plonecli Roadmap

Dynamic Template Discovery from copier.yml

Status: In progress

Replace the hardcoded template lists (MAIN_TEMPLATES, SUBTEMPLATES, TEMPLATE_ALIASES in templates.py) with dynamic discovery based on _plonecli metadata in each template's copier.yml.

What changes

• The registry scans copier.yml files and reads the _plonecli metadata section to determine template type (main/sub), parent relationships, aliases, descriptions, and deprecation status.
• Adding a new template to a copier-templates repository requires zero changes to plonecli.
• Templates without a _plonecli section are still discovered but won't appear in any listing.

Files affected

• plonecli/registry.py — parse copier.yml metadata dynamically
• plonecli/templates.py — remove static constants (MAIN_TEMPLATES, SUBTEMPLATES, TEMPLATE_ALIASES, resolve_template_name())
• plonecli/cli.py — use registry for all template resolution
• pyproject.toml — add pyyaml as explicit dependency
• tests/ — update to use copier.yml fixtures with _plonecli metadata

See the Template Registry section in README.rst for the full metadata convention.

---

Multi-Package Template Support via Entrypoints

Status: Planned

Restore the bobtemplates-style multi-package support using modern Python entrypoints, so that multiple installed packages can each provide copier templates to plonecli.

Entrypoint group: plonecli.templates

Template packages register an entrypoint that returns a Path to a directory containing copier template subdirectories (each with copier.yml + _plonecli metadata).

Template package pyproject.toml:

[project.entry-points."plonecli.templates"]
plone = "plone_copier_templates:get_templates_dir"

Template package code:

# plone_copier_templates/__init__.py
from pathlib import Path

def get_templates_dir() -> Path:
    return Path(__file__).parent / "templates"

Registry changes

The registry will scan all registered template directories in addition to the local git clone:

import importlib.metadata

for ep in importlib.metadata.entry_points(group="plonecli.templates"):
    get_dir = ep.load()
    templates_dir = get_dir()
    # scan this dir the same way as the local clone

The local git clone remains the default source. Installed packages provide additional sources.

Conflict resolution

When multiple packages provide templates with the same name:

• Namespace by source: plone:backend_addon vs mycompany:backend_addon
• Show source package in plonecli -l output
• Allow configuration to set priority order

---

Release plone-copier-templates on PyPI

Status: Planned (depends on multi-package entrypoint support)

Package the copier-templates repository as plone-copier-templates on PyPI, similar to how bobtemplates.plone was distributed.

Goals

• Users can pip install plone-copier-templates and templates appear automatically in plonecli -l
• Templates are versioned and released alongside plonecli
• Third parties can create and publish their own template packages (e.g. my-company-plone-templates)
• The git-clone mechanism remains as a fallback / development workflow

Package structure

plone-copier-templates/
├── pyproject.toml
├── plone_copier_templates/
│   ├── __init__.py          # get_templates_dir() function
│   └── templates/
│       ├── backend_addon/
│       │   └── copier.yml
│       ├── content_type/
│       │   └── copier.yml
│       ├── behavior/
│       │   └── copier.yml
│       └── ...

pyproject.toml

[project]
name = "plone-copier-templates"
version = "1.0.0"
dependencies = []

[project.entry-points."plonecli.templates"]
plone = "plone_copier_templates:get_templates_dir"

[tool.hatch.build.targets.wheel]
packages = ["plone_copier_templates"]

---

Frontend / Volto Template Support

Status: Idea

Add support for frontend (Volto) project scaffolding alongside the existing backend templates. This would include templates for Volto add-ons and project setups.

---

plonecli update with Copier Update Support

Status: Idea

Integrate copier's built-in update mechanism (copier update) so that existing projects can be updated when templates change. This would allow projects created with plonecli to pull in template improvements without recreating from scratch.