Hacker News Reader

I believe that Cookie Cutter premise is exactly that https://www.cookiecutter.io/

This seems to be precisely what I wanted, although a bit more features than I needed. Thanks!

There's also Copier (https://copier.readthedocs.io/en/stable/comparisons/) that is worth a look at. I especially love the how you can bring a template up-to-date based on a new changes.