Phase 06: Windows Platform Support — Fixing Core Platform Bugs

Windows support is broken across ~20 issues. The highest-impact fixes: WMIC removed in Win11 25H2+ breaks orphan reaper, PowerShell syntax errors, uvx.cmd spawn needs shell: true, FTS5 may not work in Bun on Windows. Focus on the fixes that unblock the most users.

Issues resolved: #785 (WMIC removal), #1024 (PowerShell syntax), #1190, #1192, #1199 (uvx spawn), #791 (FTS5), #807, #1139 (worker spawn), #1048 (console windows), #1062 (Git Bash)

Root Cause Validation

uvx.cmd spawn — PARTIALLY FIXED: ChromaMcpManager.ts line 106 already uses uvx.cmd on Windows. However, StdioClientTransport uses spawn() internally which may not resolve .cmd files without shell: true. Need to verify if the MCP SDK's StdioClientTransport supports a shell option.

WMIC removal — All wmic usage must be replaced. This is a real platform regression in Win11 25H2+.

Tasks

• Fix uvx.cmd spawn on Windows:

  • In ChromaMcpManager.ts, the StdioClientTransport on line 113-118 uses command: uvxCommand which is 'uvx.cmd' on Windows
  • Check if StdioClientTransport supports shell: true in its options — if so, set it on Windows
  • If not, resolve the full path to uvx.cmd using which or where and pass the absolute path
  • Also test: does just 'uvx' (without .cmd) work on Windows when shell: true is set? If so, simplify
  • DONE: MCP SDK v1.26.0 does NOT support shell: true. Fixed by routing through cmd.exe /c uvx on Windows, which handles .cmd extension resolution and PATH lookup natively. Simplifies from uvx.cmd to just uvx since cmd.exe resolves it.

• Replace all WMIC usage with PowerShell/tasklist equivalents:

  • Search for wmic across the entire codebase: focus on src/services/infrastructure/ProcessManager.ts
  • Replace wmic process with tasklist /FO CSV /NH for process listing
  • Replace wmic process ... call terminate with taskkill /PID <pid> /T /F
  • Use tasklist.exe and taskkill.exe directly (always in PATH) instead of PowerShell where possible — fixes Git Bash compatibility (#1062) as a side effect
  • Add windowsHide: true to ALL exec/spawn calls on Windows to prevent console window popups (#1048)
  • DONE: No wmic usage found in codebase (already replaced in prior work). taskkill was already in use for process killing. Added windowsHide: true to all 7 exec/execSync/execAsync calls that were missing it: lookupBinaryInPath, getChildProcesses, cleanupOrphanedProcesses (query + kill), aggressiveStartupCleanup (query + kill), and forceKillProcess. Updated WMIC sentinel comments.

• Fix PowerShell syntax errors in orphan reaper (#1024):

  • In ProcessManager.ts, find the orphan process cleanup function
  • Replace any $_ pipeline syntax with explicit tasklist + CSV parsing
  • This is a complete rewrite of the Windows branch of the orphan reaper to use tasklist /FO CSV instead of PowerShell pipelines
  • DONE: Replaced Where-Object { $_ } pipelines with WQL -Filter server-side filtering in all three functions: getChildProcesses(), cleanupOrphanedProcesses(), and aggressiveStartupCleanup(). WQL -Filter eliminates $_ entirely (fixes Git Bash $_ interpretation #1062 and PowerShell syntax errors #1024). Note: tasklist /FO CSV cannot do command-line or parent-PID filtering, so PowerShell Get-CimInstance with WQL is the correct WMIC-free approach for these queries.

• Fix FTS5 search on Windows (#791):

  • Search for FTS5 usage in src/services/sqlite/
  • Check if bun:sqlite on Windows supports FTS5 — add a runtime check on startup
  • If FTS5 is unavailable, fall back to LIKE queries (this is the SQLite strategy, not Chroma — still functional)
  • DONE: Added isFts5Available() runtime probe (creates+drops temp FTS5 table) in SessionSearch.ts. FTS5 creation in ensureFTSTables() now skips gracefully when unavailable. Added try/catch guards around FTS5 table/trigger creation in migrations.ts (migration006), migrations/runner.ts, and SessionStore.ts. Search degrades to ChromaDB (vector) and LIKE queries (structured filters) — both unaffected by FTS5 absence.

• Run npm test and fix any failures

  • DONE: All 69 ProcessManager tests pass. All 151 SQLite/search tests pass. One pre-existing failure in logger-usage-standards.test.ts about console.log in src/services/transcripts/cli.ts — confirmed pre-existing (identical failure on clean branch before changes).