Launchd shell env bootstrap

Load user's shell env into an Electron macOS app

When to use

• Electron app that spawns dev-tool subprocesses (git, gh, brew, pyenv, nvm-managed node, etc.).
• macOS users launch your app from Finder/Dock (not Terminal) and the agent can't find their tools.
• Don't want to hand-roll "add /usr/local/bin to PATH" - you want whatever zsh -l -i would give them.

How it works

1. Only run on macOS (process.platform === 'darwin'); skip on Linux (desktop environments usually give a full env), skip on Windows (different model entirely).
2. Skip if VITE_DEV_SERVER_URL is set (dev mode runs from Terminal, env is already present).
3. execSync('${SHELL} -l -i -c "echo __ENV_START__ && env"'):
   • -l = login shell (sources .zprofile, .bash_profile).
   • -i = interactive shell (sources .zshrc, .bashrc).
   • The __ENV_START__ marker separates shell startup noise from the env dump.
4. Pass minimal env to the child: HOME, USER, SHELL, TERM=xterm-256color, TMPDIR. Set APPLE_SUPPRESS_DEVELOPER_TOOL_POPUP=1 + GIT_TERMINAL_PROMPT=0 to avoid interactive popups during the env dump.
5. Split after __ENV_START__, parse KEY=VALUE lines, merge into process.env.
6. Filter out unsafe imports like VITE_* - those would make the packaged app try to load the renderer from a dev server.
7. Use timeout: 5000 - if user has a broken shell, don't hang app startup forever.

Example

import { execSync } from 'child_process';

export function loadShellEnv(): void {
  if (process.platform !== 'darwin') return;
  if (process.env.VITE_DEV_SERVER_URL) return;
  const shell = process.env.SHELL || '/bin/zsh';
  try {
    const out = execSync(`${shell} -l -i -c 'echo __ENV_START__ && env'`, {
      encoding: 'utf8', timeout: 5000, stdio: ['pipe', 'pipe', 'pipe'],
      env: {
        HOME: process.env.HOME, USER: process.env.USER, SHELL: shell,
        TERM: 'xterm-256color', TMPDIR: process.env.TMPDIR,
        APPLE_SUPPRESS_DEVELOPER_TOOL_POPUP: '1', GIT_TERMINAL_PROMPT: '0',
      },
    });
    const env = out.split('__ENV_START__')[1] || '';
    for (const line of env.trim().split('\n')) {
      const eq = line.indexOf('='); if (eq < 1) continue;
      const key = line.slice(0, eq); if (key.startsWith('VITE_')) continue;
      process.env[key] = line.slice(eq + 1);
    }
  } catch { /* log, continue */ }
}

Gotchas

• Must run BEFORE any import that reads env (require ordering matters). In the main file, make this the literal first import side-effect.
• Interactive shells can emit color codes / prompts; the marker pattern prevents false positives but consider also unsetting PS1 / PROMPT.
• zsh -l -i is slow (50-200ms) on some setups. That's the cost of being right. Cache the result across app launches keyed on zshrc mtime if startup budget matters.
• Be wary of loading user-defined vars that can break your app (NODE_OPTIONS=--inspect-brk) - filter aggressively if you've seen breakage.
• On packaged builds, blocking startup on this is fine; in dev, terminal already has env, so skip.