Electron desktop app

Skill swd3k/skills/agent-skills/desktop-apps/electron-desktop-app

Scaffold and harden Electron desktop apps: main/preload/renderer isolation, contextBridge, auto-update, packaging. Use when building or auditing Electron shells, IPC, security, or distributable installers.From its SKILL.md

Install

npx -y skills add swd3k/skills --skill electron-desktop-app

Assembled from the repository path, not quoted from the project. Check it against their README if it does not work.

One thing to look at

0 stars0 stars. Stars are a popularity signal and not a quality one, but at this level it is likely that nobody has read this closely except its author, and you would be relying on your own review.

SKILL.md

1.8 KB, 378 tokens by cl100k_base, as published. Nobody here has run it

Electron Desktop App

Use Electron when you need cross-platform desktop with full Chromium + Node ecosystem.

When to use

macOS + Windows + Linux required
Heavy web stack already exists
Photino/Tauri not viable for the team

Security defaults (non-negotiable)

webPreferences: {
  contextIsolation: true,
  nodeIntegration: false,
  sandbox: true,
  preload: path.join(__dirname, 'preload.js')
}

Expose APIs only via contextBridge
Validate every IPC channel; never pass untrusted paths to shell.open / fs
Disable remote module; avoid enableRemoteModule

Structure

main/        # process lifecycle, windows, menus, auto-update
preload/     # thin safe API surface
renderer/    # UI (React/Vue/Svelte or plain)
shared/      # types + channel names

Workflow

One BrowserWindow first; add tray/menu later.
Define typed IPC channels in shared/channels.ts.
Preload exposes only needed methods.
Package with electron-builder or electron-forge.
Code-sign on macOS/Windows for SmartScreen/Gatekeeper.

Packaging defaults

NSIS (Windows), DMG (macOS), AppImage (Linux)
Publish updates via GitHub Releases + electron-updater
Ship asari symbols only if debugging crashes

Pitfalls

nodeIntegration: true in production
Huge asar from bundling entire monorepo
Auto-update without code signing → silent failure
Blocking main process with sync FS/network

Acceptance

Renderer cannot require('fs')
Quit cleans timers and windows
Update check fails gracefully offline

What ships with it

Read from the repository

Just SKILL.md. No reference files, no scripts.