Cookiecutter templates with PyScaffold

Cookiecutter is a flexible utility that allows the definition of templates for a diverse range of software projects. On the other hand, PyScaffold is focused in a good out-of-the-box experience for developing distributable Python packages (exclusively). Despite the different objectives, it is possible to combine the power of both tools to create a custom Python project setup. For instance, the following command creates a new package named mypkg, that uses a Cookiecutter template, but is enhanced by PyScaffold’s features:

$ putup mypkg --cookiecutter gh:audreyr/cookiecutter-pypackage

This is roughly equivalent to first create a project using the Cookiecutter template and convert it to PyScaffold afterwards:

$ cookiecutter --no-input gh:audreyr/cookiecutter-pypackage project_name=mypkg
$ putup mypkg --force


For complex Cookiecutter templates calling cookiecutter and putup separately may be a better option, since it is possible to answer specific template questions or at least set values for Cookiecutter variables.


Although using Cookiecutter templates is a viable solution to customize a project that was set up with PyScaffold, the recommended way is to help improve PyScaffold by contributing an extension.

Suitable templates

Note that PyScaffold will overwrite some files generated by Cookiecutter, like, the file under the package folder and most of the docs folder, in order to provide setuptools_scm and sphinx integration. Therefore not all Cookiecutter templates are suitable for this approach.

Ideally, interoperable templates should focus on the file structure inside the src folder instead of packaging or distributing, since PyScaffold already handles it under-the-hood. This also means that your template should adhere to the src-layout if you want to generate files within your Python package.

In addition, PyScaffold runs Cookiecutter with the --no-input flag activated and thus the user is not prompted for manual configuration. Instead, PyScaffold injects the following parameters:


Accordingly, the template file structure should be similar to:

└── {{cookiecutter.project_name}}/
    └── src/
        └── {{cookiecutter.package_name}}/
            └── ...

See Cookiecutter for more information about template creation.