Using Pre/Post-Generate Hooks (0.7.0+)

You can have Python or Shell scripts that run before and/or after your project is generated.

Put them in hooks/ like this:

cookiecutter-something/
├── {{cookiecutter.project_slug}}/
├── hooks
│   ├── pre_gen_project.py
│   └── post_gen_project.py
└── cookiecutter.json

Shell scripts work similarly:

cookiecutter-something/
├── {{cookiecutter.project_slug}}/
├── hooks
│   ├── pre_gen_project.sh
│   └── post_gen_project.sh
└── cookiecutter.json

It shouldn’t be too hard to extend Cookiecutter to work with other types of scripts too. Pull requests are welcome.

For portability, you should use Python scripts (with extension .py) for your hooks, as these can be run on any platform. However, if you intend for your template to only be run on a single platform, a shell script (or .bat file on Windows) can be a quicker alternative.

Note

Make sure your hook scripts work in a robust manner. If a hook script fails (that is, if it finishes with a nonzero exit status), the project generation will stop and the generated directory will be cleaned up.

Example: Validating template variables

Here is an example of script that validates a template variable before generating the project, to be used as hooks/pre_gen_project.py:

import re
import sys


MODULE_REGEX = r'^[_a-zA-Z][_a-zA-Z0-9]+$'

module_name = '{{ cookiecutter.module_name }}'

if not re.match(MODULE_REGEX, module_name):
    print('ERROR: %s is not a valid Python module name!' % module_name)

    # exits with status 1 to indicate failure
    sys.exit(1)