fix: install.ps1 persists PATH instead of printing manual instructions - #27
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Previously the Windows installer only printed manual PATH instructions — including a setx suggestion that would bake the merged Machine+User PATH into the User value and truncate anything over 1024 chars. Now it appends the install dir to the user PATH via [Environment]::SetEnvironmentVariable (User scope only, no setx), prepends it to $env:Path for the current session, and keeps a manual PowerShell one-liner only as a fallback when the write throws. Membership check is case-insensitive and tolerant of trailing backslashes. Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com> Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01Kr1tfSNy6gvd6vwwD2vayo
boristane
approved these changes
Aug 12, 2026
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Requested by boris · Slack thread
Before / After
Before: every first-time Windows install ended with a wall of homework — "Add
C:\Users\you\.polylane\binto your PATH:" followed by asetx PATH ...command and a PowerShell one-liner to paste. Nothing was persisted, sopolylanedidn't work until the user did it themselves. Worse, the suggestedsetxcommand was actively harmful: it bakes the merged Machine+User%PATH%into the User value and silently truncates anything over 1024 characters.After: the installer adds the install dir to the user PATH itself and prints
✓ added C:\Users\you\.polylane\bin to your PATHplus a note that new terminals pick it up automatically (nothing is printed if it's already there). It also prepends the dir to the current session's$env:Path, sopolylane --helpworks immediately in the same window. A manual PowerShell one-liner is shown only as a fallback if the registry write throws. Thesetxsuggestion is gone entirely.How
Two small helpers,
Test-PathHasDirandAdd-DirToPath, do the membership check (case-insensitive, trailing-backslash-tolerant, empty entries ignored — replacing the old-notlike "*$PrefixDir*"substring match, which false-positived on e.g....\bin2) and the append. Persistence reads[Environment]::GetEnvironmentVariable('Path', 'User')and writes back only the User-scope value withSetEnvironmentVariable(..., 'User')— neversetx, never the merged Machine+User PATH.Tested on Linux with pwsh 7.6.4: full-file parse check (no syntax errors) and 21 unit cases exercising the two helpers with injected values (exact/case/trailing-slash matches, substring non-matches, empty/null/whitespace PATHs, no double semicolons, >1024-char PATH round-trips unmangled), plus a check that
setxno longer appears in the script. What could not be tested here: the actualSetEnvironmentVariable(..., 'User')registry persistence and new-terminal pickup are Windows-only, so this change has not been run on a real Windows machine — worth a quick manualirm | iexsmoke test on Windows before release.🤖 Generated with Claude Code
https://claude.ai/code/session_01Kr1tfSNy6gvd6vwwD2vayo
Generated by Claude Code