Firefox Extension Updates Action

This GitHub Action automates the process of creating and handling self-hosted signed Firefox extension updates. It simplifies the management of your extension's update process by automatically updating the updates.json file and optionally modifying the manifest.json file.

Warning

This action is still really untested and unfinished and should not be used in production. By now it is a proof of concept of only a few hours of work

Prerequisites

To build the extension locally you need to have the package @vercel/ncc by @vercel installed globally.

npm i -g @vercel/ncc

Building the extension

Later you can build the extension with the commands:

npm install
npm run build

the extension will be built in the dist folder.

Run the action locally to mock the extension update URL

You can run locally the action with the command:

node dist/index.js

The action will update or create the updates.json file with the new version of the extension and the manifest.json file with the new update URL.

Mock files

The manifest.json and extension.xpi files are mock files that are used to simulate the extension and its manifest. You can replace them with the actual files of your extension.

Inputs

• branch (required): The branch to be used for the update URL. Default is 'main'.
• file_name (required): The file name of the extension with the relative path from the branch. Default is 'extension.xpi'.
• manifest (required): The path to the manifest.json file. Default is './manifest.json'.
• updates_file (required): The path to the updates.json file. Default is './updates.json'.
• create_version (optional): Create a version entry if it does not exist. Default is true.
• update_version (optional): Update the version entry if it already exists. Default is false.
• update_info_url (optional): The full URL to the update info. Default is an empty string.
• update_manifest (optional): Update the update_url in the manifest. Default is true.

Outputs

• version: The version specified in the manifest.

Usage

To use this action in your workflow, add the following step:

- name: Firefox Extension Updates
  uses: imigueldiaz/[email protected]
  with:
    branch: 'main'
    file_name: 'extension.xpi'
    manifest: './manifest.json'
    updates_file: './updates.json'
    create_version: true
    update_version: false
    update_manifest: true

Make sure to replace your-username and your-repo with the appropriate values. Functionality The action performs the following steps:

Reads the manifest.json file and extracts the extension ID and version.
Calculates the SHA512 hash of the extension file.
Updates or creates a version entry in the updates.json file based on the provided inputs.
Optionally updates the update_url in the manifest.json file.

By using this action, you can automate the process of managing your Firefox extension updates directly from your GitHub repository.

License

The scripts and documentation in this project are released under the MIT License

Contributions

Contributions are welcome. Feel free to open a PR or file an issue.

Acknowledgements

@vercel for the @vercel/ncc package.