Chrome Extension Boilerplate

A boilerplate to kickstart Chrome extension development.

Features

• Gulp and Webpack build system.
• Crx packaging.
• Live reloading.
• ES6 via Babel.
• Linting via ESLint.

Installation

• npm install -g gulp webpack
• npm install

Starting up

Edit manifest.json and update the name and description. Update your icons in the src/assets directory.

The build system generates three files:

• common.js - Common code shared across the client script and the background script.
• client.js - The client script.
• background.js - The background script.

Depending on your extension you might not need both. If this is the case, remove the entry point from config/webpack.config.js, the settings from manifest.json and the file from src/js.

If you need multiple content scripts, add them in manifest.json, create a file in src/js and add a entry point in config/webpack.config.js.

The build system comes with jQuery and lodash preloaded. If you need more third party scripts, install them via npm and add them to the ProvidePlugin options in config/webpack.config.js.

Running

• Run gulp.
• In the Chrome extensions page, click Load unpacked extension... and select the build directory.

The extension will automatically reload on code changes.

Creating a build

• Add your pem as config/extension.pem.
• gulp build will generate a build in ./dist.

TODO

• Add version bumping.
• Add SASS.
• Remove live reloading code from distribution build.

License

Copyright (c) 2015 Alexandru Badiu.

Licensed under the MIT license.