Create Project Template Skill

NextSpark no longer installs selectable theme packages into a running project. The project root is the product source, and a template is copied there once by create-nextspark-app --theme <name>.

Locations

• Catalog source: packages/core/templates/projects/<template-name>/
• Extracted source: project-root directories such as blocks/, components/, config/, entities/, messages/, migrations/, public/, styles/, templates/, and tests/
• Generated output: src/app/ and .nextspark/registries/ (never edit)

Template payloads are not workspace packages and are never synchronized after extraction. nextspark.config.ts may retain template.name and template.version as provenance only.

If catalog metadata includes a package.json, keep its Next.js compatibility explicit so validation checks it against the supported Next.js range (~16.4.2):

{
  "peerDependencies": {
    "next": "~16.4.2"
  }
}

Required workflow

1. Choose a lowercase, hyphenated template name.
2. Copy the closest existing catalog template under packages/core/templates/projects/.
3. Keep only root-first source directories. Do not add contents/, a selectable theme directory, or an project environment variable.
4. Do not ship project-root reserved names from the payload: app/, pages/, src/, middleware.*, proxy.*, instrumentation.*, or next.config.*. Project request behavior belongs in config/hooks/proxy.ts and exports the named proxyHook function.
5. Keep template-specific Jest/Cypress suites under tests/. Suites must run from a clean extracted project root, not by selecting the template in apps/dev.
6. Update the CLI template choices and tests if the catalog name is new.

Verification

From the repository root:

# Confirm no legacy selectable-theme paths or environment selector were added.
rg -n 'contents/(themes|plugins)|NEXT_PUBLIC_ACTIVE_THEME' \
  packages/core/templates/projects/<template-name>

# Exercise compiler discovery from a clean extracted project fixture.
pnpm build:registries

# Run any retained template-specific suite from that extracted root.
pnpm exec jest --config tests/jest/jest.config.cjs --watchman=false
pnpm exec cypress run --config-file tests/cypress.config.ts

Use pnpm only. Do not edit dependency versions or lockfiles while authoring a template unless that change is separately requested.