cmake-init-use-pkg-config VS cmake-init

You have to realize that the point of using CMake is not entirely about your project, but about downstream users who wish to use CMake as well. If you do not support clients using CMake (i.e. install a CMake package) you are forcing every downstream user to figure your requirements out by themselves, which even for a project with no dependencies is non-trivial: https://github.com/friendlyanon/cmake-init-use-pkg-config

See this example from the wiki. This one tries to use unofficial vcpkg package nd targets, then falls back to pkg config, then falls back to find_* commands. This is probably more than what you are asking, but you can put anything in the find module, even code that vendors projects, although I highly recommend against any form of vendoring (manual, git, FetchContent, etc). Vendoring only causes problems for packagers.

https://github.com/friendlyanon/cmake-init This is how you do CMake properly. If you deviate from its install rules you are highly likely to do something wrong.

CMake itself is as declarative as a build systems need to be. For anything nontrivial, these "declarative" solutions all fall apart. Just use https://github.com/friendlyanon/cmake-init, learn CMake and you won't have any issues.

If you want something with a (mostly) Just Works experience then just use https://github.com/friendlyanon/cmake-init

For CMake basics check out the official "Getting started" tutorial: https://cmake.org/cmake/help/latest/guide/tutorial/index.html, as well as Introduction to Modern CMake. You can also get inspired by the CMake project generator cmake-init

You can just use https://github.com/friendlyanon/cmake-init to get a CMake + Conan C project ready to go with a short little command: cmake-init --c -e -p conan coolio