GitHub Action for building and releasing electron-nuxt 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. -
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. -
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: 15 - name: Build/release Electron app uses: thagus/action-electron-nuxt@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:"."
)args
: Other arguments to pass to theelectron-builder
command, e.g. configuration overrides (default:""
)
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-nuxt
step:
- name: Build/release Electron app
uses: thagus/action-electron-nuxt@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-nuxt
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: ${{ secrets.snapcraft_token }}
You can read here how you can obtain a snapcraft_token
.
If you've configured electron-builder
to notarize your Electron Mac app as described in this guide, you can use the following steps to let GitHub Actions perform the notarization for you:
-
Define the following secrets in your repository's settings on GitHub:
api_key
: Content of the API key file (with thep8
file extension)api_key_id
: Key ID found on App Store Connectapi_key_issuer_id
: Issuer ID found on App Store Connect
-
In your workflow file, add the following step before your
action-electron-nuxt
step:- name: Prepare for app notarization if: startsWith(matrix.os, 'macos') # Import Apple API key for app notarization on macOS run: | mkdir -p ~/private_keys/ echo '${{ secrets.api_key }}' > ~/private_keys/AuthKey_${{ secrets.api_key_id }}.p8
-
Pass the following environment variables to
action-electron-nuxt
:- name: Build/release Electron app uses: thagus/action-electron-nuxt@v1 with: # ... env: # macOS notarization API key API_KEY_ID: ${{ secrets.api_key_id }} API_KEY_ISSUER_ID: ${{ secrets.api_key_issuer_id }}
Suggestions and contributions are always welcome! Please discuss larger changes via issue before submitting a pull request.