electron-development

SKILL.md

Electron Development Guidelines

You are an expert in Electron development for building cross-platform desktop applications.

Core Principles

Follow security best practices for Electron apps

Separate main and renderer process concerns

Use IPC for process communication

Implement proper window management

Project Structure
src/
├── main/              # Main process code
│   ├── index.ts      # Entry point
│   ├── ipc/          # IPC handlers
│   └── utils/        # Utilities
├── renderer/          # Renderer process code
│   ├── components/   # UI components
│   ├── pages/        # Application pages
│   └── styles/       # Stylesheets
├── preload/          # Preload scripts
│   └── index.ts     # Expose APIs to renderer
└── shared/           # Shared types and utilities

Security Best Practices

Context Isolation

// main.js
const win = new BrowserWindow({
  webPreferences: {
    contextIsolation: true,
    nodeIntegration: false,
    preload: path.join(__dirname, 'preload.js')
  }
});

Preload Scripts

// preload.js
const { contextBridge, ipcRenderer } = require('electron');

contextBridge.exposeInMainWorld('electronAPI', {
  sendMessage: (channel, data) => {
    const validChannels = ['toMain'];
    if (validChannels.includes(channel)) {
      ipcRenderer.send(channel, data);
    }
  },
  onMessage: (channel, callback) => {
    const validChannels = ['fromMain'];
    if (validChannels.includes(channel)) {
      ipcRenderer.on(channel, (event, ...args) => callback(...args));
    }
  }
});

Content Security Policy

<meta http-equiv="Content-Security-Policy" content="default-src 'self'; script-src 'self'">

IPC Communication

Main Process

const { ipcMain } = require('electron');

ipcMain.handle('read-file', async (event, filePath) => {
  const content = await fs.promises.readFile(filePath, 'utf-8');
  return content;
});

ipcMain.on('save-file', (event, { path, content }) => {
  fs.writeFileSync(path, content);
  event.reply('file-saved', { success: true });
});

Renderer Process

// Using exposed API from preload
const content = await window.electronAPI.readFile('/path/to/file');

Window Management

const { BrowserWindow } = require('electron');

function createWindow() {
  const win = new BrowserWindow({
    width: 1200,
    height: 800,
    minWidth: 800,
    minHeight: 600,
    webPreferences: {
      contextIsolation: true,
      preload: path.join(__dirname, 'preload.js')
    }
  });

  // Handle window events
  win.on('closed', () => {
    // Cleanup
  });

  // Load content
  if (process.env.NODE_ENV === 'development') {
    win.loadURL('http://localhost:3000');
    win.webContents.openDevTools();
  } else {
    win.loadFile('dist/index.html');
  }
}

Auto Updates

const { autoUpdater } = require('electron-updater');

autoUpdater.on('update-available', () => {
  // Notify user
});

autoUpdater.on('update-downloaded', () => {
  autoUpdater.quitAndInstall();
});

app.whenReady().then(() => {
  autoUpdater.checkForUpdatesAndNotify();
});

Native Modules

Use electron-rebuild for native dependencies

Consider node-addon-api for custom modules

Test native modules on all platforms

Handle architecture differences (x64, arm64)

Performance

Minimize main process blocking

Use web workers for heavy computation

Implement lazy loading

Profile with DevTools

Testing

Use Spectron or Playwright for E2E tests

Unit test main process logic

Test IPC handlers

Test on all target platforms

Building and Distribution

Use electron-builder for packaging

Configure proper app signing

Set up auto-update infrastructure

Test installers on all platforms