Feature request: beforePack callback (or: using distributed Node version to run some scripts before packaging)

• Version: 22.9.1
• Electron Version: 11.3.1
• Electron Type (current, beta, nightly): current
• Target: darwin, windows

electron-builder already offers the afterPack callback. However, before all the files are packaged into an asar, I need to run bytenode on some of them. Now, in order for bytenode to work properly, it needs to be executed using the Node binary which will be distributed with the app.

As of now, when I use asar, afterPack executes when the files are already in the asar archive. The current workarounds I came up with:

1. From within afterPack run code that will unpack asar, compile the files with bytenode and then create the asar archive again.
   • This already doesn’t play well with asarUnpack, as extracting the asar archive into an app folder copies those unpacked files there as well. So before creating the archive again I would need to remove paths from asarUnpack from my app folder. But I worry that in the future it’s going to cause problems with smartUnpack anyway.
2. Use extraResources so that the files which need to be compiled with bytenode are not in the asar archive at all. Then compile them in afterPack.
   • If those compiled files happen to require some node modules, then most probably I’d need to manipulate the NODE_PATH env variable so that Node knows where to find the modules (in the asar archive). I’m yet to check if this actually works.

With something like beforePack, I could run bytenode on selected files and then builder could just include them in the asar as usual, without needing to worry about asarUnpack and smartUnpack myself.

This is somewhat similar to #4600, but the author of that issue seems to have asked about sth like afterPack.

Perhaps there’s a more straightforward way to solve my problem than beforePack, in which case I’d highly appreciate any advice!

[davej]

I’m having a similar issue. beforeBuild doesn’t work because I want the hook to be called after the dependencies have been installed. A beforePack would be ideal. In electron-forge I could use an afterCopy hook.

[stale[bot]]

Is this still relevant? If so, what is blocking it? Is there anything you can do to help move it forward?

This issue has been automatically marked as stale because it has not had recent activity. It will be closed if no further activity occurs.