You can create files in many ways, and we will go through most common ones.

echo

echo 'muffins!' > file

This method creates a file containing whatever echo outputted (in our case, it's muffins!). It works well, but be wary, it will overwrite an existing file.

If you want to create an empty file instead, you can use -n:

echo -n > file

A note for ZSH users: if you have noclobber set, then > won't overwrite files by default.

touch

touch file

This method is different than any other listed here, as touch is intended to be used as a timestamp utility.

It will either create an empty file, or change the timestamp of the existing one to current time.

true and :

:> file
# and
true > file

This is the shortest way to create an empty file or empty an existing one.

Both : and true are commands that simply exit without any errors, and since they don't output anything, > creates a file, but has nothing to put inside it.

Conclusion

There are many ways to create a file. You may choose any of the methods above, all of the methods are common and efficient, just don't forget that you can also check if the file exists using [[ -f "file" ]] 😉