.copier-answers.yml in folder {{project_name}}

[whenceforth]

Hi, when I create a project from a template, I would like it to be self-contained starting at the level of {{project_name}}. What I'm getting is destination_folder/{{project_name}} That's fine except that .copier-answers.yml is in destination_folder, next to {project_name}}. I would like .copier-answers.yml to be at destination_folder/{{project_name}}/.copier-answers.yml. Is that possible? I have tried a few things and have not gotten it to work.

[sisp]

Could you please clarify why you'd like the answers file to be located inside destination_folder/{{ project_name }} and not in destination_folder? Let's assume your project name is awesome-project, then why not run copier copy <template_url> destination_folder/awesome-project?

You could move the answers file template {{ _copier_conf.answers_file }}.jinja into the {{ project_name }} directory of your template. Then, the answers file will be generated in this directory. But you cannot change the location of the answers file at runtime at the moment – see also #2186.

Just a wild guess, but have you been using Cookiecutter before, and is this the reason why you are trying to generate the project in destination_folder/{{ project_name }}? If so, Copier does not use this top-level templated directory name – you simply provide the destination path of the generated project.

[pawamoy]

To me it looks like @whenceforth is trying to enforce the name of the output directory, which is something Copier chooses not to support.

[whenceforth]

Could you please clarify why you'd like the answers file to be located inside destination_folder/{{ project_name }} and not in destination_folder? Let's assume your project name is awesome-project, then why not run copier copy <template_url> destination_folder/awesome-project?

I would like for my project created manually and my project created with copier to be identical, except the one created with copier would have a root-level metadata folder for information needed by copier to do upgrades later, such as .copier/. Copier answers would live in that folder.

Right now when I generate my-project, I get destination-folder/my-project and all the items from my template are in my-project/. That's great. I can cd $destination_folder/my-project; git init; ... etc

There's only one problem: The important answers file I need to take advantage of copier's awesome upgrade feature is in the folder above, which I don't want to make the root of my version controlled project. That would be weird, right? But if I don't version control them, what are the odds they'll be preserved until I need them?

I suppose I could manually move them into my-project/.copier/ but I don't think that would work with the copier upgrade process. Of course, I could also copy them manually up to an enclosing folder to do the upgrade, but all of that seems like it should be avoided in the first place.

To look at this in another way, let's look at the 'copier' repo for context and let's pretend like it was generated from a copier template. Is there a copier answers file for it? If so, it's not in copier repository (at least not at the root level). It was written to some destination folder in which the folder copier/ was created.

As far as I can tell (and I hope I'm wrong about this), to have the answers file stick with the project, you'd need to make destination_folder the root of the git repository, so opening https://github.com/copier-org/copier you would see a root folder with very few items in it, something like this

copier-answers.yml
copier/  (all the existing copier repo files under here)
 

That seems like an undesirable arrangement.

BTW, I'm not a cookiecutter user, so I have no idea how it works.

I just want a templating system that lets me generate my project in a way that can be version controlled in the standard shape, with all my stuff starting at the root of the repository, and the copier metadata also accessible from that root.