Unable to initialize a React Router project with npx

[Accord985]

Reproduction

Run npx create-react-router@latest --debug in a cmd or bash terminal. When asked "Where should we create your new project?", choose "." to install in the current directory.

System Info

System:
    OS: Windows 11 10.0.26100
    CPU: (16) x64 AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 4750U with Radeon Graphics
    Memory: 5.88 GB / 15.23 GB
  Binaries:
    Node: 22.19.0 - C:\Program Files\nodejs\node.EXE
    npm: 10.9.3 - C:\Program Files\nodejs\npm.CMD
  Browsers:
    Edge: Chromium (139.0.3405.125)
    Internet Explorer: 11.0.26100.1882

Used Package Manager

npm

Expected Behavior

The command should create a project in the directory I chose without error.

Actual Behavior

The program indicated something was wrong and suggested me to open an issue and report the problem here. The project was not created. Here is the whole output of the command (user input is bold):

         create-react-router v7.8.2

   dir   Where should we create your new project?
         .

      ◼  Using default template See https://github.com/remix-run/react-router-templates for more
      ●  Extracting to: C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\Temp\create-react-router--ehm3l7cd 
      ●  Using the template from "https://github.com/remix-run/react-router-templates/tree/main/default"

      ▲  Oh no! Something went wrong. Run `create-react-router --debug` to see more info.

Open an issue to report the problem at https://github.com/remix-run/react-router/issues/new
FetchError: request to https://codeload.github.com/remix-run/react-router-templates/tar.gz/main failed, reason: unable to verify the first certificate
    at ClientRequest.<anonymous> (C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\npm-cache\_npx\fab3692605553347\node_modules\@remix-run\web-fetch\dist\lib.node.cjs:1800:11)
    at ClientRequest.emit (node:events:519:28)
    at emitErrorEvent (node:_http_client:105:11)
    at TLSSocket.socketErrorListener (node:_http_client:518:5)
    at TLSSocket.emit (node:events:519:28)
    at emitErrorNT (node:internal/streams/destroy:170:8)
    at emitErrorCloseNT (node:internal/streams/destroy:129:3)
    at process.processTicksAndRejections (node:internal/process/task_queues:90:21) {
  type: 'system',
  errno: 'UNABLE_TO_VERIFY_LEAF_SIGNATURE',
  code: 'UNABLE_TO_VERIFY_LEAF_SIGNATURE',
  erroredSysCall: undefined
}

However, if I temporarily disable SSL verification like

# bash
NODE_TLS_REJECT_UNAUTHORIZED=0 npx create-react-router

Then the command worked without error.

[timdorr]

This is something wrong with your local certificate store if it does not trust the codeload.github.com certificate. That uses well-known certificate chains which should be on the vast majority of systems. If yours doesn't trust those root certs, there's nothing we can do about that.