Beancount Init

beancount-init

Scaffold a fresh ledger in the current working directory. Prefer a single bea installation for create + validate. Fava's browser UI is optional and has its own runtime — it is not a prerequisite for bea ledger work.

Run the steps in order. Stop if a preflight check fails — partial scaffolding is worse than no scaffolding.

Prefer bea; Fava and no-bea are explicit side paths

Check once with command -v bea. When bea is installed:

• Create the starter with bea init and validate with bea check.
• Do not pip install beancount, uv add beancount, or set BEA_ENGINE / manual engine venvs. The managed engine provisions on first use.
• If provisioning or bea check fails: fix network/uv availability and retry bea check (or bea upgrade). Do not silently fall back to a global bean-check while bea is installed.

Without bea, write the template below (developer / no-bea fallback). Suggest installing bea (brew install bex-co/tap/bea or uv tool install beancount-io) rather than a second Beancount CLI. If the user already has a developer bean-check, they may use it to validate the template — that is an independent developer environment, not the customer path.

Fava setup runs only when the user asks for a browser UI (make start, "bootstrap fava", "with Fava"). It needs uv and installs Fava into a local project venv; it does not replace bea for check/query/import.

Step 1 — Preflight

Run pwd && ls -A to see the working directory.

Hard-refuse if any of these already exist: main.bean, pyproject.toml, Makefile. Print which ones are present and stop. Do not overwrite.

If the directory contains other files but none of those markers, warn once and ask for confirmation before continuing.

Check command -v bea and remember BEA (yes/no). Ask for the operating currency (default USD) and an optional checking opening balance; call the answers CURRENCY and OPENING (empty when none). Detect FAVA: yes when the user asked for Fava / make start / "bootstrap fava", otherwise ask once (default no when BEA is yes; default yes only when BEA is no and they still want a browser — otherwise they can install bea later).

When FAVA is yes, verify uv with command -v uv. If missing, stop and tell them to install it (brew install uv on macOS, or curl -LsSf https://astral.sh/uv/install.sh | sh).

Step 2 — Capture today's date

Run date +%Y-%m-%d and call the result TODAY (open-date for all root accounts).

Step 3 — Write main.bean

When BEA is yes, substitute CURRENCY, TODAY, and OPENING:

bea --no-input init . --currency CURRENCY --date TODAY \
  --opening-balance "Assets:Checking OPENING"    # only when OPENING is non-empty
bea --file ./main.bean check

bea init . writes ./main.bean. Do not write any template on this path — the file equals bea init byte-for-byte. Skip to Step 4 when FAVA is yes; otherwise Step 5.

When BEA is no, write the same fourteen-account template bea init writes, substituting {{TODAY}}, {{CURRENCY}}, and the {{TAIL}} block:

option "title" "Personal ledger"
option "operating_currency" "{{CURRENCY}}"

; Add more accounts with bea add open. Amounts on credit accounts are negative.
; bea import books rows it cannot categorize to Expenses:Uncategorized with flag '!'.
{{TODAY}} open Assets:Checking {{CURRENCY}}
{{TODAY}} open Assets:Savings {{CURRENCY}}
{{TODAY}} open Assets:Cash {{CURRENCY}}
{{TODAY}} open Liabilities:CreditCard {{CURRENCY}}
{{TODAY}} open Income:Salary {{CURRENCY}}
{{TODAY}} open Income:Interest {{CURRENCY}}
{{TODAY}} open Expenses:Groceries {{CURRENCY}}
{{TODAY}} open Expenses:Dining {{CURRENCY}}
{{TODAY}} open Expenses:Rent {{CURRENCY}}
{{TODAY}} open Expenses:Transport {{CURRENCY}}
{{TODAY}} open Expenses:Utilities {{CURRENCY}}
{{TODAY}} open Expenses:Fees {{CURRENCY}}
{{TODAY}} open Expenses:Uncategorized {{CURRENCY}}
{{TODAY}} open Equity:OpeningBalances {{CURRENCY}}

{{TAIL}}

When OPENING is non-empty, {{TAIL}} is the live opening transaction (amount exactly as the user wrote it — 100 stays 100):

{{TODAY}} * "Opening balances"
  Assets:Checking          100 {{CURRENCY}}
  Equity:OpeningBalances  -100 {{CURRENCY}}

When OPENING is empty, {{TAIL}} is the commented example:

; Record opening balances with a transaction against Equity:OpeningBalances.
; {{TODAY}} * "Opening balance"
;   Assets:Checking          1000.00 {{CURRENCY}}
;   Equity:OpeningBalances  -1000.00 {{CURRENCY}}

The equity account is always Equity:OpeningBalances.

Step 4 — Optional Fava browser setup

Skip this entire step when FAVA is no.

Port

python3 -c "import random; bad={50000,55555,60000,65000}; ps=[p for p in range(49152,65536) if p not in bad and p%1000]; print(random.choice(ps))"

Call the integer PORT. If python3 is missing: awk 'BEGIN{srand(); print 49152 + int(rand()*16384)}'.

uv project + Fava

uv init --bare
uv add fava

--bare skips hello-world boilerplate. uv add fava pulls Fava's own runtime deps (including Beancount for the browser) into .venv/ — that is Fava's environment, not a second customer CLI. Do not also uv add beancount for bea operations.

Makefile

Tab-indent the recipe line. Substitute {{PORT}}:

.PHONY: start
PORT ?= {{PORT}}

start:
	uv run fava main.bean -p $(PORT)

.gitignore

Overwrite whatever uv init --bare wrote:

# Python
__pycache__/
*.py[cod]
*$py.class
*.so
.Python
build/
dist/
*.egg-info/
.eggs/
.pytest_cache/
.mypy_cache/
.ruff_cache/
.coverage
htmlcov/
.tox/
.venv/
venv/
env/

# macOS
.DS_Store
.AppleDouble
.LSOverride
._*
.Spotlight-V100
.Trashes

# Linux
*~
.fuse_hidden*
.directory
.Trash-*
.nfs*

# JetBrains
.idea/
*.iml
*.iws
*.ipr
out/

# VS Code
.vscode/
*.code-workspace
.history/

# Fava
.fava/

Step 5 — git init (only if needed)

If .git/ does not already exist, run git init. Don't stage anything.

Step 6 — Report

Print:

• Files created (main.bean; plus Makefile, .gitignore, pyproject.toml, uv.lock, .venv/ when FAVA ran).
• When BEA validated: bea check passed.
• When FAVA: the port and make start → http://localhost:<PORT>.
• When BEA only: next steps such as bea check, bea import, or bea --json query.

Keep the report tight — one short line per item.