GitHub Action for building and releasing Electron apps
This is a GitHub Action for automatically building and releasing your Electron app using GitHub's CI/CD capabilities. It uses electron-builder
to package your app and release it to a platform like GitHub Releases.
GitHub Actions allows you to build your app on macOS, Windows and Linux without needing direct access to each of these operating systems.
-
Install and configure
electron-builder
(v22+) in your Electron app. You can read about this in the project's docs or in my blog post. -
If you need to compile code (e.g. TypeScript to JavaScript or Sass to CSS), make sure this is done using a
build
script in yourpackage.json
file. The action will execute that script before packaging your app. However, make sure that thebuild
script does not runelectron-builder
, as this action will do that for you. -
Add a workflow file to your project (e.g.
.github/workflows/build.yml
):name: Build/release on: push jobs: release: runs-on: ${{ matrix.os }} strategy: matrix: os: [macos-latest, ubuntu-latest, windows-latest] steps: - name: Check out Git repository uses: actions/checkout@v1 - name: Install Node.js, NPM and Yarn uses: actions/setup-node@v1 with: node-version: 10 - name: Build/release Electron app uses: samuelmeuli/action-electron-builder@v1 with: # GitHub token, automatically provided to the action # (No need to define this secret in the repo settings) github_token: ${{ secrets.github_token }} # If the commit is tagged with a version (e.g. "v1.0.0"), # release the app after building release: ${{ startsWith(github.ref, 'refs/tags/v') }}
Using this the workflow above, GitHub will build your app every time you push a commit.
When you want to create a new release, follow these steps:
- Update the version in your project's
package.json
file (e.g.1.2.3
) - Commit that change (
git commit -am v1.2.3
) - Tag your commit (
git tag v1.2.3
). Make sure your tag name's format isv*.*.*
. Your workflow will use this tag to detect when to create a release - Push your changes to GitHub (
git push && git push --tags
)
After building successfully, the action will publish your release artifacts. By default, a new release draft will be created on GitHub with download links for your app. If you want to change this behavior, have a look at the electron-builder
docs.
You can configure the action further with the following options:
package_root
: Directory where NPM/Yarn commands should be run (default:"."
)build_script_name
: Name of the optional NPM build script which is executed beforeelectron-builder
(default:"build"
)skip_build
: Whether the action should execute the NPM build script before runningelectron-builder
use_vue_cli
: Whether to runelectron-builder
using the Vue CLI plugin instead of calling the command directlyargs
: Other arguments to pass to theelectron-builder
command, e.g. configuration overrides (default:""
)max_attempts
: Maximum number of attempts for completing the build and release step
See action.yml
for a list of all possible input variables.
If you are building for macOS, you'll want your code to be signed. GitHub Actions therefore needs access to your code signing certificates:
- Open the Keychain Access app or the Apple Developer Portal. Export all certificates related to your app into a single file (e.g.
certs.p12
) and set a strong password - Base64-encode your certificates using the following command:
base64 -i certs.p12 -o encoded.txt
- In your project's GitHub repository, go to Settings → Secrets and add the following two variables:
mac_certs
: Your encoded certificates, i.e. the content of theencoded.txt
file you created beforemac_certs_password
: The password you set when exporting the certificates
Add the following options to your workflow's existing action-electron-builder
step:
- name: Build/release Electron app
uses: samuelmeuli/action-electron-builder@v1
with:
# ...
mac_certs: ${{ secrets.mac_certs }}
mac_certs_password: ${{ secrets.mac_certs_password }}
The same goes for Windows code signing (windows_certs
and windows_certs_password
secrets).
If you are building/releasing your Linux app for Snapcraft (which is electron-builder
's default), you will additionally need to install and sign in to Snapcraft. This can be done using an action-snapcraft
step before the action-electron-builder
step:
- name: Install Snapcraft
uses: samuelmeuli/action-snapcraft@v1
# Only install Snapcraft on Ubuntu
if: startsWith(matrix.os, 'ubuntu')
with:
# Log in to Snap Store
snapcraft_token: ${{ secrets.snapcraft_token }}
You can read here how you can obtain a snapcraft_token
.
If you've configured electron-builder
to notarize your Electron Mac app as described in this guide, you can use the following steps to let GitHub Actions perform the notarization for you:
-
Define the following secrets in your repository's settings on GitHub:
api_key
: Content of the API key file (with thep8
file extension)api_key_id
: Key ID found on App Store Connectapi_key_issuer_id
: Issuer ID found on App Store Connect
-
In your workflow file, add the following step before your
action-electron-builder
step:- name: Prepare for app notarization if: startsWith(matrix.os, 'macos') # Import Apple API key for app notarization on macOS run: | mkdir -p ~/private_keys/ echo '${{ secrets.api_key }}' > ~/private_keys/AuthKey_${{ secrets.api_key_id }}.p8
-
Pass the following environment variables to
action-electron-builder
:- name: Build/release Electron app uses: samuelmeuli/action-electron-builder@v1 with: # ... env: # macOS notarization API key API_KEY_ID: ${{ secrets.api_key_id }} API_KEY_ISSUER_ID: ${{ secrets.api_key_issuer_id }}
For an example of the action used in production (including app notarization and publishing to Snapcraft), see Mini Diary.
Suggestions and contributions are always welcome! Please discuss larger changes via issue before submitting a pull request.
- Snapcraft Action – GitHub Action for setting up Snapcraft
- Lint Action – GitHub Action for detecting and fixing linting errors
- Maven Publish Action – GitHub Action for automatically publishing Maven packages