Next Electron React Server Components

With the emergence of React Server Components and Server Actions writing Web apps became easier than ever. The simplicity when developer has all server APIs right inside the Web app, natively, with types and full support from Next.js framework for example (and other RSC frameworks too, of course) is astonishing.

At the same time, Electron is a de-facto standard for modern desktop apps written using web technologies, especially when application must have filesystem and other system API access, while being written in JS (Tauri receives an honorable mention here if you know Rust or if you only need a simple WebView2 shell).

Please read the full article if you're interested in the topic and the mechanics how this library works: https://medium.com/@kirill.konshin/the-ultimate-electron-app-with-next-js-and-react-server-components-a5c0cabda72b.

This library makes it straightforward to use combination of Next.js running in Electron, the best way to develop desktop apps.

Capabilities

• ✅ No open ports in production mode
• ✅ React Server Components
• ✅ Full support of Next.js features (Pages and App routers, images)
• ✅ Full support of Electron features in Next.js pages & route handlers
• ✅ Next.js Dev Server & HMR

Installation & Usage

Install depencencies:

$ npm install next-electron-rsc next
$ npm install electron electron-builder --save-dev
# or
$ yarn add next-electron-rsc next
$ yarn add electron electron-builder --dev

⚠️ Next.js need to be installed as dependency, not as devDependency. This is because Electron needs to run Next.js in same context in production mode. Electron Builder and similar libraries will not copy devDependencies into final app bundle.

In some cases Electron may not install itself correctly, so you may need to run:

$ node node_modules/electron/install.js

You can also add this to prepare script in package.json. See comment.

{
  "scripts": {
    "prepare": "node node_modules/electron/install.js"
  }
}

Add following to your main.js or main.ts in Electron

import path from 'path';
import { app, BrowserWindow, Menu, protocol, session, shell } from 'electron';
import { createHandler } from 'next-electron-rsc';

let mainWindow;

process.on('SIGTERM', () => process.exit(0));
process.on('SIGINT', () => process.exit(0));

// ⬇ Next.js handler ⬇

// change to your path, make sure it's added to Electron Builder files
const appPath = app.getAppPath();
const dev = process.env.NODE_ENV === 'development';
const dir = path.join(appPath, '.next', 'standalone', 'demo');

const { createInterceptor, localhostUrl } = createHandler({
  dev,
  dir,
  protocol,
  debug: true,
  // ... and other Nex.js server options https://nextjs.org/docs/pages/building-your-application/configuring/custom-server
  turbo: true, // optional
});

let stopIntercept;

// ⬆ Next.js handler ⬆

const createWindow = async () => {
  mainWindow = new BrowserWindow({
    width: 1600,
    height: 800,
    webPreferences: {
      contextIsolation: true, // protect against prototype pollution
      devTools: true,
    },
  });

  // ⬇ Next.js handler ⬇

  stopIntercept = await createInterceptor({ session: mainWindow.webContents.session });

  // ⬆ Next.js handler ⬆

  mainWindow.once('ready-to-show', () => mainWindow.webContents.openDevTools());

  mainWindow.on('closed', () => {
    mainWindow = null;
    stopIntercept?.();
  });

  // Should be last, after all listeners and menu

  await app.whenReady();

  await mainWindow.loadURL(localhostUrl + '/');

  console.log('[APP] Loaded', localhostUrl);
};

app.on('ready', createWindow);

app.on('window-all-closed', () => app.quit()); // if (process.platform !== 'darwin')

app.on('activate', () => BrowserWindow.getAllWindows().length === 0 && !mainWindow && createWindow());

Ensure Next.js pages are dynamic

With the library you can call Electron APIs directly from Next.js server side pages & route handlers: app/page.tsx, app/api/route.ts and so on.

Write your pages same way as usual, with only difference is that now everything "server" is running on target user machine with access to system APIs like file system, notifications, etc.

