You can! It's far more annoying, but I've been running a few that I've made for myself
In `about:config`, set `xpinstall.signatures.required` to false, and then you can an unsigned bundled extension locally and they'll persist like normal extensions.
If this is not in the MDN refs anywhere yet, it really should be. I’ve been battling with web-ext for a week now after something mysterious broke that I’ve not yet been able to fix. I’m so glad you posted!
It looks like that doesn’t work in the regular version of Firefox – only Nightly, Developer, or one of the unbranded versions. Is that true in your experience?