boilerplate
/ BOY-ler-plate /
Boilerplate is the repetitive setup code you write almost the same way every single time — the standard opening lines you have to lay down before the interesting part of a program even begins.
Every new project needs its plumbing: import the libraries, configure the settings, wire up the basics. None of it is the clever idea you came to build — it's the same scaffolding around it, identical from one project to the next. The name comes from old print shops, where ready-made blocks of text were cast on steel plates and reused unchanged across many newspapers.
Because it's so predictable, tools love to generate it for you — a 'create-app' command or a starter template hands you the boilerplate so you can skip straight to the fun part. When you copy it without quite reading it, that's normal; just know it's the floor you're standing on, not the room you came to decorate.
import React from 'react';
function App() { return <div>Hello</div>; }
export default App; // the same 3 lines start a thousand appsAlmost identical at the top of every React app — that's boilerplate.
Too much repeated boilerplate is a hint to extract a shared helper — copy-paste is fine until it isn't.