I'm surprised there aren't more tools out there for starting a new project with some default config files.

There's `cargo new` but it's Rust specific and very minimal. create-react-app is React specific.

The only option I know of is cookiecutter. Surely it's a common problem?

@wilfredh had you seen scaf? Might be interesting.
https://github.com/getscaf/scaf
GitHub - getscaf/scaf: scaf is a template manager that simplifies bootstrapping and updating projects.

scaf is a template manager that simplifies bootstrapping and updating projects. - getscaf/scaf

GitHub