The Ionic CLI 2,002 (github.com/ionic-team/ionic-cli (https://github.com/ionic-team/ionic-cli 2,002 ), MIT, version 7.2.1) creates projects from starters; ionic start --list shows blank, list, sidemenu and tabs for each framework. With every option on the command line it asks nothing:
npx @ionic/cli start booknest-ionic tabs --type=react --capacitor --no-git \
--package-id=com.example.booknest.ionic --no-interactive
cd booknest-ionic
npm install @capacitor/preferences @capacitor/android
npm run build && npx cap add android... Your Ionic app is ready! Follow these next steps: ... [info] Found 5 Capacitor plugins for android: ... [success] android platform added!
The start took 2 minutes 40 seconds, mostly npm 2,036 install. The project arrives with Capacitor 8.5.2 243,123 and four plugins (App, Haptics, Keyboard, Status Bar), a capacitor.config.ts whose webDir is Vite 25,978 's dist, React 19 7,897 with React Router 6 139,386 , Vitest 102,989 and Cypress 41,181 (Debugging and Testing), and TypeScript ~5.9.0, so the config loads without the typescript@6 pin of Creating an App. ionic.config.json enables ionic capacitor commands, thin wrappers around npx cap (CLI and Workflow). The debug APK built in 47 seconds and weighed 4.98 MB, less than half the Framework7 572,986 BookNest with its 18 plugins.