Create Electron applications and use Github Action to build cross-platform applications.

Electron local build can only build programs for the current system. You can use Github Action to automatically build programs for all platforms. Here is the process.

Install create-electron-app

npm install -g create-electron-app

Create project

create-electron-app myproject
cd myproject

Install dependencies

npm install --save-dev @electron-forge/publisher-github

In the created project folder, there is a forge.config.js file. Add publishers settings in it:

publishers: [
    {
      name: '@electron-forge/publisher-github',
      config: {
        repository: {
          owner: '<github username>',
          name: '<github repo>',
        },
        draft: true,
      },
    },
  ],

Add Github Action settings .github/workflows/build.yml

name: Build/release

on:
  push

jobs:
  release:
    runs-on: ${{ matrix.os }}

    strategy:
      matrix:
        os: [macos-latest, ubuntu-latest, windows-latest]

    steps:
      - name: Check out Git repository
        uses: actions/checkout@v1

      - name: Install Node.js, NPM and Yarn
        uses: actions/setup-node@v1
        with:
          node-version: 16

      - name: Build/release Electron app
        uses: wenwuwu/action-electron-forge@v1.4.0
        with:
          package_root: "."
          # GitHub token, automatically provided to the action
          # (No need to define this secret in the repo settings)
          github_token: ${{ secrets.github_token }}

          # If the commit is tagged with a version (e.g. "v1.0.0"),
          # release the app after building
          release: ${{ startsWith(github.ref, 'refs/tags/v') }}

If you want to create a new release, you need to include a tag in the commit.

Update the version number in package.json, e.g. 1.0.0
git commit -am v1.0.0
git tag v1.0.0
git push && git push --tags

After pushing, if the build is successful, a draft release will be generated, which can be chosen to be published.