Web, in line with most of DADI products, is delivered as an npm package that you add as a dependency to your project. npm is the standard package manager in the Node.js community and it allows our users to efficiently install and update the software following the rules of the semantic versioning convention.

The downside to this is that when you install a product for the first time, you'll need a basic skeleton in place for the app to run. This typically consists of an app-specific (JSON) configuration file, and a bootstrap script that will require the module and start the application.

Some applications might also have additional requirements, such as versions 3.0 and above of DADI Web, where you need to install the template engines you wish to use and summon them from the bootstrap file.

To make this process quicker and easier for new users, we launched DADI CLI, a command-line tool to help with the installation and maintenance of DADI products.

To install Web using CLI, you first need to install the tool itself (you only need to do this once):

npm install @dadi/cli -g

And then run the following command, which will create a new installation of Web in a directory called my-new-site:

dadi new my-new-site

This will launch an interactive setup process, letting you choose which template engines to install. When it finishes, you just enter the newly created directory, start the app and you're up and running. It's that simple.

CLI is still in its early stages and we're planning many exciting features for the coming months.

Hit us on @dadi – or me directly at @eduardoboucas – if you have any questions or general feedback!