forge

Electron Forge is a tool for building desktop applications using Electron, a framework that lets web developers create Windows, macOS, and Linux apps using JavaScript and web technologies. Getting a desktop app from code to a distributable installer involves several steps that are easy to get wrong: compiling native modules against the right version of Electron, bundling everything correctly, and packaging it for each operating system. Electron Forge handles all of that in one place.

The goal is to make starting a new Electron project as simple as one command. You run a CLI command, answer a few questions, and get a working project with all the build tooling already configured. From that starting point, the same tool handles running the app during development, packaging it for distribution, and publishing releases.

Under the hood, Electron Forge coordinates two other tools from the Electron ecosystem: one that recompiles native Node.js modules to match the exact Electron version in use, and one that packages the final application for distribution. Users interact with Forge as a single command-line interface rather than configuring those tools individually.

Electron Forge is the official tool for this workflow, maintained by the Electron team. Documentation lives at electronforge.io. A next major version is in development on a separate branch, with alpha releases available for testing.