Three real bugs from teknium1's first Windows install run:
1. **MinGit has no bash.exe.** MinGit is the minimal-automation Git for Windows
distribution — it ships git.exe but deliberately strips bash and the POSIX
coreutils. Installer logged "Could not locate bash.exe" and Hermes would
fail to run any shell command. Switched to PortableGit — the full Git for
Windows minus the installer UI. PortableGit ships bash.exe at
<root>\bin\bash.exe plus sh, awk, sed, grep, curl, ssh in usr\bin\. ARM64
variant is detected separately (PortableGit-*-arm64.7z.exe). 32-bit falls
back to MinGit-32-bit with a warning (PortableGit is 64-bit only).
PortableGit ships as a 7z self-extractor (56MB vs MinGit's 38MB). We
invoke it with `-o<target> -y` to extract silently — no 7z install needed,
it's self-contained.
Updated tools/environments/local.py::_find_bash candidate order to prefer
the PortableGit layout (<root>\bin\bash.exe) with the MinGit layout
(<root>\usr\bin\bash.exe) as a fallback so existing installs keep working.
2. **os.execvp "Exec format error" on Windows.** Setup wizard's "Launch
hermes chat now? Y" called `os.execvp(["hermes", "chat"])` which on
Windows can only swap to real Win32 .exe files — chokes with OSError(8)
on .cmd batch shims and Python console-script wrappers. Added a
win32 branch in hermes_cli/relaunch.py::relaunch() that uses
subprocess.run + sys.exit — functionally identical (user sees "hermes
exited, then new hermes started") with one extra PID in play. POSIX
path is UNCHANGED — still uses os.execvp for in-place replacement.
Catches OSError in the Windows branch and surfaces a "open a new
terminal so PATH picks up, then re-run hermes" hint instead of a
cryptic traceback.
3. **npm install failures silent on Windows.** The install.ps1 was invoking
`npm install --silent 2>&1 | Out-Null` inside a try/catch. PowerShell's
try/catch does NOT trigger on non-zero process exit codes — only on
unhandled .NET exceptions — so npm failing printed a generic "npm
install failed" with zero information about WHY. The silent pipe ate
the stderr.
Rewrote Install-NodeDeps to:
- Resolve npm.cmd via Get-Command (respects PATHEXT) instead of
relying on bare `npm` name resolution.
- Use Start-Process with -PassThru to capture the actual exit code.
- Redirect stderr to a temp log and surface the first ~800 chars of
the real npm error when install fails, plus the log path for the
full text.
- Fail loudly with the right exit code instead of a misleading success.
- Bail cleanly with a helpful message when npm isn't on PATH at all.
4. **"True" printing to console after Node check.** `Test-Node` returns $true;
installer called it as a bare statement (no assignment, no cast). PowerShell
prints bare return values. Wrapped the call in `[void](Test-Node)`.
## Tests
- Added 3 new tests in tests/hermes_cli/test_relaunch.py covering the
Windows branch: subprocess is called (not execvp), child exit code
propagates, OSError surfaces a helpful message. All 23 tests pass
(20 existing + 3 new).
- 77 Windows-compat tests still pass, POSIX behaviour unchanged.
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