Build IPC for Electron with tRPC

• Expose APIs from Electron's main process to one or more render processes.
• Build fully type-safe IPC.
• Secure alternative to opening servers on localhost.
• Subscription support coming soon.

# Using pnpm
pnpm add electron-trpc

# Using yarn
yarn add electron-trpc

# Using npm
npm install --save electron-trpc

1. Add your tRPC router to the Electron main process using createIPCHandler:

   import { app, ipcMain } from 'electron';
   import { createIPCHandler } from 'electron-trpc';
   import { router, createContext } from './api';
   
   app.on('ready', () => {
     createIPCHandler({ ipcMain, router, createContext });
   
     // ...
   });

2. Expose the IPC to the render process from the preload file:

   import { contextBridge, ipcRenderer } from 'electron';
   import { exposeElectronTRPC } from 'electron-trpc';
   
   process.once('loaded', async () => {
     exposeElectronTRPC({ contextBridge, ipcRenderer });
   });

   Note: electron-trpc depends on contextIsolation being enabled, which is the default.

3. When creating the client in the render process, use the ipcLink (instead of the HTTP or batch HTTP links):

   import * as trpc from '@trpc/client';
   import { ipcLink } from 'electron-trpc';
   
   export const trpcClient = trpc.createTRPCClient({
     links: [ipcLink()],
   });

4. Now you can use the client in your render process as you normally would (e.g. using @trpc/react).