Please help with initial installation

I performed the following steps:

$ pip install cookiecutter
$ cookiecutter https://github.com/sloria/cookiecutter-flask.git
full_name [Steven Loria]: Charles Ross
email [[e-mail]]: [e-mail]
github_username [sloria]: chivalry
project_name [My Flask App]: 
app_name [myflaskapp]: 
project_short_description [A flasky app.]: 
Select use_pipenv:
1 - no
2 - yes
Choose from 1, 2 (1, 2) [1]:
$ cd myflaskapp/
$ python -m venv venv
$ source venv/bin/activate
$ pip install -r requirements.txt
$ export FLASK_APP=autoapp.py
$ export FLASK_ENV=development
$ mv .env.example .env
$ flask run
 * Serving Flask app "autoapp.py" (lazy loading)
 * Environment: development
 * Debug mode: on
 * Running on http://127.0.0.1:5000/ (Press CTRL+C to quit)
 * Restarting with stat
 * Debugger is active!
 * Debugger PIN: 251-726-117

I load the address in a browser and get the following:

127.0.0.1 - - [13/Apr/2019 06:00:45] "GET /?__debugger__=yes&cmd=resource&f=debugger.js HTTP/1.1" 200 -
127.0.0.1 - - [13/Apr/2019 06:00:45] "GET /?__debugger__=yes&cmd=resource&f=console.png HTTP/1.1" 200 -
127.0.0.1 - - [13/Apr/2019 06:00:45] "GET /?__debugger__=yes&cmd=resource&f=ubuntu.ttf HTTP/1.1" 200 -
127.0.0.1 - - [13/Apr/2019 06:00:45] "GET /?__debugger__=yes&cmd=resource&f=style.css HTTP/1.1" 200 -
127.0.0.1 - - [13/Apr/2019 06:00:45] "GET /?__debugger__=yes&cmd=resource&f=jquery.js HTTP/1.1" 200 -
127.0.0.1 - - [13/Apr/2019 06:00:45] "GET / HTTP/1.1" 500 -
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/Users/chuck/Projects/education/flask/myflaskapp/venv/lib/python3.7/site-packages/flask/_compat.py", line 35, in reraise
    raise value
  File "/Users/chuck/Projects/education/flask/myflaskapp/autoapp.py", line 5, in <module>
    app = create_app()
  File "/Users/chuck/Projects/education/flask/myflaskapp/myflaskapp/app.py", line 16, in create_app
    register_extensions(app)
  File "/Users/chuck/Projects/education/flask/myflaskapp/myflaskapp/app.py", line 33, in register_extensions
    webpack.init_app(app)
  File "/Users/chuck/Projects/education/flask/myflaskapp/venv/lib/python3.7/site-packages/flask_webpack/__init__.py", line 27, in init_app
    self._set_asset_paths(app)
  File "/Users/chuck/Projects/education/flask/myflaskapp/venv/lib/python3.7/site-packages/flask_webpack/__init__.py", line 69, in _set_asset_paths
    "Flask-Webpack requires 'WEBPACK_MANIFEST_PATH' to be set and "
RuntimeError: Flask-Webpack requires 'WEBPACK_MANIFEST_PATH' to be set and it must point to a valid json file.

I took a look at the settings.py file and tried to manually set the WEBPACK_MANIFEST_PATH I found there, but that didn’t change anything.

What am I missing?

[jamescurtin]

Hi @nk9,

Below are the instructions included in the READMEs of all generated projects:

---

Run the following commands to bootstrap your environment

git clone https://github.com/myuser/myproject
cd myproject
pip install -r requirements/dev.txt
cp .env.example .env
npm install
npm start  # run the webpack dev server and flask server using concurrently

You will see a pretty welcome screen.

Once you have installed your DBMS, run the following to create your app’s database tables and perform the initial migration

flask db init
flask db migrate
flask db upgrade
npm start

---

As an alternative you could use Docker (which also has a section in the generated project READMEs) which makes configuration even simpler:

docker-compose up flask-dev

Either of these two approaches should be sufficient to fully configure and bootstrap an application.

I think the confusion about how to bootstrap an application arises from the fact that many users expect usage info to be found in the main project’s README. We prefer not to do this and instead keep usage-related information contained within the cookiecutter template, as the configuration instructions contain template fields that are only rendered after a project has been generated. I just updated the main README via https://github.com/cookiecutter-flask/cookiecutter-flask/pull/552 to clarify this.

If you feel as if additional clarification to the usage instructions would be valuable, please feel free to open a PR!

[oerd]

@chivalry the “generated” Flask project uses Webpack to bundle static assets like javascript or css files. During development you should run the project via npm start command - it will run both Flask and webpack.