fix: resolve user login PATH for MCP extension subprocesses by jeffa-block · Pull Request #7896 · block/goose

jeffa-block · 2026-03-15T01:29:01Z

Summary

When Goose Desktop launches from Dock or Spotlight on macOS, goosed inherits a minimal PATH:

/Applications/Goose.app/Contents/Resources/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin

This means MCP extensions cannot find user-installed tools (gh, brew, claude, cargo, etc.) unless the user provides absolute paths.

The developer extension fixed this in #5774 by resolving the user's login shell PATH once and injecting it into subprocesses. But that fix lives in the goose crate — the MCP extensions in goose-mcp never got the same treatment.

Changes

crates/goose-mcp/src/subprocess.rs

Adds resolve_login_shell_path() — spawns a login shell once to recover the full PATH
Adds user_login_path() — caches the result in a OnceLock for the process lifetime
Ported directly from crates/goose/src/agents/platform_extensions/developer/shell.rs

crates/goose-mcp/src/computercontroller/mod.rs

Injects the resolved PATH at both subprocess spawn points:
- Shell script execution (automation_script)
- Peekaboo commands (macOS UI automation)

Why duplicate instead of shared crate?

goose-mcp does not depend on goose — they are sibling crates. Both already duplicate SubprocessExt in their respective subprocess.rs files. This follows the existing pattern. A shared utility crate could consolidate both in a follow-up.

Testing

cargo check -p goose-mcp — clean
cargo test -p goose-mcp — 46/46 passed
Manually verified: gh, brew, git, jq, cargo all resolve correctly from computercontroller shell after the change

Fixes #5915

When Goose Desktop launches from Dock/Spotlight, goosed inherits a minimal PATH (/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin). The developer extension fixed this in block#5774 by resolving the user's login shell PATH, but that fix lives in the goose crate. The MCP extensions in goose-mcp never got the same treatment. This ports resolve_login_shell_path() and user_login_path() to goose-mcp/src/subprocess.rs and injects the resolved PATH at all subprocess spawn points in computercontroller: - Shell script execution (automation_script) - Peekaboo commands (macOS UI automation) The PATH is resolved once via a login shell and cached for the process lifetime, matching the developer extension's approach. Fixes block#5915

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chatgpt-codex-connector · 2026-03-15T01:33:28Z

crates/goose-mcp/src/subprocess.rs

+    let shell = if PathBuf::from("/bin/bash").is_file() {
+        "/bin/bash".to_string()
+    } else {
+        std::env::var("SHELL").unwrap_or_else(|_| "sh".to_string())


Use the user's configured shell for PATH resolution

resolve_login_shell_path() always prefers /bin/bash when present, which ignores $SHELL for users on zsh/fish and can drop shell-specific PATH entries; because the new callers then overwrite PATH with this value, MCP subprocesses can lose access to tools that are available in the user's actual login shell. This is reproducible on non-bash setups where PATH is configured only in shell-specific startup files.

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chatgpt-codex-connector · 2026-03-15T01:33:28Z

crates/goose-mcp/src/computercontroller/mod.rs

+        if let Some(path) = user_login_path() {
+            cmd.env("PATH", path);


Preserve runtime PATH adjustments before invoking peekaboo

This override can undo ensure_peekaboo()'s install-time PATH repair path: auto_install_peekaboo() may call std::env::set_var("PATH", ...) when brew binaries are not initially discoverable, but run_peekaboo_cmd() now replaces PATH with the cached login-shell value, so ensure_peekaboo() can succeed and the subsequent peekaboo launch still fail in that environment.

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chatgpt-codex-connector · 2026-03-16T22:25:45Z

crates/goose-mcp/src/computercontroller/mod.rs

+                    .env("AGENT", "goose");
+                #[cfg(not(windows))]
+                if let Some(path) = user_login_path() {
+                    cmd.env("PATH", path);


Preserve inherited PATH for automation script subprocesses

Overwriting PATH here with the cached login-shell value drops any runtime PATH entries already present in the goosed process, so tools available only via session-specific environments (for example direnv/nix/venv paths when Goose is launched from a terminal) become unresolvable in automation_script. This is a regression from the previous inherit-by-default behavior; merging with the existing PATH instead of replacing it avoids breaking those workflows.

