What is boilersuit?

Boilersuit is a tool for developers working with React and Redux who are tired of writing the same repetitive boilerplate code across multiple files. Instead of manually creating and updating separate files for your actions, reducers, selectors, and tests, you define your app's data and behavior in a single JSON file. The tool then automatically generates and updates all the surrounding code for you. Here's how it works: you create a suit.json file in your project folder where you describe your data's starting state and the actions that can change it. For example, if you have a "submit todo" feature, you define what happens when the action starts, succeeds, or fails. When you run a simple command, the tool watches your JSON file and instantly writes or updates the corresponding code across your project. It also generates unit tests and documentation automatically based on what you described. This is designed for developers building applications with the react-boilerplate starter kit. If you're a developer building a feature like a photo gallery that loads images from an API, you normally have to touch six or more files just to manage the loading, success, and error states. With this tool, you write one JSON file describing those states, and it handles the rest. It also catches mistakes, like trying to update a piece of data that doesn't exist, before they cause runtime errors. A notable aspect of how it works is that it takes control of specific sections of your code using special tags. Any code inside these tags is completely managed by the tool and will be overwritten if you try to edit it manually. However, it also provides "name-only" tags where you can write custom logic that safely coexists with the generated code, updating function names automatically if you change them in your JSON file. For larger projects, you can split your JSON files into smaller pieces and even import data and actions from other parts of your app. You can also configure it to warn you when you forget to add descriptions, helping keep large codebases well-documented.