I got tired of setting up JWT, Redis, Docker, Swagger, and CI for the 20th time, so I built a CLI that does it in under a second.

I Built ArchGen: A Backend Project Generator Powered by GitHub Copilot This is a submission for the GitHub Copilot Challenge. As a backend developer, I kept running into the same problem. Every new project started with hours of repetitive setup: Configure TypeScript Set up Fastify or FastAPI Configure database connections Add authentication Configure logging Add Docker support Create CI pipelines Set up validation and error handling None of these tasks were difficult. They were just repetitive. After creating multiple backend services, I realized I was spending more time configuring projects than actually building features. So I built ArchGen, a CLI tool that generates production-ready backend projects in seconds. Instead of spending hours wiring infrastructure together, developers can run: archgen create my-app Answer a few prompts and get a complete backend project ready to run. I wanted a developer experience similar to: create-next-app but for backend applications. Most backend generators either: create very minimal projects generate outdated code focus on only one framework don't support upgrading generated projects I wanted something opinionated, modern, and practical. The generated projects include real-world essentials such as: Authentication Validation Logging Error handling Redis integration Docker support CI workflows API documentation Email services S3-compatible storage These are things I add to almost every backend project. GitHub Copilot was heavily involved throughout development. ArchGen itself generates boilerplate, but building the generator required writing a lot of repetitive code. Copilot helped accelerate: CLI command implementations Interactive prompt flows Template generation logic File system operations Validation helpers As the project grew, I had to reorganize templates into reusable modules. Copilot was useful for: Refactoring duplicated logic Extracting reusable utilities Updating imports across files Generating repetitive template mappings One of ArchGen's core features is addon injection: archgen add docker archgen add websocket archgen add oauth archgen add email archgen add s3 Copilot helped scaffold many of the repetitive integration points required to support multiple addons consistently. archgen create my-app Generates a production-ready backend structure. Node.js stack: TypeScript Fastify Prisma Redis JWT Zod Pino Python stack: FastAPI SQLAlchemy 2.0 PostgreSQL Redis APScheduler Pydantic v2 archgen add websocket archgen add oauth archgen add api-docs archgen add email archgen add s3 No need to regenerate the entire project. archgen upgrade ArchGen tracks project metadata and can re-apply updated templates later. Creating a complete backend project: archgen create ecommerce-api \ --language node \ --docker \ --testing \ --ci \ --oauth \ --api-docs This generates: Fastify application Prisma setup Docker configuration GitHub Actions workflow OAuth integration API documentation Testing configuration in under a second. Building ArchGen taught me that developer productivity isn't only about writing application code. A huge amount of engineering time is spent creating the same infrastructure repeatedly. By automating that setup process, developers can spend more time solving actual business problems. GitHub Copilot helped me move much faster, especially when implementing repetitive scaffolding logic and maintaining consistency across templates. GitHub Repository: https://github.com/Kidkender/archgen NPM Package: https://www.npmjs.com/package/@kidkender/archgen Thanks for reading!