electron-userland/electron-builder

electron-builder

A complete solution to package and build a ready for distribution Electron app for macOS, Windows and Linux with “auto update” support out of the box. 📦

Always looking for community contributions! 👀 Setting up a dev environment is easy to do 🪩

Sponsors

Notes, Tasks, Projects. All in a Single Place.
Your gateway to understanding your diabetes data	An open, source-available software licensing and distribution API
ToDesktop: An all-in-one platform for building and releasing Electron apps	Dashcam: Capture the steps to reproduce any bug with video crash reports for Electron.

Documentation

See the full documentation on electron.build.

• NPM packages management:
  • Native application dependencies compilation (including Yarn support).
  • Development dependencies are never included. You don't need to ignore them explicitly.
  • Two package.json structure is supported, but you are not forced to use it even if you have native production dependencies.
• Code Signing on a CI server or development machine.
• Auto Update ready application packaging.
• Numerous target formats:
  • All platforms: 7z, zip, tar.xz, tar.7z, tar.lz, tar.gz, tar.bz2, dir (unpacked directory).
  • macOS: dmg, pkg, mas.
  • Linux: AppImage, snap, debian package (deb), rpm, freebsd, pacman, p5p, apk.
  • Windows: nsis (Installer), nsis-web (Web installer), portable (portable app without installation), AppX (Windows Store), MSI, Squirrel.Windows.
• Publishing artifacts to GitHub Releases, Amazon S3, DigitalOcean Spaces and Bintray.
• Advanced building:
  • Pack in a distributable format (already packaged app).
  • Separate build steps.
  • Build and publish in parallel, using hard links on CI server to reduce IO and disk space usage.
• Docker images to build Electron app for Linux or Windows on any platform.
• Downloads all required tool files on demand automatically (e.g., to code sign a Windows application, to make AppX), no setup required.

Requirements

Node.js >=22.12.0 is required for v27.

⚠️ Upgrading from v26? v27 is a major release with breaking changes (native ESM, Node >=22.12, and removed deprecated APIs). Start with What's New in v27 for the highlights and the silent default changes, then read the full breaking changes before upgrading.

Then run the automated migration command — it rewrites your config in place:

electron-builder migrate-schema

Step-by-step walkthrough: v26 → v27 migration guide · electron.build/docs/migration/v26-to-v27

Installation

yarn add electron-builder --dev
// or npm, pnpm, bun

Note for Yarn 3

Yarn 3 uses PnP by default, but electron-builder still needs node-modules (ref: yarnpkg/berry#4804). Add configuration in the .yarnrc.yaml as follows:

nodeLinker: "node-modules"

This instructs Yarn to use node-modules instead of PnP.

Quick Setup Guide

electron-quick-start is the official minimal starter for a new Electron application.

1. Clone the starter and add electron-builder:

   git clone https://github.com/electron/electron-quick-start
   cd electron-quick-start
   npm install
   npm install electron-builder --save-dev
   

2. Specify the standard fields in the application package.json — name, description, version and author.

3. Specify the build configuration in the package.json as follows:

   "build": {
     "appId": "your.id",
     "mac": {
       "category": "your.app.category.type"
     }
   }
   

   See all options. Option files to indicate which files should be packed in the final application, including the entry file, maybe required. You can also use separate configuration files, such as js, ts, yml, and json/json5. See read-config-file for supported extensions. JS Example for programmatic API

4. Add icons.

5. Add the scripts key to the development package.json:

   "scripts": {
     "app:dir": "electron-builder --dir",
     "app:dist": "electron-builder"
   }
   

   Then you can run yarn app:dist (to package in a distributable format (e.g. dmg, windows installer, deb package)) or yarn app:dir (only generates the package directory without really packaging it. This is useful for testing purposes).

   To ensure your native dependencies are always matched electron version, simply add script "postinstall": "electron-builder install-app-deps" to your package.json.

6. If you have native addons of your own that are part of the application (not as a dependency), set nativeModules.nodeGypRebuild to true.

Please note that everything is packaged into an asar archive by default.

For an app that will be shipped to production, you should sign your application. See Where to buy code signing certificates.

Programmatic Usage

TypeScript types are provided and can be found here. See the full programmatic usage guide.

// ESM (recommended)
import { build, Platform } from "electron-builder"

await build({
  targets: Platform.MAC.createTarget(),
  config: {
    // build options — see https://www.electron.build/
  }
})

// CommonJS — also works on Node >=22.12.0
const { build, Platform } = require("electron-builder")

build({ targets: Platform.MAC.createTarget(), config: {} })
  .then(() => { /* done */ })
  .catch(console.error)

Community Boilerplates

• electron-react-boilerplate A boilerplate for scalable cross-platform desktop apps.
• electron-vue-vite A real simple Electron + Vue3 + Vite5 boilerplate.
• vite-electron-builder Secure boilerplate for Electron app based on Vite. Supports multiple frameworks.
• electronjs-with-nextjs ElectronJS application with NextJS and TypeScript.

Debug

Set the DEBUG environment variable to debug what electron-builder is doing:

DEBUG=electron-builder

FPM_DEBUG env to add more details about building linux targets (except snap and appimage).

DEBUG_DMG=true env var to add more debugging/verbosity from hdiutil (macOS).

:::tip[Windows cmd] On Windows the environment variable is set using the set command.

set DEBUG=electron-builder

:::

:::tip[PowerShell] PowerShell uses different syntax to set environment variables.

$env:DEBUG = "electron-builder"

:::

If you've identified a bug and want to report it, use electron/minimal-repro to create a minimal reproduction case. Attaching one to your issue significantly speeds up diagnosis.

Donate

This open source work is accomplished during free time. If you'd like to have more time invested in it, please consider donating.