How to avoid electron-forge start?

Before using electron-forge, I simply start my app like this:

"start": "electron src/main"

Where src/main.js is a plain JS file. The app is just plain HTML/CSS/JS. I’m just keeping it simple. I don’t want to introduce complexity to this.

How do we work with electron-forge for packaging and creating distributables, without interfering with the simple start process?

[MarshallOfSound]

@trusktr It does a number of things for you. Checks your current shell/OS is capable of running Electron, ensure any native modules are built and ready, powers our plugin system along with the forge hooks configuration you can set up. It also does some cool stuff for restarting your app quickly.

You can just type rs into your terminal and hit enter and your app will restart.

I’d suggest you use the start command purely so that all this stuff is handled for you, even if your app is simple now, one day you’re gonna add a native module and cry unless you’re using start 😄

[trusktr]

I tried v6, and… it worked! Nice.

If I have "main": "src/main" in package.json, then what’s actual difference between electron src/main/index.js and electron-forge start? Why do we need electron-forge start? Is that useful if we have build plugins, so in my case not useful because I have plain JS?