electron-ipc

Make your Electron IPC a pleasure to use, and never think about preload.ts again! This package lets renderer code call main-process services as if they were local objects, with typed event payloads, and a lovely dev experience.

Why use this

• You hate wiring up IPC in main, renderer, and preload
• Define one shared service contract used by main and renderer
• Get deterministic errors with service/method context
• Handle method calls and events

Install

npm install @rupertsworld/electron-ipc

Quick start

First, define the API you want to call from renderer:

// main/my-api.ts
import { IPCService } from '@rupertsworld/electron-ipc';

export type MyAPIEvents = {
  greeting: { text: string };
};

export class MyAPI extends IPCService<MyAPIEvents> {
  hello(name: string) {
    this.emit('greeting', { text: `Hello ${name}` });
  }
}

Next, expose the IPC service in your main process, and set up the preload script (want to use your own preload? see advanced below).

// main/index.ts
import { exposeIPC, getPreloadPath } from '@rupertsworld/electron-ipc';
import { MyAPI } from './my-api.ts';
import { BrowserWindow } from 'electron';

exposeIPC(MyAPI);

const window = new BrowserWindow({
  webPreferences: {
    preload: getPreloadPath(),
  },
});

Now, simply resolve your API and start using it!

// renderer/index.ts
import { resolveIPC } from '@rupertsworld/electron-ipc/renderer';
import type { MyAPI } from '../main/my-api.ts';

const api = resolveIPC<MyAPI>('MyAPI');

api.on('greeting', ({ text }) => {
  console.log(text);
});

await api.hello('Rupert'); // Hello Rupert

Note: when using renderer import from @rupertsworld/electron-ipc/renderer.

Advanced: custom preload

// preload.ts
import { enableIPC } from '@rupertsworld/electron-ipc';

enableIPC();

Use getPreloadPath() by default. Use custom preload + enableIPC() when you need to own preload wiring (for example adding other preload-only APIs, custom security checks, or project-specific preload boot order).

Important: a consumer-authored preload must be emitted in a format Electron preload can execute in your app setup (commonly bundled/transformed to CJS). Do not point webPreferences.preload at raw TypeScript source.

Try the example app

The repository includes a minimal typed Electron app under example/.

From the package root:

npm run --prefix example start

API

Full API reference: docs/api.md

Contributing

See docs/contributing.md