Development

This guide covers building Ember from source for development or packaging.

Prerequisites

Node.js 20+
Bun (package manager)
Rust + cargo + rustup
flatpak-builder (for Flatpak builds)

Install Bun

Debian / Ubuntu / Fedora

curl -fsSL https://bun.sh/install | bash

Arch

yay -S bun-bin
# or
paru -S bun-bin

Cross-compilation setup (optional)

For ARM64 builds from an x86_64 machine:

# Add ARM64 architecture
sudo dpkg --add-architecture arm64

# Add ARM64 repositories (replace `noble` with your Ubuntu version)
cat <<EOF | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ubuntu-ports-arm64.list
deb [arch=arm64] http://ports.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-ports noble main restricted universe multiverse
deb [arch=arm64] http://ports.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-ports noble-updates main restricted universe multiverse
deb [arch=arm64] http://ports.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-ports noble-security main restricted universe multiverse
EOF

sudo apt update
sudo apt install gcc-aarch64-linux-gnu libc6-dev-arm64-cross flatpak-builder rpm libasound2-dev:arm64

# Rust target
rustup target add aarch64-unknown-linux-gnu

Install dependencies

bun install

Development server

bun run dev

This starts the Electron app with hot reload for both the main and renderer processes.

Build for production

bun run build

Build distribution packages

Builds all configured Linux targets for both x64 and arm64:

bun run dist

Build a specific target:

bun run dist --linux deb
bun run dist --linux flatpak
bun run dist --linux AppImage