CRYSTAL-INIT(1) Crystal Compiler Command Line Reference Guide CRYSTAL-INIT(1)

crystal-init - Create a a new Crystal project

crystal init TYPE [DIR | NAME DIR]

TYPE is one of:

lib Creates a library skeleton
app Creates an application skeleton

This initializes the lib/app project folder as a git repository, with a license file, a README file, a shard.yml for use with shards (the Crystal dependency manager), a .gitignore file, and src and spec folders.

DIR - directory where project will be generated

NAME - name of project to be generated (default: basename of DIR)

-f, --force

Force overwrite existing files.

-s, --skip-existing

Skip existing files.
2026-07-23 crystal 1.21.0