A tiny CLI that scaffolds a minimal hackathon project skeleton in seconds — so at kickoff you spend zero minutes on boilerplate (README, license, .gitignore, a starter file, git init) and go straight to building.

This is a scaffolding CLI, not a hackathon framework, judging platform, or team-formation tool. It creates a directory with a few files and gets out of your way.

python3 scaffold.py <project-name> [--stack python|node|web]

Creates <project-name>/ containing:

• README.md — templated with the project name, a pitch placeholder, a "Team" section, and a "How to run" section
• LICENSE — MIT, pre-filled with the same copyright holder/year as this repo
• .gitignore — appropriate to the chosen stack
• a minimal starter file for the stack (main.py, index.js, or index.html)
• an initialized git repo (best effort — skipped quietly if git isn't available)

It refuses to overwrite an existing directory.

python3 scaffold.py my-idea --stack python

$ python3 scaffold.py my-idea --stack python
Created /private/tmp/scaffold_demo/my-idea/ (python stack)

$ find my-idea -type f -not -path '*/.git/*' | sort
my-idea/.gitignore
my-idea/LICENSE
my-idea/README.md
my-idea/main.py

$ cat my-idea/main.py
print("hello from my-idea")

$ python3 my-idea/main.py
hello from my-idea

The same command works with --stack node (generates index.js) and --stack web (generates index.html), each with a stack-appropriate .gitignore. Trying to scaffold into a name that already exists fails loudly instead of silently overwriting:

$ python3 scaffold.py my-idea --stack python
error: Refusing to overwrite existing directory: /private/tmp/scaffold_demo/my-idea

python3 -m unittest test_scaffold.py -v

test_cli_creates_project (test_scaffold.ScaffoldCLITests) ... ok
test_cli_refuses_overwrite (test_scaffold.ScaffoldCLITests) ... ok
test_all_stacks_have_gitignore_and_starter (test_scaffold.ScaffoldFunctionTests) ... ok
test_git_init_ran (test_scaffold.ScaffoldFunctionTests) ... ok
test_node_stack (test_scaffold.ScaffoldFunctionTests) ... ok
test_python_stack (test_scaffold.ScaffoldFunctionTests) ... ok
test_refuses_to_overwrite_existing_directory (test_scaffold.ScaffoldFunctionTests) ... ok
test_web_stack (test_scaffold.ScaffoldFunctionTests) ... ok

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Ran 8 tests in 0.179s

OK

Python 3.9+, standard library only — no dependencies to install.

• scaffold.py — the CLI (argparse, stdlib only)
• test_scaffold.py — unittest suite covering all three stacks, the overwrite guard, and the CLI entry point itself
• LICENSE — MIT