npm-installed wp-studio silently shadows the app's studio shim, allowing indefinite version drift

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Assessment

Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Newbie friendliness
45/100
Issue type
Bug
Clarity
Mostly clear
Activity status
Active
Tech stack
electron, nodejs, typescript
Domain
cli, desktop

Research direction

Start by comparing the npm studio entry in the Node bin directory with /usr/local/bin/studio, ~/.local/bin/studio, and the app's studio-cli.sh. Review the Settings → Studio CLI for terminal toggle and the npm installation path. Done means app-managed shims are not silently shadowed, or a clear version-conflict warning is shown.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Description

[Status] Auto-allocated Bug Customer Report > Indirect Quality Sprint: Week 2

Studio.app installs a studio shim at /usr/local/bin/studio and ~/.local/bin/studio, both pointing at Studio.app/Contents/Resources/bin/studio-cli.sh. That shim uses the app's bundled Node and CLI, so it tracks the app automatically.

Installing the CLI from npm instead puts studio in the Node bin directory, which typically sits earlier on PATH (nvm, Homebrew). From then on, studio in a terminal is the npm copy — and the npm copy does not auto-update. It only prints an "Update available" banner.

I hit this with the npm CLI at 1.11.0 while Studio.app had reached 1.21.0 — ten minor versions apart, with no indication that the studio I was typing wasn't the one the app maintains.

Why this matters beyond tidiness: each install bundles its own PHP runtime and its own copy of sqlite-database-integration (~25 sqlite-related paths and ~30 PHP artifacts in each). Both drive the same site directories and the same .ht.sqlite files. A user in this state has two different SQLite drivers writing the same databases, depending on whether they clicked in the app or typed in a terminal.

Reproduce
  1. Install Studio.app.
  2. npm install -g wp-studio
  3. which -a studio — the npm path wins:
~/.nvm/versions/node/v24.14.0/bin/studio   -> npm wp-studio
~/.local/bin/studio                        -> Studio.app/.../studio-cli.sh
/usr/local/bin/studio                      -> Studio.app/.../studio-cli.sh
  1. Let Studio.app auto-update. The npm copy stays behind indefinitely.
Expected

Either the npm package refuses to shadow an app-managed shim, or studio warns when the CLI and app versions differ, or the Settings → Studio CLI for terminal toggle detects and reports the conflict.

Actual

Silent shadowing and unbounded version drift.

Environment

macOS on Apple M2, Studio.app 1.21.0, wp-studio 1.11.0 from npm, sqlite-database-integration 3.0.0-rc.8.

Dominant language
TypeScript
Stars
523
Forks
99
Avg merge
1d 22h
Merged PRs (30d)
165

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First steps

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  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

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