Pages

// app/page.tsx
import electron, { app } from 'electron';

export const dynamic = 'force-dynamic'; // ⚠️⚠️⚠️ THIS IS REQUIRED TO ENSURE PAGE IS DYNAMIC, NOT PRE-BUILT

export default async function Page() {
  electron.shell?.beep();
  return <div>{app.getVersion()}</div>;
}

Route Handlers

// app/api/route.ts
import { NextRequest, NextResponse } from 'next/server';
import electron from 'electron';

export const dynamic = 'force-dynamic'; // ⚠️⚠️⚠️ THIS IS REQUIRED TO ENSURE PAGE IS DYNAMIC, NOT PRE-BUILT

export async function POST(req: NextRequest) {
  return NextResponse.json({
    message: 'Hello from Next.js! in response to ' + (await req.text()),
    electron: electron.app.getVersion(),
  });
}

Configure your Next.js in next.config.ts

import type { NextConfig } from 'next';

const nextConfig: NextConfig = {
  output: 'standalone',
  outputFileTracingIncludes: {
    '*': ['public/**/*', '.next/static/**/*'],
  },
  serverExternalPackages: ['electron'], // to prevent bundling Electron
};

if (process.env.NODE_ENV === 'development') delete nextConfig.output; // for HMR

export default nextConfig;

Set up build

I suggest to use Electron Builder to bundle the Electron app. Just add some configuration to electron-builder.yml:

Replace %PACKAGENAME% with what you have in name property in package.json.

Electron Builder v26+

asar: false

files:
  - build
  - '.next/standalone/%PACKAGENAME%/**/*'
  - '!.next/standalone/%PACKAGENAME%/node_modules/electron'

Electron Builder v25 and below

asar: false
includeSubNodeModules: true

files:
  - build
  - from: '.next/standalone/%PACKAGENAME%/'
    to: '.next/standalone/%PACKAGENAME%/'

Convenience scripts

For convenience, you can add following scripts to package.json:

{
  "scripts": {
    "build": "yarn build:next && yarn build:electron",
    "build:next": "next build",
    "build:electron": "electron-builder --config electron-builder.yml",
    "start": "electron ."
  }
}

Typescript In Electron

Create a separate tsconfig-electron.json and use it to build TS before you run Electron, it is also recommended to separate Next.js codebase in src and Electron entrypoint in src-electron.

Here's an example that assumes Electron app is in src-electron, as in the demo::

{
  "compilerOptions": {
    "esModuleInterop": true,
    "jsx": "react",
    "moduleResolution": "node",
    "target": "es2022",
    "module": "es2022",
    "outDir": "build",
    "rootDir": "src-electron",
    "resolveJsonModule": true
  },
  "include": ["src-electron/**/*.ts", "src-electron/**/*.json"]
}

Install tsc-watch:

$ npm install tsc-watch --save-dev
# or
$ yarn add tsc-watch --dev

Then add this to your package.json:

{
  "scripts": {
    "build": "yarn clean && yarn build:next && yarn build:ts && yarn build:electron",
    "build:next": "next build",
    "build:ts": "tsc --project tsconfig-electron.json",
    "build:electron": "electron-builder --config electron-builder.yml",
    "start": "tsc-watch --noClear --onSuccess 'electron .' --project tsconfig-electron.json"
  }
}

Technical Details

1. Electron entrypoint in src-electron/index.ts imports the library import { createHandler } from 'next-electron-rsc';
2. Library imports Next.js:
   1. As types
   2. require(resolve.sync('next', { basedir: dir })) in prod mode
   3. require(resolve.sync('next/dist/server/lib/start-server', { basedir: dir })) in dev mode

This ensures both Electron and Next.js are running in the same context, so Next.js has direct access to Electron APIs.

Demo

The demo separates src of Next.js and src-electron of Electron, this ensures Next.js does not try to compile Electron. Electron itself is built using TypeScript.

To quickly run the demo, clone this repo and run:

yarn
yarn build
cd demo
yarn start

You should hear the OS beep, that's Electron shell API in action, called from Next.js server page.

Demo source: https://github.com/kirill-konshin/next-electron-rsc/tree/main/demo