ego-scaffold

ego-scaffold

Scaffold a new GNOME Shell extension with EGO-compliant structure.

Information Needed

Before scaffolding, gather from the user:

1. Extension name — Human-readable name (e.g., "My Extension")
2. UUID — Format: name@username (e.g., my-extension@JohnDoe)
3. Description — What the extension does
4. Target GNOME versions — Array like ["48", "49"] (must include current stable)
5. Author name — For LICENSE copyright
6. Repository URL — GitHub/GitLab URL
7. Needs preferences? — Whether to generate prefs.js (default: yes)
8. Needs GSettings schema? — Whether to generate schema (default: yes, if prefs)

Generated Structure

<uuid>/
├── extension.js          # Main extension with lifecycle boilerplate
├── prefs.js              # Preferences UI (if requested)
├── metadata.json         # EGO-compliant metadata
├── stylesheet.css        # Empty stylesheet with scoped example
├── schemas/
│   └── <schema-id>.gschema.xml  # GSettings schema (if requested)
├── eslint.config.mjs     # ESLint with eslint-config-gnome
├── package.json          # For ESLint dependency
├── LICENSE               # GPL-2.0-or-later
└── .gitignore

Template Variables

Templates in the assets/ directory use ${PLACEHOLDER} syntax:

Variable	Description	Example
${UUID}	Extension UUID	my-extension@JohnDoe
${NAME}	Human-readable name	My Extension
${DESCRIPTION}	Extension description	Does something useful
${SHELL_VERSIONS}	JSON array of versions	["47", "48"]
${SCHEMA_ID}	Full schema ID	org.gnome.shell.extensions.my-extension
${SCHEMA_SUFFIX}	Schema path suffix	my-extension
${CLASS_NAME}	PascalCase class name	MyExtension
${YEAR}	Current year	2026
${AUTHOR}	Author name	John Doe

Steps

1. Ask user for required information
2. Create extension directory at the appropriate location
3. For each template in assets/, read it, replace placeholders, write to target
4. Generate stylesheet.css with a scoped class example: .${SCHEMA_SUFFIX}-label { }
5. Generate package.json with eslint + eslint-config-gnome devDependencies
6. Generate .gitignore (node_modules/, *.zip, .claude/, CLAUDE.md)
7. Generate LICENSE with GPL-2.0-or-later boilerplate
8. Run glib-compile-schemas schemas/ if glib-compile-schemas is available
9. Optionally run npm install if npm is available
10. Initialize git repo
11. Suggest running ego-lint to verify: "Run ego-lint to verify your new extension is EGO-compliant"

After Scaffolding

Tell the user:

• Edit extension.js to add extension functionality in enable()
• Edit prefs.js to add preference controls
• Run glib-compile-schemas schemas/ after schema changes
• Test with gnome-extensions enable <uuid>