Windows: Doctor binary resolver ignores %PATH%, reports installed git, gh, git-lfs, goose, cursor-agent as missing
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Assessment
- Difficulty
- 4/5
- Estimated time
- 3-5 days
- Newbie friendliness
- 64/100
- Issue type
- Bug
- Clarity
- Mostly clear
- Activity status
- Active
- Tech stack
- typescript
Research direction
Start at the binary resolver's resolve_binary implementation and reproduce Berd Doctor on Windows using the resolver trace in the issue. The fix is done when PATH/PATHEXT resolution finds git, gh, git-lfs, Goose, and Cursor Agent, POSIX-only strategies are skipped on Windows, and npm is invoked through npm.cmd there.
Written by the indexing model from the issue text.
Description
Before filing
- I searched open and closed issues for duplicates.
- I reproduced this on the latest release.
- This is one bug, not several bundled together.
Closest existing issue
#108 (Windows extended-length path prefix in the terminal panel). Same platform, different code path. Not a duplicate.
What's broken
On Windows, the Berd Doctor binary resolver never consults %PATH% or PATHEXT. It reports git, GitHub CLI, git-lfs, Goose, and Cursor Agent as missing while all five are installed and resolvable on the system PATH.
Steps to reproduce
- Launch Berd on Windows 11.
- Install Git for Windows and GitHub CLI so they land on the machine PATH. In my case
C:\Program Files\Git\cmdandC:\Program Files\GitHub CLI\. - Confirm they resolve:
git --versionandgh --versionboth succeed in PowerShell and in Git Bash. - Run Berd Doctor.
- Read the Tools and Agents sections.
No chat session or agent turn is involved.
What you expected to happen
Berd Doctor finds any binary that Windows itself can resolve. Git, GitHub CLI, and git-lfs pass.
What actually happened
Git and GitHub CLI report FAIL. Git LFS, Goose, and Cursor Agent report WARN as not installed. GitHub Auth reports FAIL because it depends on the failed gh lookup.
All of them are present:
| Reported | Actual |
|---|---|
| Git not found | git 2.55.0.windows.5, C:\Program Files\Git\cmd |
| GitHub CLI not found | gh 2.98.0, C:\Program Files\GitHub CLI\ |
| Git LFS not installed | git-lfs 3.7.1 |
| Goose not installed | C:\Users\<user>\goose\goose.exe |
| Cursor Agent not installed | C:\Users\<user>\AppData\Local\cursor-agent\cursor-agent.cmd |
| GitHub Auth: gh not found | gh auth status shows a valid logged in account |
The resolver trace shows three strategies, and all three are Unix assumptions:
- Login shell lookup spawns
/bin/zsh -land/bin/bash -l. Neither path exists on Windows, so both fail with os error 3. - Common install paths are Unix prefixes only, and they are joined with a mixed separator, for example
/usr/local/bin\git. These can never match on Windows. - The npm strategy spawns bare
npm, which isnpm.cmdon Windows, so it fails with "program not found".
No strategy performs a plain %PATH% lookup with PATHEXT extension probing, which is where every one of these binaries actually lives.
Note that the Claude Code check passes. It resolves through Berd's own managed packages\bin directory rather than through resolve_binary, which is consistent with the resolver being the faulty component.
How often does it happen?
Every time. Reliably reproducible.
Berd version
0.6.2
Operating system
Windows
Model and provider
n/a
Relevant log output
berd.log records nothing for the doctor run. The doctor's own resolver trace is the relevant output. Paths left intact because they are the subject of the bug.
# Check: Git - verify git is installed and reachable
not found via resolve_binary
resolve 'git':
strategy 1 - login shell path lookup:
/bin/zsh -l -c 'whence -p -- 'git'' => error: failed to spawn `/bin/zsh -l -c 'whence -p -- 'git''`: The system cannot find the path specified. (os error 3)
/bin/bash -l -c 'type -P -- 'git'' => error: failed to spawn `/bin/bash -l -c 'type -P -- 'git''`: The system cannot find the path specified. (os error 3)
strategy 2 - common install paths:
/opt/homebrew/bin\git => not found
/usr/local/bin\git => not found
/usr/bin\git => not found
/home/linuxbrew/.linuxbrew/bin\git => not found
strategy 3 - npm global install dirs:
C:\Users\<user>\.npm-global/bin\git => not found
C:\Users\<user>\.npm/bin\git => not found
npm prefix -g => error: failed to spawn `npm prefix -g`: program not found
not found in any location
The gh, git-lfs, goose, and cursor-agent traces are identical in shape.
Suggested fix
Add a Windows strategy that resolves through %PATH% with PATHEXT, and skip the POSIX shell and Unix prefix strategies on Windows. Spawning npm should also use npm.cmd on Windows.
- Dominant language
- TypeScript
- Stars
- 928
- Forks
- 121
- Avg merge
- 1d 8h
- Merged PRs (30d)
- 100
Contributor guide
First steps
- Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
- Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
- Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
- Open a pull request that references the issue number.
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