Development

Freelens development

Nightly builds

You can download the nightly builds of the current main branch.

Build from the source

You can build the application using this repository.

Prerequisites

Install a compiler and Python setuptools, for example:

# Debian/Ubuntu
apt install build-essential python3-setuptools libnss3 
# MacOS
brew install bash python3-setuptools
# Windows
winget install Microsoft.VisualStudio.2022.Community Python.Python.3.13
& 'C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\Installer\vs_installer.exe'
# then install required components

Use NVM or mise-en-place or windows-nvm to install the required Node.js version.

From the root of this repository:

nvm install
# or
mise install
# or
winget install CoreyButler.NVMforWindows
nvm install 22.14.0
nvm use 22.14.0

Install Pnpm:

corepack install
# or
curl -fsSL https://get.pnpm.io/install.sh | sh -
# or
winget install pnpm.pnpm

Build app

pnpm i
pnpm build
pnpm build:app dir
# note: on Windows build:app must be ran in elevated mode

Run it from the directory:

pnpm start

Cross compilation

You can build arm64 binary on Linux amd64 or amd64 binary on MacOS arm64.

On Linux, install cross-compiler (macOS includes this by default):

# Debian/Ubuntu
apt install gcc-aarch64-linux-gnu g++-aarch64-linux-gnu

Then set the environment with support for other architectures:

# Debian/Ubuntu
export CC=aarch64-linux-gnu-gcc CXX=aarch64-linux-gnu-g++
export DOWNLOAD_ALL_ARCHITECTURES=true
# MacOS
export DOWNLOAD_ALL_ARCHITECTURES=true

And rebuild binary packages for the foreign architecture:

# Debian/Ubuntu
pnpm electron-rebuild -a arm64
# MacOS
pnpm electron-rebuild -a x64

Finally, generate binary packages:

# Debian/Ubuntu
pnpm build:app AppImage deb --arm64
# MacOS
pnpm build:app dmg pkg --x64

Run app

To run the app in developer mode:

pnpm dev

Additional components

This application uses additional components hosted in separate repositories:

• freelens-k8s-proxy

It bundles binaries for:

• helm
• kubectl

The Renovate bot keeps the versions up-to-date.

The Automated kubectl versions workflow updates the list of the latest kubectl patch versions for each minor version.

Distribution

Additional repositories for distributing packages:

• Flathub
• Homebrew
• Snapcraft
• WinGet

Releasing

The Automated npm version workflow prepares a new PR for semantic versioning. After the PR is merged, the Release workflow handles the release process:

1. Prepares a new draft release.
2. Builds and notarizes binaries for each supported OS and architecture.
3. Finalizes the new release.
4. Publishes NPM packages.
5. Adds the indexes for APT repository.