Windows: setup can never pass its own browse gate (BROWSE_BIN misses .exe) — skills silently never install while VERSION reports the new version

[Richman711]

Summary

On Windows (MSYS2/Git Bash), ./setup can never succeed. BROWSE_BIN is hardcoded without the .exe suffix, but bun build --compile emits browse.exe on Windows. The gate at setup:436 is an executable-bit test, not an existence test, so it always fails and the script exit 1s.

Because that gate sits before skill installation, the user is left with a half-install whose failure is silent by consequence: gstack/VERSION reports the new version while ~/.claude/skills/* still holds the old skill files. The version file reports a success the skills never received.

I hit this upgrading 1.43.1.0 → 1.60.1.0 (global git install). My installed skills were dated May 22 while VERSION read 1.43.1.0 — so this had been failing silently across multiple upgrades. /diagram and /spec (new in 1.60) were present in the repo but never installed.

Root cause

setup:20 sets the path with no extension:

BROWSE_BIN="$SOURCE_GSTACK_DIR/browse/dist/browse"   # setup:20 (and again at :245)

Windows is detected — but only at setup:28, after the assignment, and IS_WINDOWS is never applied to BROWSE_BIN:

IS_WINDOWS=0
case "$(uname -s)" in
  MINGW*|MSYS*|CYGWIN*|Windows_NT) IS_WINDOWS=1 ;;

The build then produces browse.exe, so the two -x tests on the extensionless path both misfire:

• setup:379 — [ ! -x "$BROWSE_BIN" ] is the staleness check, so Windows rebuilds the binary on every run (~10s wasted each time).
• setup:436 — the same test is a hard gate: exit 1.

  [353ms] compile  browse/dist/browse.exe        <- build emits .exe
gstack setup failed: browse binary missing at /c/Users/.../browse/dist/browse

ls confirms the mismatch — the built artifact and the tested path are different files:

-rwxr-xr-x  98519552  browse.exe     <- freshly built, executable
-rw-r--r-- 103963473  browse         <- stale leftover, NOT executable -> -x fails

Reproduce

On Windows / Git Bash, from a clean clone: ./setup → exits 1 at the gate, ~/.claude/skills/ is never updated, VERSION reads new regardless.

Proposed fix

Apply the suffix once Windows is known (and at :245, which duplicates the assignment):

BROWSE_BIN="$SOURCE_GSTACK_DIR/browse/dist/browse"
[ "$IS_WINDOWS" -eq 1 ] && BROWSE_BIN="$BROWSE_BIN.exe"

This requires moving the assignment below the IS_WINDOWS detection at setup:28, or re-applying it there.

Worth noting: the extensionless PE does execute under Git Bash — after cp -f browse.exe browse, ./browse/dist/browse status returns Status: healthy. So the skills' documented browse/dist/browse invocation path is fine; only the exec-bit test is wrong. Pointing BROWSE_BIN at .exe also fixes the redundant per-run rebuild at :379.

Workaround (for other Windows users landing here)

cd ~/.claude/skills/gstack/browse/dist
cp -f browse.exe browse && chmod +x browse
cp -f find-browse.exe find-browse && chmod +x find-browse
cd ~/.claude/skills/gstack && ./setup    # now exits 0 and installs skills

⚠️ This workaround degrades the next upgrade from a loud failure into a silent one. browse/dist/ is gitignored, so the copied browse survives git reset --hard; on the next upgrade the rebuild refreshes browse.exe while the stale browse still passes -x. Setup then reports success while skills invoke the stale binary. Re-run cp -f browse.exe browse after every upgrade until this is fixed properly.

Related

• setup: Playwright Chromium download failure aborts setup before skills/hooks/migrations land #1901 / setup: Playwright Chromium download failure aborts setup before skills/hooks/migrations land #1902 — same symptom class (setup aborting before skills/hooks/migrations land). The proposed phase reorder would not fix this one: the browse gate is Phase B, still ahead of skill linking, and on Windows it can never pass regardless of ordering. This needs the .exe fix itself.
• Windows Smart App Control blocks the unsigned browse.exe — sign release binaries #2124 — also concerns browse.exe on Windows (Smart App Control / signing).