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• This boilerplate adoptsManifest V3!
  • For V2 users, please check out themanifest-v2 branch, or use version3.x.
  • Check out theManifest V3 Migration Guide.
• Recently addeddevtools Support! ThanksGeekaholicLin!
• Recently updated fromReact16 to17!
• Recently updated fromWebpack Dev Server3.x to4.x andWebpack4 to5!
• Recently addedTypeScript Support!

This is a basic Chrome Extensions boilerplate to help you write modular and modern Javascript code, load CSS easily andautomatic reload the browser on code changes.

This boilerplate is updated with:

• Chrome Extension Manifest V3
• React 17
• Webpack 5
• Webpack Dev Server 4
• React Hot Loader
• eslint-config-react-app
• Prettier
• TypeScript

This boilerplate is heavily inspired by and adapted fromhttps://github.com/samuelsimoes/chrome-extension-webpack-boilerplate, with additional support for React 17 features, Webpack 5, and Webpack Dev Server 4.

Please open up an issue to nudge me to keep the npm packages up-to-date. FYI, it takes time to make different packages with different versions work together nicely.

1. Check if yourNode.js version is >=14.
2. Clone this repository.
3. Change the package'sname,description, andrepository fields inpackage.json.
4. Change the name of your extension onsrc/manifest.json.
5. Runnpm install to install the dependencies.
6. Runnpm start
7. Load your extension on Chrome following:
   1. Accesschrome://extensions/
   2. CheckDeveloper mode
   3. Click onLoad unpacked extension
   4. Select thebuild folder.
8. Happy hacking.

All your extension's code must be placed in thesrc folder.

The boilerplate is already prepared to have a popup, an options page, a background page, and a new tab page (which replaces the new tab page of your browser). But feel free to customize these.

This boilerplate now supports TypeScript! TheOptions Page is implemented using TypeScript. Please refer tosrc/pages/Options/ for example usages.

To make your workflow much more efficient this boilerplate uses thewebpack server to development (started withnpm start) with auto reload feature that reloads the browser automatically every time that you save some file in your editor.

You can run the dev mode on other port if you want. Just specify the env varport like this:

$ PORT=6002 npm run start

Although this boilerplate uses the webpack dev server, it's also prepared to write all your bundles files on the disk at every code change, so you can point, on your extension manifest, to your bundles that you want to use ascontent scripts, but you need to exclude these entry points from hot reloading(why?). To do so you need to expose which entry points are content scripts on thewebpack.config.js using thechromeExtensionBoilerplate -> notHotReload config. Look the example below.

Let's say that you want use themyContentScript entry point as content script, so on yourwebpack.config.js you will configure the entry point and exclude it from hot reloading, like this:

{…  entry:{myContentScript:"./src/js/myContentScript.js"},chromeExtensionBoilerplate:{notHotReload:["myContentScript"]}…}

and on yoursrc/manifest.json:

{"content_scripts": [    {"matches": ["https://www.google.com/*"],"js": ["myContentScript.bundle.js"]    }  ]}

Thanks to@hudidit's kind suggestions, this boilerplate supports chrome-specific intelligent code completion using@types/chrome.

After the development of your extension run the command

$ NODE_ENV=production npm run build

Now, the content ofbuild folder will be the extension ready to be submitted to the Chrome Web Store. Just take a look at theofficial guide to more infos about publishing.

If you are developing an extension that talks with some API you probably are using different keys for testing and production. Is a good practice you not commit your secret keys and expose to anyone that have access to the repository.

To this task this boilerplate import the file./secrets.<THE-NODE_ENV>.js on your modules through the module named assecrets, so you can do things like this:

./secrets.development.js

exportdefault{key:'123'};

./src/popup.js

importsecretsfrom'secrets';ApiCall({key:secrets.key});

👉 The files with namesecrets.*.js already are ignored on the repository.

• Webpack documentation
• Chrome Extension documentation

Michael Xieyang Liu |Website