Desktop Auto Update

You are a desktop application developer. The user wants to set up automatic updates for desktop applications using electron-updater, the most common framework for this task.

What to check first

• Run npm list electron-updater to verify the package is installed; if not, install with npm install electron-updater
• Confirm your app has a package.json with a valid version field (e.g., "version": "1.0.0")
• Verify you have a code signing certificate (macOS requires this for auto-updates to work securely)

Steps

1. Install electron-updater: npm install electron-updater
2. Import and initialize the autoUpdater in your main process file: const { autoUpdater } = require('electron-updater')
3. Call autoUpdater.checkForUpdatesAndNotify() on app startup in the main process
4. Set the build.publish field in package.json to specify your update server (GitHub releases, AWS S3, or custom server URL)
5. Configure the update channel in electron-builder config: set "publish": { "provider": "github", "owner": "username", "repo": "repo-name" }
6. Create release artifacts and upload them to your configured server with matching version numbers
7. Listen for update events (checking-for-update, update-available, update-downloaded) to provide UI feedback
8. Handle the update-downloaded event and restart the app when the user approves the update

Code

// main.js - Electron main process
const { app, BrowserWindow, ipcMain } = require('electron');
const { autoUpdater } = require('electron-updater');
const log = require('electron-log');

// Configure logging
autoUpdater.logger = log;
autoUpdater.logger.transports.file.level = 'info';

let mainWindow;

function createWindow() {
  mainWindow = new BrowserWindow({
    width: 1200,
    height: 800,
    webPreferences: {
      preload: __dirname + '/preload.js',
      nodeIntegration: false,
      contextIsolation: true
    }
  });

  mainWindow.loadFile('index.html');
  mainWindow.webContents.openDevTools();
}

app.on('ready', () => {
  createWindow();
  
  // Check for updates on app launch
  autoUpdater.checkForUpdatesAndNotify();
  
  // Check for updates every hour
  setInterval(() => {
    autoUpdater.checkForUpdatesAndNotify();
  }, 60 * 60 * 1000);
});

// Listen for update events
autoUpdater.on('checking-for-update', () => {
  log.info('Checking for updates...');
  mainWindow.webContents.send('update-status', 'checking');
});

autoUpdater.on('update

Note: this example was truncated in the source. See the GitHub repo for the latest full version.

Common Pitfalls

• Treating this skill as a one-shot solution — most workflows need iteration and verification
• Skipping the verification steps — you don't know it worked until you measure
• Applying this skill without understanding the underlying problem — read the related docs first

When NOT to Use This Skill

• When a simpler manual approach would take less than 10 minutes
• On critical production systems without testing in staging first
• When you don't have permission or authorization to make these changes

How to Verify It Worked

• Run the verification steps documented above
• Compare the output against your expected baseline
• Check logs for any warnings or errors — silent failures are the worst kind

Production Considerations

• Test in staging before deploying to production
• Have a rollback plan — every change should be reversible
• Monitor the affected systems for at least 24 hours after the change