I got tired of Express boilerplate. So I built a CLI that sets up your entire backend in 60 seconds.

BriyanPatel — Fri, 27 Feb 2026 07:25:37 +0000

Every project starts the same way for me.

Open terminal. Create folder. npm init. Install express.
Install typescript. Configure tsconfig.json. Set up Helmet.
Add CORS. Wire up Pino logger. Add .env validation.

45 minutes later — I haven't written a single line of
actual business logic yet.

After doing this for the 10th time I asked myself:
why am I still doing this manually?

So I built Zuro CLI.

What it does

npx zuro-cli init my-app

That one command gives you a fully production-ready
Express + TypeScript project with:

Express.js + TypeScript configured
Helmet for secure HTTP headers
CORS ready
Pino logger (fastest JSON logger for Node)
.env validation out of the box
Clean folder structure (routes, controllers, middleware)

Ready in 60 seconds. Not 45 minutes.

Then add only what you need

npx zuro-cli add database

Drizzle ORM + PostgreSQL or MySQL

npx zuro-cli add auth

Better-Auth + signup/login/sessions

npx zuro-cli add validator

Zod middleware for request validation

npx zuro-cli add error-handler

Custom error classes + consistent API responses

The best part? Running add auth automatically installs
database and error-handler too if they're missing.
No order to remember. No missing dependencies.

Why these specific libraries?

I didn't pick randomly. Everything has a reason:

Drizzle ORM → type-safe queries, no heavy binary,
feels like writing SQL which most devs already know

Better-Auth → modern, actively maintained, works
perfectly with TypeScript and Drizzle

Zod → runtime + TypeScript validation in one shot

Pino → literally the fastest JSON logger for Node.js

Helmet → secure HTTP headers with zero config

Who is this for?

Honestly? I built this for myself first.

I'm a student from India who builds a lot of hackathon
projects and side projects. Every time I started a new
backend I lost the first hour on setup.

Zuro CLI is for:

Students starting backend projects
Hackathon builders who need to ship fast
Developers tired of copy-pasting the same setup

It's v0.1 beta

There's a lot more coming. More modules, more options,
more flexibility.

But the core works. I use it myself.

Try it