Hi Jeff and welcome!

Your question appeared as a personal group message. To get better results and more answers may I suggest you visit some of the appropriate sectiona and groups. In this case perhaps the group "CBG building 101", or the "building for begginers" group, and study the sections under the "building a CBG" banner near the top of the home page as well for other information and links. If you dont find your answers there, asking in the forum and discussion sections will likely get you many helpful responses. People here for the most part seem to thrive on helping each other.

In particular, your question to fret or not depends on your playing style and building ability. If you want to play mostly slide style, fretless works out fine.

If you are intimidated at first by this area by all means build one fretless and while you are messing with that study the many sources for information and tips on fretting. You will likely to be building another anyway, and then you can take on the additional effort and tools to lay out and add frets.

Some information on fretting is posted in several good groups, including one I host "Intermediate building" feel free to join, I expect to be adding more content on the subject in the near future. Study and ask questions if you have them. Like others here I will help as best I can.

Have fun!