Can I use environment variables in electron package.json for osx notarize credentials?

Question

Successfully notarized my electron application for osx, but now the issue is that the apple id and app specific password are in the package.json. I of course don't want to hard code them there for distribution but can I use environment variables from say a .env file to replace them or how can I keep them secret in the package.json file?

I looked into dotenv and cross-env but I didn't see how the env variables could be used in a package.json file.

App was built using electron forge.

Structure (taken from the electron-forge docs) that I use:

{
  "name": "my-app",
  "version": "0.0.1",
  "config": {
    "forge": {
      "packagerConfig": {
        "osxSign": {
          "identity": "Developer ID Application: Felix Rieseberg (LT94ZKYDCJ)",
          "hardened-runtime": true,
          "entitlements": "entitlements.plist",
          "entitlements-inherit": "entitlements.plist",
          "signature-flags": "library"
        },
        "osxNotarize": {
          "appleId": "felix@felix.fun",
          "appleIdPassword": "my-apple-id-password",
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

Duplicate of your own post : Where can I find electron forge config js file where package.json is parsed?

You should rather extract the electron forge configuration in a separate JS file : ElectronForge configuration and load your environment variables using process.env.YOUR_VARIABLE_NAME

package.json

{
    "name": "app",
    "description": "app",
    "productName": "app",
    "version": "0.0.0",
    "private": true,
    "scripts": {
    },
    "config": {
        "forge": "./forge.config.js"
    },
...
}

forge.config.js

module.exports = {
    "packagerConfig": {
        "osxSign": {
          "identity": "Developer ID Application: Felix Rieseberg (LT94ZKYDCJ)",
          "hardened-runtime": true,
          "entitlements": "entitlements.plist",
          "entitlements-inherit": "entitlements.plist",
          "signature-flags": "library"
        },
        "osxNotarize": {
          "appleId": process.env.NOTORIZE_APPLE_ID,
          "appleIdPassword": process.env.NOTORIZE_APPLE_ID,
        }
      }
}