mirror of https://github.com/electron/electron
246 lines
9.0 KiB
Markdown
246 lines
9.0 KiB
Markdown
---
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title: 'Publishing and Updating'
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description: "There are several ways to update an Electron application. The easiest and officially supported one is taking advantage of the built-in Squirrel framework and Electron's autoUpdater module."
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slug: tutorial-publishing-updating
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hide_title: false
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---
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:::info Follow along the tutorial
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This is **part 6** of the Electron tutorial.
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1. [Prerequisites][prerequisites]
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1. [Building your First App][building your first app]
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1. [Using Preload Scripts][preload]
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1. [Adding Features][features]
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1. [Packaging Your Application][packaging]
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1. **[Publishing and Updating][updates]**
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:::
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## Learning goals
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If you've been following along, this is the last step of the tutorial! In this part,
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you will publish your app to GitHub releases and integrate automatic updates
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into your app code.
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## Using update.electronjs.org
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The Electron maintainers provide a free auto-updating service for open-source apps
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at [https://update.electronjs.org](https://update.electronjs.org). Its requirements are:
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- Your app runs on macOS or Windows
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- Your app has a public GitHub repository
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- Builds are published to [GitHub releases][]
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- Builds are [code signed][code-signed]
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At this point, we'll assume that you have already pushed all your
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code to a public GitHub repository.
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:::info Alternative update services
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If you're using an alternate repository host (e.g. GitLab or Bitbucket) or if
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you need to keep your code repository private, please refer to our
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[step-by-step guide][update-server] on hosting your own Electron update server.
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:::
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## Publishing a GitHub release
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Electron Forge has [Publisher][] plugins that can automate the distribution
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of your packaged application to various sources. In this tutorial, we will
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be using the GitHub Publisher, which will allow us to publish
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our code to GitHub releases.
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### Generating a personal access token
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Forge cannot publish to any repository on GitHub without permission. You
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need to pass in an authenticated token that gives Forge access to
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your GitHub releases. The easiest way to do this is to
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[create a new personal access token (PAT)][new-pat]
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with the `public_repo` scope, which gives write access to your public repositories.
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**Make sure to keep this token a secret.**
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### Setting up the GitHub Publisher
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#### Installing the module
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Forge's [GitHub Publisher][] is a plugin that
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needs to be installed in your project's `devDependencies`:
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```sh npm2yarn
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npm install --save-dev @electron-forge/publisher-github
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```
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#### Configuring the publisher in Forge
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Once you have it installed, you need to set it up in your Forge
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configuration. A full list of options is documented in the Forge's
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[`PublisherGitHubConfig`][] API docs.
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```js title='forge.config.js'
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module.exports = {
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publishers: [
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{
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name: '@electron-forge/publisher-github',
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config: {
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repository: {
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owner: 'github-user-name',
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name: 'github-repo-name'
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},
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prerelease: false,
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draft: true
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}
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}
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]
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}
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```
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:::tip Drafting releases before publishing
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Notice that you have configured Forge to publish your release as a draft.
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This will allow you to see the release with its generated artifacts
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without actually publishing it to your end users. You can manually
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publish your releases via GitHub after writing release notes and
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double-checking that your distributables work.
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:::
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#### Setting up your authentication token
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You also need to make the Publisher aware of your authentication token.
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By default, it will use the value stored in the `GITHUB_TOKEN` environment
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variable.
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### Running the publish command
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Add Forge's [publish command][] to your npm scripts.
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```json {6} title='package.json'
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//...
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"scripts": {
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"start": "electron-forge start",
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"package": "electron-forge package",
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"make": "electron-forge make",
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"publish": "electron-forge publish"
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},
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//...
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```
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This command will run your configured makers and publish the output distributables to a new
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GitHub release.
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```sh npm2yarn
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npm run publish
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```
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By default, this will only publish a single distributable for your host operating system and
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architecture. You can publish for different architectures by passing in the `--arch` flag to your
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Forge commands.
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The name of this release will correspond to the `version` field in your project's package.json file.
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:::tip Tagging releases
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Optionally, you can also [tag your releases in Git][git-tag] so that your
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release is associated with a labeled point in your code history. npm comes
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with a handy [`npm version`](https://docs.npmjs.com/cli/v8/commands/npm-version)
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command that can handle the version bumping and tagging for you.
