No support for background page or preferred environment in manifest

[apexskier]

Build tool

Vite

Describe the bug

No support for page or preferred_environment in manifest types.

I'm developing an extension that targets Safari as well as other browsers. In order to get a decent development environment in Safari, I use a background script instead of a service worker. To target Chrome with the same manifest, I generate something like this:

  "background": {
    "service_worker": "service-worker-loader.js",
    "scripts": ["assets/index.ts-XXXXXXX.js"],
    "preferred_environment": "document",
    "type": "module"
  }

Chrome uses the service_worker, Safari a background script. However, this plugin doesn't support that (it won't generate both the service_worker and scripts entries). Typechecking fails, and it won't output, the preferred_environment key (same for the page key, which I was trying to use at one point).

Documentation is at https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Add-ons/WebExtensions/manifest.json/background

Reproduction

chrome-extension-tools/packages/vite-plugin/src/node/manifest.ts

Lines 48 to 51 in 303b696

	background?:
	| ChromeManifestBackground
	| FirefoxManifestBackground
	| undefined

System Info

System:
    OS: macOS 26.0
    CPU: (12) arm64 Apple M2 Pro
    Memory: 561.67 MB / 32.00 GB
    Shell: 3.2.57 - /bin/bash
  Binaries:
    Node: 22.19.0 - /opt/homebrew/bin/node
    Yarn: 1.22.19 - /opt/homebrew/bin/yarn
    npm: 10.9.3 - /opt/homebrew/bin/npm
  Browsers:
    Brave Browser: 136.1.78.94
    Chrome: 140.0.7339.186
    Safari: 26.0
  npmPackages:
    @crxjs/vite-plugin: ^2.0.3 => 2.0.3 
    vite: ^6.3.5 => 6.3.5

Severity

blocking all usage of RPCE

[Toumash]

It is safari-specific as i cant find it in chrome typings
https://github.com/DefinitelyTyped/DefinitelyTyped/blob/f2fcf51a0c379dc8daca803be36df971c14d5078/types/chrome/index.d.ts#L8956

Im amazed that safari loads the chrome extension, but it should be a doable feature - you're welcome to publish a PR with that change as i understood that the rest of the app works just fine, right?

We already have some firefox-specific changes

chrome-extension-tools/packages/vite-plugin/src/node/plugin-background.ts

Line 57 in 303b696

const worker =

last manifest PR #1015

[github-actions]

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