Introduction

Helidon CLI provides a convenient way to bootstrap Helidon applications. It allows you to choose from a set of archetypes i.e. application with pre-defined feature sets and lets you customize it by providing a host of options.

Archetypes

Helidon provides the following set of archetypes to bootstrap your application development journey.

Bare

This option creates a minimal Helidon project, suitable to start from scratch. It includes only required dependencies e.g. in case of Helidon MP, it uses helidon-microprofile-core bundle instead of helidon-microprofile bundle and adds required dependencies to it. It also doesn’t have out-of-box observability setup.

QuickStart

This option builds on Bare to include multiple REST operations along with default observability setup and a set of additional dependencies to enable ease of development e.g. in case of Helidon MP, it uses helidon-microprofile bundle instead of helidon-microprofile-core bundle.

Database

This option builds on QuickStart to demonstrate how to integrate with database (in-memory H2, by default). In case of, Helidon SE that uses the DbClient API while for Helidon MP that uses JPA.

OCI

This option builds on QuickStart to demonstrate integration with Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) services using the OCI SDK. Generated project showcases OpenApi-driven development approach where the practice of designing and building APIs is done first, then creating the rest of an application around them is implemented next. This is available for Helidon MP only.

Generated Application Structure

User can scaffold a new Maven project based on these archetypes. See Helidon CLI and our Helidon SE QuickStart Guide or Helidon MP QuickStart Guide for details on usage.

Once the archetype is selected the other options have defaults and the project is generated in a directory named after the artifactId value. It mainly contains the following:

  • Maven structure

  • skeletal application code

  • associated unit test code

  • example Dockerfile files

  • application configuration file(s)

  • instructions to build and run application/test

Using Generated Application

The easiest way to get started is follow instructions in README file and familiarize with layout and features provided to build upon them esp. look at the pom.xml. You will find the suitable Helidon parent pom, enabling the use of the different dependencies managed/provided by Helidon.