@electron/get

What is @electron/get?

@electron/get is an npm package designed to facilitate the downloading of Electron binaries. It provides a simple API to fetch Electron versions, which can be useful for setting up Electron-based projects or managing different versions of Electron.

What are @electron/get's main functionalities?

Download a specific version of Electron

This feature allows you to download a specific version of Electron. The code sample demonstrates how to download Electron version 13.1.7 and log the path where it was downloaded.

const { download } = require('@electron/get');

(async () => {
  const zipPath = await download('v13.1.7');
  console.log(`Downloaded Electron v13.1.7 to ${zipPath}`);
})();

Specify a mirror for downloading

This feature allows you to specify a mirror URL for downloading Electron binaries. The code sample shows how to download Electron version 13.1.7 from a custom mirror.

const { download } = require('@electron/get');

(async () => {
  const zipPath = await download('v13.1.7', {
    mirrorOptions: {
      mirror: 'https://mirror.example.com/electron/'
    }
  });
  console.log(`Downloaded Electron v13.1.7 from mirror to ${zipPath}`);
})();

Get the URL for a specific Electron version

This feature allows you to get the download URL for a specific version of Electron without actually downloading it. The code sample demonstrates how to get the URL for Electron version 13.1.7.

const { getDownloadUrl } = require('@electron/get');

(async () => {
  const url = await getDownloadUrl('v13.1.7');
  console.log(`Download URL for Electron v13.1.7: ${url}`);
})();

Other packages similar to @electron/get

electron-download

electron-download is another package that helps in downloading Electron binaries. It is often used internally by other Electron-related tools. Compared to @electron/get, it offers similar functionalities but may not be as straightforward to use for some specific tasks.

electron-builder

electron-builder is a complete solution to package and build Electron applications. While its primary focus is on building and packaging, it also includes functionality to download Electron binaries. It is more feature-rich compared to @electron/get but may be overkill if you only need to download Electron binaries.

electron-prebuilt-compile

electron-prebuilt-compile is a package that provides prebuilt Electron binaries with support for custom compilation. It is useful for developers who need to compile Electron with specific settings. Compared to @electron/get, it offers more flexibility but requires more setup.

README

@electron/get

Download Electron release artifacts

Usage

Simple: Downloading an Electron Binary ZIP

import { download } from '@electron/get';

// NB: Use this syntax within an async function, Node does not have support for
//     top-level await as of Node 12.
const zipFilePath = await download('4.0.4');

Advanced: Downloading a macOS Electron Symbol File

import { downloadArtifact } from '@electron/get';

// NB: Use this syntax within an async function, Node does not have support for
//     top-level await as of Node 12.
const zipFilePath = await downloadArtifact({
  version: '4.0.4',
  platform: 'darwin',
  artifactName: 'electron',
  artifactSuffix: 'symbols',
  arch: 'x64',
});

Specifying a mirror

Anatomy of a download URL, in terms of mirrorOptions:

https://github.com/electron/electron/releases/download/v4.0.4/electron-v4.0.4-linux-x64.zip
|                                                     |       |                           |
-------------------------------------------------------       -----------------------------
                        |                                                   |
              mirror / nightly_mirror                  |    |         customFilename
                                                       ------
                                                         ||
                                                      customDir

Example:

import { download } from '@electron/get';

const zipFilePath = await download('4.0.4', {
  mirrorOptions: {
    mirror: 'https://mirror.example.com/electron/',
    customDir: 'custom',
    customFilename: 'unofficial-electron-linux.zip'
  }
});
// Will download from https://mirror.example.com/electron/custom/unofficial-electron-linux.zip

const nightlyZipFilePath = await download('8.0.0-nightly.20190901', {
  mirrorOptions: {
    nightly_mirror: 'https://nightly.example.com/',
    customDir: 'nightlies',
    customFilename: 'nightly-linux.zip'
  }
});
// Will download from https://nightly.example.com/nightlies/nightly-linux.zip

How It Works

This module downloads Electron to a known place on your system and caches it so that future requests for that asset can be returned instantly. The cache locations are:

• Linux: $XDG_CACHE_HOME or ~/.cache/electron/
• MacOS: ~/Library/Caches/electron/
• Windows: %LOCALAPPDATA%/electron/Cache or ~/AppData/Local/electron/Cache/

By default, the module uses got as the downloader. As a result, you can use the same options via downloadOptions.

Proxies

Downstream packages should utilize the initializeProxy function to add HTTP(S) proxy support. If the environment variable ELECTRON_GET_USE_PROXY is set, it is called automatically. A different proxy module is used, depending on the version of Node in use, and as such, there are slightly different ways to set the proxy environment variables. For Node 10 and above, global-agent is used. Otherwise, global-tunnel-ng is used. Refer to the appropriate linked module to determine how to configure proxy support.