CLI Commands

The Electrobun CLI provides commands for initializing new projects and building your applications for different environments.

Installation

When you install Electrobun, the CLI tool is added to your node_modules/bin folder:

bun install electrobun

This makes the electrobun command available in your npm scripts or via bunx/npx.

Commands

electrobun init

Initializes a new Electrobun project with starter templates.

Usage

# Interactive template selection
electrobun init

# Direct template selection
electrobun init [template-name]

Available Templates

• hello-world - Basic single-window application
• photo-booth - Camera app with photo capture functionality
• interactive-playground - An interactive playground of Electrobun apis
• multitab-browser - Multi-tabbed web browser

Examples

# Choose template interactively
bunx electrobun init

# Initialize with photo-booth template directly
bunx electrobun init photo-booth

# Initialize with multitab-browser template
bunx electrobun init multitab-browser

electrobun build

Builds your Electrobun application according to the configuration in electrobun.config.ts.

Usage

electrobun build [options]

Options

Option	Description	Values	Default
—env	Build environment	dev, canary, stable	dev

Builds always target the current host platform and architecture. To build for multiple platforms, use CI runners for each OS/architecture (see Cross-Platform Development).

Examples

# Development build for current platform
electrobun build

# Development build with environment flag
electrobun build --env=dev

# Canary build
electrobun build --env=canary

# Stable (production) build
electrobun build --env=stable

electrobun run

Launches an already-built dev bundle. This is useful when you’ve already run electrobun build and just want to relaunch the app without rebuilding.

Usage

electrobun run

electrobun dev

Builds your application in dev mode and then launches it. This is the primary command for day-to-day development — equivalent to running electrobun build --env=dev followed by electrobun run.

Usage

electrobun dev [options]

Options

Option	Description
—watch	Watch source files for changes and automatically rebuild + relaunch

Examples

# Build and launch in dev mode
electrobun dev

# Build, launch, and watch for changes
electrobun dev --watch

Watch Mode

When using --watch, Electrobun automatically watches your source directories for file changes:

• The directory containing your build.bun.entrypoint
• Directories containing each view entrypoint
• Source paths from build.copy
• Any additional paths specified in build.watch

When a file change is detected, the running app is killed, a fresh build runs (including all lifecycle hooks like postBuild), and the app is relaunched. File watchers are paused during builds to avoid false triggers from build output.

Changes are debounced (300ms) so rapid saves only trigger a single rebuild. If a build fails, the error is logged and the watcher keeps running — the app will rebuild on the next file change.

Use build.watchIgnore in your config to exclude files from triggering rebuilds (e.g., generated assets). See Build Configuration for details.

Press Ctrl+C to stop the app and exit watch mode.

Build Environments

Development (dev)

• Outputs logs and errors to terminal
• No code signing or notarization
• Creates build in build/ folder
• No artifacts generated
• Fast iteration for testing

Canary

• Pre-release/beta builds
• Optional code signing and notarization
• Generates distribution artifacts
• Creates update manifests for auto-updates
• Suitable for testing with limited users

Stable

• Production-ready builds
• Full code signing and notarization (if configured)
• Optimized and compressed artifacts
• Ready for distribution to end users
• Generates all update files

Build Script Examples

Basic Setup

package.json

{
  "scripts": {
    "start": "electrobun run",
    "dev": "electrobun dev",
    "dev:watch": "electrobun dev --watch",
    "build:canary": "electrobun build --env=canary",
    "build:stable": "electrobun build --env=stable"
  }
}

CI Build Scripts

For multi-platform distribution, run the same build command on each platform’s CI runner:

package.json

{
  "scripts": {
    "build:dev": "electrobun build",
    "build:canary": "electrobun build --env=canary",
    "build:stable": "electrobun build --env=stable"
  }
}