Custom Templates

Mintd supports custom templates that allow you to define your own project structures and files. This is useful for: - Creating lab-specific project layouts - Standardizing repetitive project setups - Experimenting with new project structures

Using Custom Templates

Discovery

Mintd looks for custom templates in the following locations (in order of priority): 1. The directory specified by the MINTD_TEMPLATES_DIR environment variable. 2. ~/.mintd/templates/ directory.

Listing Available Templates

To see all available templates, including custom ones:

mintd templates list

Creating a Project from a Custom Template

To create a project using a custom template:

mintd create custom <template_prefix> --name <project_name>

For example, if you have a template with prefix paper_, you can run:

mintd create custom paper --name my_paper

Creating a Custom Template

A custom template is a Python class that inherits from mintd.templates.base.BaseTemplate.

Step 1: Create the Template File

Create a python file (e.g., my_templates.py) in ~/.mintd/templates/.

Step 2: Define the Template Class

from typing import Dict, List, Tuple, Any
from mintd.templates.base import BaseTemplate

class MyTemplate(BaseTemplate):
    """My Custom Template Description."""

    # Prefix for projects created with this template (e.g. my_myproject)
    prefix = "my_"

    # Identifier for the template type (used in CLI)
    template_type = "my_template"

    def define_structure(self, use_current_repo: bool = False) -> Dict[str, Any]:
        """Define the directory structure."""
        return {
            "README.md": None,
            self.source_dir: {  # Uses configured source dir (default: code)
                ".gitkeep": None
            },
            "data": {
                ".gitkeep": None
            }
        }

    def define_files(self) -> List[Tuple[str, str]]:
        """Define template files to render."""
        return [
            # (relative_path_in_project, template_name_in_files_dir)
            ("README.md", "README_custom.md.j2"),
        ]

Templates and Jinja2

If you use Jinja2 templates (files ending in .j2), they should be placed in a files subdirectory relative to your template python file, or you can override __init__ to point to a specific template directory.

By default, BaseTemplate looks for templates in the mintd package. Custom templates might need to set self.template_dir if they have their own Jinja2 files.

    def __init__(self):
        super().__init__()
        # Point to local 'files' directory
        self.template_dir = Path(__file__).parent / "files"
        # Re-initialize Jinja environment
        self.jinja_env = Environment(
            loader=FileSystemLoader(str(self.template_dir)),
            trim_blocks=True,
            lstrip_blocks=True
        )