Generate manifest.json using package.json data on build?

[lmorchard]

So, with SDK addons, we stick the metadata in package.json. For webext, we stick metadata in manifest.json. Stubbed my brain on this difference while working on #102 and trying to bump version numbers.

Since we have a build process, it might be handy to have manifest.json be a templated & generated artifact based on data from package.json.

[pdehaan]

@lmorchard What fields in manifest.json would be variable?

• version — definitely.
• name — maybe, but how likely are we to rename this?
• description — maybe?
• author — package.json is Blake, src/manifest.json is Mozilla
• homepage => homepage_url — maybe?

[lmorchard]

Version's definitely variable - and tracking down errors in the auto-build process & editing the wrong file is what led me to this.

As for the rest, the data is all mostly redundant between two JSON files in two different spots. Also potentially inconsistent (e.g. author). Thinking this will all also be useful example stuff for the next Test Pilot experiment.

[pdehaan]

Here's a super weak attempt (./bin/sync-manifest.js) which keeps the version in sync, but should be pretty trivial to extend to other properties:

#!/usr/bin/env node

const { writeFileSync } = require('fs');

const manifestPath = require.resolve('../src/manifest.json');

const { version } = require('../package.json');
const manifest = require(manifestPath);

const data = Object.assign(manifest, { version });

writeFileSync(manifestPath, JSON.stringify(data, null, 2) + '\n');

I imagine it may be easiest to add this to a npm prebuild script hook, so the manifest.json gets automatically updated before npm run build gets called.

[bwinton]

We would also want to run it on watch, so that I use the fancy "Load Temporary Add-on" button… 🙂
In another project, I used a gulp thing to do it, and that seemed to work out pretty well!