependencies will be moved directly into your project, so you can pick up right where you left off.

Why create-guten-block?

Well, it's really hard to configure things like Webpack, React, ES 6/7/8/Next, ESLint, Babel, etc. before you even start writing a Hello World gutenberg block. Then there's the fact that you have to maintain and constantly update your configuration with all the new tools and growth in the JavaScript community.

create-guten-block hides all this configuration away in an optimized package that we call cgb-scripts. This package is the only dependency in your projects. We keep cgb-scripts up to date while you go ahead and create the next best WordPress themes and plugins.

TL;DR

Too long, didn't read? Here's a shorter version.

Open the terminal app and run the following commands.

• ✅ Install/Update: npm install create-guten-block --global
• 🔰 Create: create-guten-block my-block — Run inside local WP install E.g. /wp.local/wp-content/plugins/ directory.
• 📂 Browse: cd my-block — Open the newly created plugin directory.
• ♻️ Run: npm start — For development.
• 📦 Run: npm run build — For production build.
• ⏏ Run: npm run eject — To customize, update, and maintain all by yourself.

Create-Guten-Block has been tested to work on macOS, but must also work on Windows, and Linux.
If something doesn’t work, kindly file an issue →

Updating to New Releases

Create Guten Block is divided into two packages:

1. create-guten-block is a command-line utility that you use to create new WP Gutenberg plugins — just run npx create-guten-block your-block-name and you'll always be using the latest create-guten-block toolkit.
2. cgb-scripts is a development dependency in the generated plugin projects.

You almost never need to update create-guten-block itself: it delegates all the setup to cgb-scripts.

When you run create-guten-block, it always creates the project with the latest version of cgb-scripts so you’ll get all the new features and improvements in newly created plugins automatically.

To update an existing project to a new version of cgb-scripts, open the changelog, find the version you’re currently on (check package.json in your plugin's folder if you’re not sure), and apply the migration instructions for the newer versions.

In most cases bumping the cgb-scripts version in the package.json and running npm install in this folder should be enough, but it’s good to consult the changelog for potential breaking changes.

We commit to keeping the breaking changes minimal so you can upgrade cgb-scripts painlessly.

Changelog

Read what's 📦 new, 👌 improved, 🐛 fixed, and if 📖 docs got updated.

👉 Go read the entire changelog at this link — CGB Changelog →

Nothing's ever complete, so bear with us while we keep iterating towards a better future.

'Coz every night I lie in bed
The brightest colors fill my head
A million dreams are keeping me awake
I think of what the world could be
A vision of the one I see
A million dreams is all it's gonna take
A million dreams for the world we're gonna make ...

... listen to → A million dreams!

Hello, we're the WordPress Couple!

I (Ahmad Awais) am a Full Stack Web Developer and a regular core contributor at WordPress. My significant other (Maedah Batool) is a Technical Project Manager, and she's also a WordPress Core Contributor. Together with our team, we run the WPCouple.com.

If you'd like to get insights into our love for open source software, professional full stack development, WordPress community, the growth of JavaScript or growing a family, building, and bootstrapping a business, then subscribe to our premium newsletter called ↣ The WordPress Takeaway!

Support our Open Source Projects! 🎩

If you'd like us to keep producing professional free and open source software (FOSS). Consider paying for an hour of my dev-time. We'll spend two hours on open source for each contribution. Yeah, that's right, you pay for one hour and get both of us to spend an hour as a thank you.

Project Backers & WPCouple Partners ⚡️

This FOSS (free and open source software) project is updated and maintained with the help of awesome businesses listed below. Without the support from these amazing companies/individuals, this project would not have been possible.

— What/How? Read more about it →

License & Attribution

MIT © Ahmad Awais.

This project is inspired by the work of more people than I could mention here. But thank you, Dan Abramov for Create React App, Andrew Clark, and Christopher Chedeau, Sophie Alpert from React.js team, Wes Bos for awesome courses for React, ES6, and Node beginners. Kent C. Dodds for his open source evangelism, WordPress Core Contributors, Gary for keeping everyone sane, Gutenberg developers Matias, Riad, Andrew, Ella, Joen, Tammie, Greg and contributors, and other WordPress community members like Zac for his course on Gutenberg, and also my friend Morten for all the #Guten-motivation, Icons8 for the awesome icons, Maedah for managing this project, and to everyone I forgot.

UPDATES

• 🚀 create-guten-block has gone viral ~500 stargazers on GitHub
• 🙌 Woot! Woot! The project is trending on GitHub JavaScript repos today
• 😇 Humbled to be listed as a trending developer on GitHub today — this is crazy!
• 🔥 Holly Molly — create-guten-block is now trending in all languages overall on GitHub!
• 📣 create-guten-block hit the top five on ProductHunt’s homepage — which is so much awesome
• 😇 Gary from a8c went out of his way to appreciate the create-guten-block toolkit by writing this tweet which means a lot
• 🍩 The Wes Bos yes, that one, tweeted about how he plans to try out create-guten-block and the new WordPress Gutenberg Editor
• 😲 Matt Cromwell listed me along with both the Gutenberg Boilerplate andcreate-guten-block  project in his 2018 follow list
• ✅ I wrote a blog post about this: Introducing Create Guten Block

🔥 It would mean the world to me if you Tweet about it, try it out, and contribute.