# Electron Dev on Codespaces

Welcome to the Codespaces Electron Developer Environment.

## Quick Start

Upon creation of your codespace you should have [build tools](https://github.com/electron/build-tools) installed and an initialized gclient checkout of Electron.  In order to build electron you'll need to run the following command.

```bash
e build
```

The initial build will take ~8 minutes.  Incremental builds are substantially quicker.  If you pull changes from upstream that touch either the `patches` folder or the `DEPS` folder you will have to run `e sync` in order to keep your checkout up to date.

## Directory Structure

Codespaces doesn't lean very well into gclient based checkouts, the directory structure is slightly strange.  There are two locations for the `electron` checkout that both map to the same files under the hood.

```graphql
# Primary gclient checkout container
/workspaces/gclient/*
  └─ src/* - # Chromium checkout
     └─ electron - # Electron checkout
# Symlinked Electron checkout (identical to the above)
/workspaces/electron
```

## Reclient

If you are a maintainer [with Reclient access](../docs/development/reclient.md) you'll need to ensure you're authenticated when you spin up a new codespaces instance.  You can validate this by checking `e d rbe info` - your build-tools configuration should have `Access` type `Cache & Execute`:

```console
Authentication Status: Authenticated
Since:     2024-05-28 10:29:33 +0200 CEST
Expires:   2024-08-26 10:29:33 +0200 CEST
...
Access:    Cache & Execute
```

To authenticate if you're not logged in, run `e d rbe login` and follow the link to authenticate.

## Running Electron

You can run Electron in a few ways.  If you just want to see if it launches:

```bash
# Enter an interactive JS prompt headlessly
xvfb-run e start -i
```

But if you want to actually see Electron you will need to use the built-in VNC capability.  If you click "Ports" in codespaces and then open the `VNC web client` forwarded port you should see a web based VNC portal in your browser.  When you are asked for a password use `builduser`.

Once in the VNC UI you can open `Applications -> System -> XTerm` which will open a VNC based terminal app and then you can run `e start` like normal and Electron will open in your VNC session.

## Running Tests

You run tests via build-tools and `xvfb`.

```bash
# Run all tests
xvfb-run e test

# Run the main process tests
xvfb-run e test --runners=main

# Run the old remote tests
xvfb-run e test --runners=remote
```