Installation guide

Installation guide

Prerequisites

Before installing scaffolder, ensure you have the following:

• Windows 11 with WSL2 — scaffolder runs inside WSL2
• VS Code with the code command available in PATH
• Node.js (LTS recommended) — check with node --version
• Git — check with git --version
• GitHub CLI (gh) — check with gh --version
• GitHub CLI authenticated — run gh auth login if not yet configured
• Claude Code — for AI-assisted development sessions

Install WSL2 (if not already installed)

wsl --install

Restart your machine after installation.

Install Node.js

curl -fsSL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_lts.x | sudo -E bash -
sudo apt-get install -y nodejs

Verify:

node --version
npm --version

Install Git

sudo apt-get install -y git
git config --global user.name "Your Name"
git config --global user.email "your@email.com"

Install GitHub CLI

sudo apt-get install -y gh
gh auth login

Install scaffolder

gh repo clone purlshq/scaffolder
cd scaffolder
npm install
npm run build
npm link

After npm link, the following commands are available globally:

• sc — all scaffolder commands (create, init, start, end, status, config, etc.)
• create — create a new project (also available as sc create)
• update — update a project to latest scaffolder version
• update-scaffolder — update scaffolder itself

Initial setup (required)

After npm link, run sc init before using any other command:

sc init

This is required before first use and walks you through configuring:

• Your name
• Operator alias — max 5 chars, used in session log filenames
• Operator description — your role, used in templates
• GitHub username
• Default drive path (e.g. /mnt/d/Claude/projects)
• Windows username (for file copy paths)
• Environment — wsl2 / macos / linux
• Mode — personal (full control) or team (locked AI names)
• Chat AI name — default: Chat (personal mode only)
• Code AI name — default: Code (personal mode only)
• Command prefix — default: sc
• Time tracking — enabled by default

If you skip this step, sc init will run automatically the first time you use any sc command.

Create your first project

sc create "my-project"

This creates a fully scaffolded project with docs, git, GitHub repo, and opens VS Code automatically.