@electron/rebuild

What is @electron/rebuild?

@electron/rebuild is a tool designed to help developers rebuild native Node.js modules against the current Electron version. This is particularly useful when working with native modules that need to be compatible with Electron's version of Node.js.

What are @electron/rebuild's main functionalities?

Rebuild Native Modules

This feature allows you to rebuild native Node.js modules to be compatible with a specific version of Electron. The code sample demonstrates how to use the `rebuild` function to rebuild modules in the current directory for Electron version 13.1.7.

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

rebuild({
  buildPath: __dirname,
  electronVersion: '13.1.7'
}).then(() => {
  console.log('Rebuild complete!');
}).catch((err) => {
  console.error('Rebuild failed:', err);
});

CLI Usage

You can also use @electron/rebuild from the command line to rebuild native modules. This command rebuilds the modules for Electron version 13.1.7.

npx electron-rebuild -v 13.1.7

Rebuild Specific Modules

This feature allows you to rebuild specific native modules rather than all modules in the project. The code sample demonstrates how to rebuild only the 'native-module' for Electron version 13.1.7.

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

rebuild({
  buildPath: __dirname,
  electronVersion: '13.1.7',
  onlyModules: ['native-module']
}).then(() => {
  console.log('Rebuild complete!');
}).catch((err) => {
  console.error('Rebuild failed:', err);
});

Other packages similar to @electron/rebuild

electron-builder

electron-builder is a complete solution to package and build a ready-for-distribution Electron app. It includes support for rebuilding native modules, but also offers a wide range of other features such as auto-updates, code signing, and multi-platform builds. Compared to @electron/rebuild, electron-builder is more comprehensive but also more complex.

node-gyp

node-gyp is a cross-platform command-line tool written in Node.js for compiling native addon modules for Node.js. While it can be used to rebuild native modules, it does not specifically target Electron and lacks the convenience features of @electron/rebuild. It requires more manual configuration and is generally used as a lower-level tool.

README

Electron Rebuild

This executable rebuilds native Node.js modules against the version of Node.js that your Electron project is using. This allows you to use native Node.js modules in Electron apps without your system version of Node.js matching exactly (which is often not the case, and sometimes not even possible).

How does it work?

Install the package with --save-dev:

npm install --save-dev @electron/rebuild

Then, whenever you install a new npm package, rerun electron-rebuild:

$(npm bin)/electron-rebuild

Or if you're on Windows:

.\node_modules\.bin\electron-rebuild.cmd

If you have a good node-gyp config but you see an error about a missing element on Windows like Could not load the Visual C++ component "VCBuild.exe", try to launch electron-rebuild in an npm script:

"scripts": {
  "rebuild": "electron-rebuild -f -w yourmodule"
}

and then

npm run rebuild

What are the requirements?

Node v12.13.0 or higher is required. Building native modules from source uses node-gyp, refer to the link for its installation/runtime requirements.

CLI Arguments

Usage: electron-rebuild --version [version] --module-dir [path]

Options:
  -v, --version                The version of Electron to build against [string]
  -f, --force                  Force rebuilding modules, even if we would skip
                               it otherwise                            [boolean]
  -a, --arch                   Override the target architecture to something
                               other than your system's                 [string]
  -m, --module-dir             The path to the node_modules directory to rebuild
                                                                        [string]
  -w, --which-module           A specific module to build, or comma separated
                               list of modules. Modules will only be rebuilt if
                               they also match the types of dependencies being
                               rebuilt (see --types).                   [string]
  -o, --only                   Only build specified module, or comma separated
                               list of modules. All others are ignored. [string]
  -e, --electron-prebuilt-dir  The path to the prebuilt electron module [string]
  -d, --dist-url               Custom header tarball URL                [string]
  -t, --types                  The types of dependencies to rebuild.  Comma
                               separated list of "prod", "dev" and "optional".
                               Default is "prod,optional"               [string]
  -p, --parallel               Rebuild in parallel, this is enabled by default
                               on macOS and Linux                      [boolean]
  -s, --sequential             Rebuild modules sequentially, this is enabled by
                               default on Windows                      [boolean]
  -b, --debug                  Build debug version of modules          [boolean]
      --prebuild-tag-prefix    GitHub tag prefix passed to prebuild-install.
                               Default is "v"                           [string]
      --force-abi              Override the ABI version for the version of
                               Electron you are targeting.  Only use when
                               targeting Nightly releases.              [number]
      --use-electron-clang     Use the clang executable that Electron used when
                               building its binary. This will guarantee compiler
                               compatibility                           [boolean]
      --disable-pre-gyp-copy   Disables the pre-gyp copy step          [boolean]
      --build-from-source      Skips prebuild download and rebuilds module from
                               source.                                 [boolean]
  -h, --help                   Show help                               [boolean]

How can I use this with Electron Forge?

This package is automatically used with Electron Forge when packaging an Electron app.

How can I integrate this into Electron Packager?

electron-rebuild provides a function compatible with the afterCopy hook for Electron Packager. For example:

import packager from '@electron/packager';
import rebuild from '@electron/rebuild';

packager({
  // … other options
  afterCopy: [(buildPath, electronVersion, platform, arch, callback) => {
    rebuild({ buildPath, electronVersion, arch })
      .then(() => callback())
      .catch((error) => callback(error));
  }],
  // … other options
});

How can I integrate this with prebuild?

If your module uses prebuild for creating prebuilt binaries, it also uses prebuild-install to download them. If this is the case, then electron-rebuild will run prebuild-install to download the correct binaries from the project's GitHub Releases instead of rebuilding them.

How can I integrate this into Grunt / Gulp / Whatever?

electron-rebuild is also a library that you can require into your app or build process. It has a very simple API:

import rebuild from '@electron/rebuild';

// Public: Rebuilds a node_modules directory with the given Electron version.
//
// options: Object with the following properties
//     buildPath - An absolute path to your app's directory.  (The directory that contains your node_modules)
//     electronVersion - The version of Electron to rebuild for
//     arch (optional) - Default: process.arch - The arch to rebuild for
//     extraModules (optional) - Default: [] - An array of modules to rebuild as well as the detected modules
//     onlyModules (optional) - Default: null - An array of modules to rebuild, ONLY these module names will be rebuilt.
//                                              The "types" property will be ignored if this option is set.
//     force (optional) - Default: false - Force a rebuild of modules regardless of their current build state
//     headerURL (optional) - Default: https://www.electronjs.org/headers - The URL to download Electron header files from
//     types (optional) - Default: ['prod', 'optional'] - The types of modules to rebuild
//     mode (optional) - The rebuild mode, either 'sequential' or 'parallel' - Default varies per platform (probably shouldn't mess with this one)
//     useElectronClang (optional) - Whether to use the clang executable that Electron used when building its binary. This will guarantee compiler compatibility

// Returns a Promise indicating whether the operation succeeded or not

A full build process might look something like:

const childProcess = require('child_process');
const pathToElectron = require('electron');

  rebuild({
    buildPath: __dirname,
    electronVersion: '1.4.12'
  })
    .then(() => console.info('Rebuild Successful'))
    .catch((e) => {
      console.error("Building modules didn't work!");
      console.error(e);
    });