Electron main plugin

@electron-spark/vite-plugin-electron-main builds and launches the configured Electron main environment during Vite development. Successful rebuilds replace the previous launch; failed builds keep it running. Vite server restarts and server closure also clean up the previous launch.

Process cleanup

Each launch has an independent Node supervisor connected to Vite through a dedicated IPC channel. The supervisor owns Electron and performs cleanup when Vite closes the channel, exits, crashes, or receives kill -9. It exits after cleanup, and normal rebuilds wait for it before launching a replacement. The supervisor runs separately from Vite's terminal process group.

On macOS and Linux, Electron runs in a separate process group. Cleanup sends SIGTERM to that group, allows up to three seconds for graceful exit, then sends SIGKILL to remaining group members. The deadline still applies when Electron exits before its workers. If Electron quits or crashes, the supervisor also cleans up the surviving group automatically.

On Windows, cleanup uses taskkill /PID <pid> /T /F to forcibly terminate Electron and its descendant tree while Electron is still running. There is no graceful signal phase on Windows.

Cleanup has these limits:

• On macOS and Linux, descendants that create a separate process group or session (for example, Node children spawned with detached: true) escape group cleanup. This also applies to Chromium helpers and utilityProcess descendants if they leave the inherited group.
• On Windows, descendants may survive if Electron exits before tree cleanup.
• Cleanup requires the supervisor to survive. Killing the supervisor with SIGKILL, or terminating it together with Vite, prevents cleanup. On macOS and Linux it handles SIGTERM and SIGINT by cleaning up before exiting.

Applications remain responsible for workers outside these bounds.

The supervisor uses Vite's Node executable and receives launch details through IPC. It does not inject scripts through NODE_OPTIONS or write cleanup code to a cache directory, so cleanup does not depend on Electron's Node-options fuse. This behavior applies only to development launches, not packaged applications.