Skip to content

Flatpak

Single-file Flatpak bundles

Currently electron-builder does not support publishing apps to Flatpak repositories like Flathub. This means the Flatpak support in electron-builder is limited to generating single-file bundles which have various limitations compared to app bundles installed from a repository.

For what it’s worth, there are some plans to make it easier to publish Electron apps to Flathub. When that happens, it should be easier to create a Flathub publisher for electron-builder (which would work similary to the other publishers).

The top-level flatpak key contains a set of options instructing electron-builder on how it should build a Flatpak bundle.

Build dependencies

The flatpak and flatpak-builder packages need to be installed in order to build Flatpak bundles.

Troubleshooting

If the Flatpak build process fails with an error message like “flatpak failed with status code X”, setting the DEBUG="@malept/flatpak-bundler" environment variable should provide more context about the error.

Enable Flatpak build debug logging

env DEBUG="@malept/flatpak-bundler" electron-builder build --linux flatpak

Configuration

Electron-Builder / app-builder-lib / FlatpakOptions

Extends

Properties

base?

readonly optional base: string

Start with the files from the specified application. This can be used to create applications that extend another application. Defaults to org.electronjs.Electron2.BaseApp.

See flatpak manifest documentation.

baseVersion?

readonly optional baseVersion: string

Use this specific version of the application specified in base. Defaults to 20.08.

See flatpak manifest documentation.

branch?

readonly optional branch: string

The branch to use when exporting the application. Defaults to master.

See flatpak manifest documentation.

files?

readonly optional files: [string, string][]

Files to copy directly into the app. Should be a list of [source, dest] tuples. Source should be a relative/absolute path to a file/directory to copy into the flatpak, and dest should be the path inside the app install prefix (e.g. /share/applications/).

See @malept/flatpak-bundler documentation.

finishArgs?

readonly optional finishArgs: string[]

An array of arguments passed to the flatpak build-finish command. Defaults to: 

[
  // Wayland/X11 Rendering
  "--socket=wayland",
  "--socket=x11",
  "--share=ipc",
  // Open GL
  "--device=dri",
  // Audio output
  "--socket=pulseaudio",
  // Read/write home directory access
  "--filesystem=home",
  // Allow communication with network
  "--share=network",
  // System notifications with libnotify
  "--talk-name=org.freedesktop.Notifications",
]

See flatpak manifest documentation.

license?

readonly optional license: null | string

The path to EULA license file. Defaults to license.txt or eula.txt (or uppercase variants). Only plain text is supported.

modules?

readonly optional modules: any[]

An array of objects specifying the modules to be built in order.

See flatpak manifest documentation.

runtime?

readonly optional runtime: string

The name of the runtime that the application uses. Defaults to org.freedesktop.Platform.

See flatpak manifest documentation.

runtimeVersion?

readonly optional runtimeVersion: string

The version of the runtime that the application uses. Defaults to 20.08.

See flatpak manifest documentation.

sdk?

readonly optional sdk: string

The name of the development runtime that the application builds with. Defaults to org.freedesktop.Sdk.

See flatpak manifest documentation.

readonly optional symlinks: [string, string][]

Symlinks to create in the app files. Should be a list of [target, location] symlink tuples. Target can be either a relative or absolute path inside the app install prefix, and location should be a absolute path inside the prefix to create the symlink at.

See @malept/flatpak-bundler documentation.

useWaylandFlags?

readonly optional useWaylandFlags: boolean

Whether to enable the Wayland specific flags (--enable-features=UseOzonePlatform --ozone-platform=wayland) in the wrapper script. These flags are only available starting with Electron version 12. Defaults to false.