Creating a Project

Project Generation

Now that the CLI is installed, you can generate a new project by using the wails init command.

Performance Tip for Windows 11 Users

Consider using Dev Drive to store your projects. Dev Drives are optimized for developer workloads and can significantly improve build times and disk access speeds by up to 30% compared to regular NTFS drives.

Pick your favourite framework:

Svelte

Generate a Svelte project using JavaScript with:

wails init -n myproject -t svelte

If you would rather use TypeScript:

wails init -n myproject -t svelte-ts

React

Generate a React project using JavaScript with:

wails init -n myproject -t react

If you would rather use TypeScript:

wails init -n myproject -t react-ts

Vue

Generate a Vue project using JavaScript with:

wails init -n myproject -t vue

If you would rather use TypeScript:

wails init -n myproject -t vue-ts

Preact

Generate a Preact project using JavaScript with:

wails init -n myproject -t preact

If you would rather use TypeScript:

wails init -n myproject -t preact-ts

Lit

Generate a Lit project using JavaScript with:

wails init -n myproject -t lit

If you would rather use TypeScript:

wails init -n myproject -t lit-ts

Vanilla

Generate a Vanilla project using JavaScript with:

wails init -n myproject -t vanilla

If you would rather use TypeScript:

wails init -n myproject -t vanilla-ts

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There are also community templates available that offer different capabilities and frameworks.

To see the other options available, you can run wails init -help. More details can be found in the CLI Reference.

Project Layout

Wails projects have the following layout:

.
├── build/
│   ├── appicon.png
│   ├── darwin/
│   └── windows/
├── frontend/
├── go.mod
├── go.sum
├── main.go
└── wails.json

Project structure rundown

• /main.go - The main application
• /frontend/ - Frontend project files
• /build/ - Project build directory
• /build/appicon.png - The application icon
• /build/darwin/ - Mac specific project files
• /build/windows/ - Windows specific project files
• /wails.json - The project configuration
• /go.mod - Go module file
• /go.sum - Go module checksum file

The frontend directory has nothing specific to Wails and can be any frontend project of your choosing.

The build directory is used during the build process. These files may be updated to customise your builds. If files are removed from the build directory, default versions will be regenerated.