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Address three review comments: 1. resolve_login_shell_path() now prefers $SHELL over hardcoded /bin/bash, so zsh/fish users source the correct profile files. 2. New merged_path() function prepends login shell PATH entries while preserving runtime additions (direnv, nix, ensure_peekaboo installs). 3. Both automation_script and run_peekaboo_cmd callers switched from user_login_path() (replace) to merged_path() (merge + deduplicate).

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chatgpt-codex-connector · 2026-03-19T09:10:25Z

crates/goose-mcp/src/subprocess.rs

+    std::process::Command::new(&shell)
+        .args(["-l", "-i", "-c", "echo $PATH"])


Handle fish-style PATH output when probing login shells

resolve_login_shell_path() assumes every shell prints $PATH as one colon-delimited string, but fish exposes PATH as a list, so echo $PATH emits space-separated entries. merged_path() then treats that whole line as a single directory and user bins like /opt/homebrew/bin or ~/.cargo/bin never make it into the exported PATH. On macOS/Linux systems whose login shell is fish, the subprocesses this patch is meant to fix (peekaboo, automation scripts) will still fail to find user-installed tools.

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chatgpt-codex-connector · 2026-03-19T09:10:25Z

crates/goose-mcp/src/subprocess.rs

+    // Deduplicate: login shell entries first, then any current entries not already present.
+    let login_entries: Vec<&str> = login.split(':').collect();
+    let mut seen: std::collections::HashSet<&str> = login_entries.iter().copied().collect();
+    let mut merged = login_entries;
+    for entry in current.split(':') {


Keep the current PATH ahead of login-shell entries

merged_path() now prepends the login-shell directories ahead of the process's existing PATH, which changes command resolution whenever Goose is started inside an activated venv, direnv, or nix shell. In those sessions, computer_control subprocesses will resolve python, node, etc. from the login shell instead of the active environment even though the correct shims were already first in the inherited PATH, so this is still a behavior regression from the previous inherit-by-default behavior.

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DOsinga

Clean port of the existing developer-extension fix into goose-mcp. The merged_path() dedup logic is a nice improvement over the original. Good to go.

jeffa-block · 2026-03-23T21:53:12Z

All CI green, approval in place, no outstanding comments — ready to merge whenever you get a chance. Thanks @DOsinga 🙏

Signed-off-by: Cameron Yick <[email protected]>

jeffa-block mentioned this pull request Mar 15, 2026

Goose cannot resolve locally-installed claude CLI due to restricted PATH #5915

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chore: cargo fmt

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DOsinga approved these changes Mar 20, 2026

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DOsinga added this pull request to the merge queue Mar 26, 2026

Merged via the queue into block:main with commit aaaece1 Mar 26, 2026
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hydrosquall pushed a commit to hydrosquall/goose that referenced this pull request Mar 31, 2026

fix: resolve user login PATH for MCP extension subprocesses (block#7896)

b4fcd04

Signed-off-by: Cameron Yick <[email protected]>

github-actions bot mentioned this pull request Apr 2, 2026

chore(release): release version 1.30.0 #8261

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fix: resolve user login PATH for MCP extension subprocesses#7896

fix: resolve user login PATH for MCP extension subprocesses#7896
DOsinga merged 3 commits intoblock:mainfrom
jeffa-block:jeffa/fix-mcp-path-resolution

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		if let Some(path) = user_login_path() {
		cmd.env("PATH", path);

		std::process::Command::new(&shell)
		.args(["-l", "-i", "-c", "echo $PATH"])

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jeffa-block commented Mar 15, 2026

Summary

Changes

Why duplicate instead of shared crate?

Testing

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