sprout

A CLI tool to automate git worktree and Docker Compose development workflows.

Features

• 🌱 Create isolated development environments using git worktrees
• 🔧 Automatic .env file generation from templates
• 🚢 Smart port allocation to avoid conflicts
• 📁 Centralized worktree management in .sprout/ directory
• 🎨 Beautiful CLI interface with colors and tables

Installation

pip install sprout-cli

For development:

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/SecDev-Lab/sprout.git
cd sprout

# Install in development mode
pip install -e ".[dev]"

Quick Start

Note: Sprout works in any git repository. .env.example files are optional - if you don't have them, sprout will simply create worktrees without .env generation.

1. (Optional) Create a .env.example template in your project root (and optionally in subdirectories) for automatic .env generation:

# API Configuration
API_KEY={{ API_KEY }}
API_PORT={{ auto_port() }}

# Database Configuration  
DB_HOST=localhost
DB_PORT={{ auto_port() }}

# Example: Docker Compose variables (preserved as-is)
# sprout will NOT process ${...} syntax - it's passed through unchanged
# DB_NAME=${DB_NAME}

For monorepo or multi-service projects, you can create .env.example files in subdirectories:

repo/
  .env.example          # Root configuration
  service-a/
    .env.example        # Service A specific config
  service-b/
    .env.example        # Service B specific config

2. Create and navigate to a new development environment in one command:

cd $(sprout create feature-branch --path)

What happens when you run sprout create:

• If .env.example files exist: Sprout will generate corresponding .env files with populated variables and unique port assignments
• If no .env.example files exist: Sprout will show a warning and create the worktree without .env generation

This single command:

• Creates a new git worktree for feature-branch
• Generates .env files from your templates (if .env.example files exist)
• Outputs the path to the new environment
• Changes to that directory when wrapped in cd $(...)

3. Start your services:

docker compose up -d

Alternative: Two-Step Process

If you prefer to see the creation output first:

# Create the environment
sprout create feature-branch

# Then navigate to it
cd $(sprout path feature-branch)

Commands

sprout create <branch-name> [--path]

Create a new development environment with automated setup.

Options:

• --path: Output only the worktree path (useful for shell command substitution)

Examples:

# Create and see progress messages
sprout create feature-xyz

# Create and navigate in one command
cd $(sprout create feature-xyz --path)

sprout ls

List all managed development environments with their status.

The output includes index numbers that can be used with other commands:

sprout ls
# Output:
# ┏━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┓
# ┃ No.  ┃ Branch          ┃ Path            ┃ Status ┃ Last Modified    ┃
# ┡━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┩
# │ 1    │ feature-auth    │ .sprout/feat... │        │ 2025-06-27 14:30 │
# │ 2    │ bugfix-api      │ .sprout/bugf... │        │ 2025-06-27 15:45 │
# └──────┴─────────────────┴─────────────────┴────────┴──────────────────┘

sprout rm <branch-name-or-index>

Remove a development environment (with confirmation prompts).

You can use either the branch name or the index number from sprout ls:

# Remove by branch name
sprout rm feature-auth

# Remove by index number
sprout rm 1

sprout path <branch-name-or-index>

Get the filesystem path of a development environment.

You can use either the branch name or the index number from sprout ls:

# Get path by branch name
sprout path feature-auth
# Output: /path/to/project/.sprout/feature-auth

# Get path by index number
sprout path 1
# Output: /path/to/project/.sprout/feature-auth

# Use with cd command
cd $(sprout path 2)

sprout --version

Show the version of sprout.

Template Syntax

sprout supports two types of placeholders in .env.example:

1. Variable Placeholders: {{ VARIABLE_NAME }}

   • First: Checks if the variable exists in your environment (e.g., export API_KEY=xxx)
   • Then: If not found in environment, prompts for user input
   • Example: {{ API_KEY }} will use $API_KEY if set, otherwise asks you to enter it

2. Auto Port Assignment: {{ auto_port() }}

   • Automatically assigns available ports
   • Avoids conflicts across ALL services in ALL sprout environments
   • Checks system port availability
   • Ensures global uniqueness even in monorepo setups

3. Docker Compose Syntax (Preserved): ${VARIABLE}

   • NOT processed by sprout - passed through as-is
   • Useful for Docker Compose variable substitution
   • Example: ${DB_NAME:-default} remains unchanged in generated .env

Environment Variable Resolution Example

# Set environment variable
export API_KEY="my-secret-key"

# Create sprout environment - API_KEY will be automatically used
sprout create feature-branch
# → API_KEY in .env will be set to "my-secret-key" without prompting

# For unset variables, sprout will prompt
sprout create another-branch
# → Enter a value for 'DATABASE_URL': [user input required]

Monorepo Tutorial

Try out the monorepo functionality with the included sample:

1. Navigate to the sample monorepo:

   cd sample/monorepo

2. Set required environment variables:

   export API_KEY="your-api-key"
   export DATABASE_URL="postgresql://postgres:postgres@localhost:5432/myapp"
   export REACT_APP_API_KEY="your-frontend-api-key"
   export JWT_SECRET="your-jwt-secret"
   export SMTP_USER="your-smtp-username"
   export SMTP_PASS="your-smtp-password"

3. Create a development environment:

   sprout create monorepo-feature

4. Navigate to the created environment:

   cd .sprout/monorepo-feature

5. Verify all services have unique ports:

   find . -name "*.env" -exec echo "=== {} ===" \; -exec cat {} \;

6. Start all services:

   cd sample/monorepo
   docker-compose up -d

The sample includes:

• Root service: Database and Redis with shared configuration
• Frontend: React app with API integration
• Backend: REST API with authentication
• Shared: Utilities with message queue and monitoring

Each service gets unique, conflict-free ports automatically!

Documentation

• Architecture Overview - Design philosophy, architecture, and implementation details
• Detailed Usage Guide - Comprehensive usage examples and troubleshooting

Development

Setup

# Install development dependencies
make setup

Testing

# Run tests
make test

# Run tests with coverage
make test-cov

Code Quality

# Run linter
make lint

# Format code
make format

# Run type checking
make typecheck

Requirements

• Python 3.11+
• Git
• Docker Compose (optional, for Docker-based workflows)

License

See LICENSE file.