LanguageClient ServerOptions not spawning when Server in Path

[nikeee]

I am developting an extension that uses the LanguageClient class to provide a connection to a language server. The language server is installed globally on the OS and can be started using a <command> as it is in $PATH (installed via npm -g i <package>).

Now, the client fails to start the server. My first approach was using these server options:

const serverOptions: Executable = {
    command: "<command>",
    args: ["--stdio"],
}

This does not work, as child_process#spawn does not get the environment variables. This is the relevant section in the code:
https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode-languageserver-node/blob/583ba3878faa9e550461337afefb1618505a4601/client/src/main.ts#L397-L405

My second attempt was to pass process.env as env option:

const serverOptions: Executable = {
	command: "<command>",
	args: ["--stdio"],
	options: {
		env: process.env,
	}
};

This also did not work. I also tried to pass cwd: undefined via options.

One thing that worked for me was to use shell: true in options. However, both declarations of ExecutableOptions do not include a shell?: boolean:

https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode-languageserver-node/blob/583ba3878faa9e550461337afefb1618505a4601/client/src/main.ts#L37-L42
https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode-languageserver-node/blob/c7d5ab633672f5b38886ee54f5dd10c3a8d3646d/client/src/client.ts#L190-L195

But child_process#spawn's options does (ref to docs).

As this behaviour is rather unintuitive to me, I think this might be a bug or or there is some documentation missing on this. I just want to start <command> --stdio to use it as a language server. According to this issue it should suffice to provide options: { cwd: undefined, env: process.env }. But it does not seem to work. It works with options: { shell: true } only, but shell is not included in ExecutableOptions.

• OS: Windows 10
• Dependencies:
  • "vscode": "^1.1.18",
  • "vscode-languageclient": "^4.2.1"

[dbaeumer]

Yes, I see the point. The thing is that npm -g i very likely installs a shell script and that script can't be run using spwan without using the shell option.

[dbaeumer]

For now cast the options to any and set the shell property. It will be passed to spawn correctly.

[nikeee]

Thanks!