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:::
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#### Bonus: Publishing in GitHub Actions
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Publishing locally can be painful, especially because you can only create distributables
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for your host operating system (i.e. you can't publish a Windows `.exe` file from macOS).
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A solution for this would be to publish your app via automation workflows
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such as [GitHub Actions][], which can run tasks in the
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cloud on Ubuntu, macOS, and Windows. This is the exact approach taken by [Electron Fiddle][].
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You can refer to Fiddle's [Build and Release pipeline][fiddle-build]
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and [Forge configuration][fiddle-forge-config]
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for more details.
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## Instrumenting your updater code
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Now that we have a functional release system via GitHub releases, we now need to tell our
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Electron app to download an update whenever a new release is out. Electron apps do this
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via the [autoUpdater][] module, which reads from an update server feed to check if a new version
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is available for download.
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The update.electronjs.org service provides an updater-compatible feed. For example, Electron
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Fiddle v0.28.0 will check the endpoint at https://update.electronjs.org/electron/fiddle/darwin/v0.28.0
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to see if a newer GitHub release is available.
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After your release is published to GitHub, the update.electronjs.org service should work
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for your application. The only step left is to configure the feed with the autoUpdater module.
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To make this process easier, the Electron team maintains the [`update-electron-app`][] module,
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which sets up the autoUpdater boilerplate for update.electronjs.org in one function
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call — no configuration required. This module will search for the update.electronjs.org
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feed that matches your project's package.json `"repository"` field.
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First, install the module as a runtime dependency.
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```sh npm2yarn
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npm install update-electron-app
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```
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Then, import the module and call it immediately in the main process.
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```js title='main.js' @ts-nocheck
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require('update-electron-app')()
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```
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And that is all it takes! Once your application is packaged, it will update itself for each new
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GitHub release that you publish.
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## Summary
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In this tutorial, we configured Electron Forge's GitHub Publisher to upload your app's
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distributables to GitHub releases. Since distributables cannot always be generated
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between platforms, we recommend setting up your building and publishing flow
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in a Continuous Integration pipeline if you do not have access to machines.
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Electron applications can self-update by pointing the autoUpdater module to an update server feed.
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update.electronjs.org is a free update server provided by Electron for open-source applications
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published on GitHub releases. Configuring your Electron app to use this service is as easy as
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installing and importing the `update-electron-app` module.
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If your application is not eligible for update.electronjs.org, you should instead deploy your
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own update server and configure the autoUpdater module yourself.
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:::info 🌟 You're done!
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From here, you have officially completed our tutorial to Electron. Feel free to explore the
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rest of our docs and happy developing! If you have questions, please stop by our community
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[Discord server][].
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:::
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[autoupdater]: ../api/auto-updater.md
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[code-signed]: ./code-signing.md
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[discord server]: https://discord.gg/electronjs
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[electron fiddle]: https://www.electronjs.org/fiddle
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[fiddle-build]: https://github.com/electron/fiddle/blob/main/.github/workflows/build.yaml
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[fiddle-forge-config]: https://github.com/electron/fiddle/blob/main/forge.config.js
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[github actions]: https://github.com/features/actions
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[github publisher]: https://www.electronforge.io/config/publishers/github
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[github releases]: https://docs.github.com/en/repositories/releasing-projects-on-github/managing-releases-in-a-repository
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[git-tag]: https://git-scm.com/book/en/v2/Git-Basics-Tagging
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[new-pat]: https://github.com/settings/tokens/new
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[publish command]: https://www.electronforge.io/cli#publish
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[publisher]: https://www.electronforge.io/config/publishers
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[`publishergithubconfig`]: https://js.electronforge.io/interfaces/_electron_forge_publisher_github.PublisherGitHubConfig.html
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[`update-electron-app`]: https://github.com/electron/update-electron-app
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[update-server]: ./updates.md
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<!-- Tutorial links -->
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[prerequisites]: tutorial-1-prerequisites.md
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[building your first app]: tutorial-2-first-app.md
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[preload]: tutorial-3-preload.md
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[features]: tutorial-4-adding-features.md
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[packaging]: tutorial-5-packaging.md
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[updates]: tutorial-6-publishing-updating.md
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