I have to reinstall my personal extension every time Firefox restarts. It's so annoying that I ended up writing an AutoHotKey script just to automate it (go to about:debugging#/runtime/this-firefox -> load temporary extension -> select manifest.json). Glad to see the announcement!

You can already use web-ext to sign it; it doesn't need to be published (you can keep the extension private). It's just that you need to be logged in to download it and can't really provide a "share link" (but you can of course upload/send that .xpi to anyone).

I have a few private extensions like this (e.g. for HN, GOG, my own new tab page, etc.). I don't have the exact steps for this at the handy, been meaning to do a write-up at some point, but my mk script is just "$webext sign --channel unlisted --api-key $jwt_issue --api-secret $jwt_secret" – I don't recall if you need to create it the extension in the Mozilla web UI first, but I don't think so(?)

Thanks! I thought this was impossible. Gonna try it out today.

Edit: I successfully signed the key on AMO. Here are the steps:

    Get an access token from https://addons.mozilla.org/developers/addon/api/key/
    In manifest.json, add browser_specific_settings.gecko.id and set it to something like "[email protected]"
    Run command: web-ext sign --api-key=<jwt-issuer> --api-secret=<jwt-secret> --channel=unlisted
    That command will upload your extension to AMO. After an automatic review, you can download the .xpi file from AMO.

That said, it's not ideal for me since I make extensions for work. Looks like a human reviewer can check your code at any time.

> Looks like a human reviewer can check your code at any time.

Yeah, not entirely sure how this works. I've been doing this for a few years with a bunch of extensions, and thus far it's always just been automatically approved (although that does take a few minutes).

>but was put off by it having to be public or manually installed

Even prior to this there was an option to upload an extension to AMO for "private distribution". Mozilla will sign your extension so it installs without a fuss, but it won't be hosted on AMO. You can still host it on your personal website, or share the .xpi file though.

Wow so I can upload my extension to firefox servers privately and without needing review process maybe ? and install it on all my device ? (via autosync I suppose?) Thats handy.