[Bug]: Linux -> child processes inherit ELECTRON_RUN_AS_NODE=1 and break other Electron apps #1162

Activity

1. gustavoilhamorais

   added

   bugSomething is broken or behaving incorrectly.Something is broken or behaving incorrectly.

   needs-triageIssue needs maintainer review and initial categorization.Issue needs maintainer review and initial categorization.

   on Mar 17, 2026
2. juliusmarminge commented on Jun 20, 2026

   

   juliusmarminge

   on Jun 20, 2026 – with ChatGPT Codex Connector

   Member

   More actions

   The terminal environment sanitizer explicitly blocks ELECTRON_RUN_AS_NODE before spawning child processes, so this is fixed.

   This was closed as part of a large repo-wide maintenance sweep. If you think it's still relevant, please reopen.
3. juliusmarminge

   closed this as completedon Jun 20, 2026
4. rafazaya commented on Aug 29, 2026

   

   rafazaya

   on Aug 29, 2026

   More actions

   This fix is good, but the scope is narrow, and this kind of issue still reproduces on v0.0.36, through a path the terminal fix doesn't cover: agent sessions bypass the sanitizer entirely. Creating a shared helper to be able to cover a broader scope seems like a small fix IMO.

   From a Claude agent session's shell:

   $ env | grep -E '^(APPIMAGE|APPDIR|OWD|LD_LIBRARY_PATH|ELECTRON_RUN_AS_NODE)='
   APPDIR=/tmp/.mount_t3code26Eb74
   OWD=/home/rafa
   LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/tmp/.mount_t3code26Eb74/usr/lib
   APPIMAGE=/home/rafa/.local/bin/t3code.AppImage
   ELECTRON_RUN_AS_NODE=1
   
   $ obsidian
   Error: Cannot find module 'electron'   # same failure as the original report
   

   PATH also still carries the /tmp/.mount_* entries (the #1699 symptom).

   Root cause: the sanitizers from 4b4abcd (TERMINAL_ENV_BLOCKLIST,
   stripAppImageRuntimeEnv) are private to apps/server/src/terminal/Manager.ts
   and only run on the PTY spawn path. Provider sessions build their env in
   apps/server/src/provider/ProviderInstanceEnvironment.ts, where
   mergeProviderInstanceEnvironment defaults baseEnv to process.env and
   returns it unchanged when no custom environment is configured. ClaudeDriver.ts
   (and the other four drivers) pass that straight into the agent spawn, so every
   command an agent runs inherits the Electron/AppImage runtime state.

   Suggested fix: extract the terminal sanitizer into a shared helper and apply
   it in mergeProviderInstanceEnvironment before layering the explicitly
   configured provider variables. One chokepoint covers all five drivers, and the
   desktop→backend spawn (which legitimately needs ELECTRON_RUN_AS_NODE=1) is
   untouched.

   Related: #2867 is the same class of leak on the provider boundary — packaged-backend
   cwd escaping where this is packaged-backend env. A shared "sanitize before provider
   spawn" chokepoint is a natural place to address both.

   Could this be reopened? I'm happy to re-test a build.

   👍React with 👍2Reacted by Xian Zhang and Duncan Overbruck
5. xian0x5a commented on Sep 30, 2026

   

   xian0x5a

   on Sep 30, 2026

   More actions

   i can still see the leakage in a Claude session (not the terminal), on 0.0.44 (Linux AppImage).
   Agent cannot run obsidian cli anymore due to the leakage.