Electron Forge

The @electron-forge/core module provides the base Electron Forge API as a set of asynchronous JavaScript functions. This allows you to execute Forge commands directly in Node.js without using the CLI.

Note that all user-side configuration is still managed via your Forge configuration file or the config.forge section in your package.json.

import { api } from '@electron-forge/core';

// Package the current directory as an Electron app
api.package(__dirname);

After initializing a project with create-electron-app, navigate into the project directory and use npm start to launch the Electron application.

cd my-app
npm start

Use @electron-forge/publisher-nucleus to publish your Electron Forge artifacts to a Nucleus Update Server instance. This allows users to download updates across all three supported platforms.

To use this publisher, add it to the publishers array in your forge.config.js file. It is highly recommended to provide the token via an environment variable rather than hard-coding it into your configuration file for security.

module.exports = {
  // ...
  publishers: [
    {
      name: '@electron-forge/publisher-nucleus',
      config: {
        host: 'https://my-nucleus.mysite.com',
        appId: 1,
        channelId: 'abcdefg',
        token: 'my-token'
      }
    }
  ]
};

Use @electron-forge/publisher-github to automatically publish your build artifacts to GitHub Releases. This enables users to download files directly from your repository and allows open-source projects to use the update.electronjs.org hosted update service.

To use this publisher, add it to the publishers array in your forge.config.js file. You must provide the repository object containing the owner and name of your GitHub repository.

module.exports = {
  // ...
  publishers: [
    {
      name: '@electron-forge/publisher-github',
      config: {
        repository: {
          owner: 'me',
          name: 'awesome-thing'
        },
        prerelease: true
      }
    }
  ]
};

The @electron-forge/publisher-s3 publisher uploads your build artifacts to an Amazon S3 bucket.

By default, artifacts are stored using the following key pattern: ${config.folder || appVersion}/${artifactName}

Warning: If you run the publish command multiple times with the same version on the same platform, existing artifacts in S3 may be overwritten. Ensure you manage your release versions carefully to avoid overwriting previous releases.

module.exports = {
  // ...
  publishers: [
    {
      name: '@electron-forge/publisher-s3',
      config: {
        bucket: 'my-bucket',
        public: true
      }
    }
  ]
};

The @electron-forge/maker-rpm maker builds .rpm files, which are the standard package format for RedHat-based Linux distributions like Fedora.

Prerequisites: You must build the RPM target on a Linux machine that has the rpm or rpm-build packages installed.

The @electron-forge/maker-dmg package is used to build .dmg files, the standard distribution format for macOS applications.

Important Limitation: You can only build the DMG target on macOS machines.

For security, it is recommended to use environment variables instead of hardcoding credentials in your forge.config.js. When using environment variables, you can omit the auth object from the publisher configuration.

Set the following environment variables:

• BITBUCKET_USERNAME
• BITBUCKET_APP_PASSWORD

# env.sh
BITBUCKET_USERNAME="myusername"
BITBUCKET_APP_PASSWORD="mysecretapppassword"

source env.sh

The @electron-forge/maker-deb maker allows you to build .deb packages for Debian-based Linux distributions (like Ubuntu).

Prerequisites: To build the .deb target, you must use a Linux or macOS machine with the fakeroot and dpkg packages installed.

{
  name: '@electron-forge/maker-deb',
  config: {
    options: {
      maintainer: 'The Forgers',
      homepage: 'https://example.com',
      icon: 'path/to/icon.svg'
    }
  }
}

You can quickly bootstrap a new Electron application using the create-electron-app CLI tool. This sets up a project with Electron Forge pre-configured.

Pre-requisites:

• Node.js 16.4.0 or higher
• Git

Steps:

1. Run the initialization command.
2. Navigate into the project directory.
3. Start the development server.

npx create-electron-app@latest my-new-app

# then
cd my-new-app
npm start

Use create-electron-app to quickly initialize a new Electron project with an ultra-minimal boilerplate powered by Electron Forge. This command creates a new directory containing the necessary project structure and configuration to start developing immediately.

npx create-electron-app@latest my-app