Files
hermes-agent/tools
Teknium 0ba1e12abc fix(windows): browser tool + spurious SIGINT from subprocess spawning
Three related Windows-only fixes that together make the browser toolset
actually usable on Windows. Symptom chain: user invokes browser_navigate
-> tool returns {"success": false, "error": "Daemon process exited
during startup with no error output"} and the CLI exits mid-turn with
the session summary.

Root cause (3 layers):

1. tools/browser_tool.py::_find_agent_browser() resolved
   node_modules/.bin/agent-browser to the extensionless POSIX shell
   shim via Path.exists(). On Windows, CreateProcessW cannot execute
   that script (WinError 193 "not a valid Win32 application"). Fix:
   delegate to shutil.which with path=node_modules/.bin so PATHEXT
   picks up agent-browser.CMD on Windows and the extensionless shim
   stays correct on POSIX.

2. Windows Terminal / Win32 delivers a spurious CTRL_C_EVENT to the
   parent hermes.exe whenever a background thread spawns a .cmd
   subprocess. Python 3.11's default SIGINT handler raises
   KeyboardInterrupt in MainThread, which unwinds prompt_toolkit's
   app.run() -> cli.py::run()'s finally block calls _run_cleanup()
   -> _emergency_cleanup_all_sessions -> spawns a concurrent
   _run_browser_command("close", ...) on the same session the agent
   thread just opened. Two agent-browser processes race on the same
   --session name, the daemon startup loses, and the tool returns
   the "Daemon process exited during startup" error. Fix: install a
   Windows-only SIGINT handler that absorbs the signal silently.
   Real user Ctrl+C still routes through prompt_toolkit's own c-c
   keybinding at the TUI layer, which is how Claude Code handles the
   same quirk (driving cancellation via the TUI key handler, not
   signals).

3. In tools/browser_tool.py, both Popen sites now pass
   creationflags=CREATE_NO_WINDOW | STARTF_USESTDHANDLES with
   close_fds=True on Windows. CREATE_NO_WINDOW suppresses the .cmd
   console flash; STARTF_USESTDHANDLES + close_fds ensures the child
   inherits only our three chosen handles (DEVNULL stdin, temp-file
   stdout/stderr) and no leaked parent console handles that could
   confuse agent-browser's native daemon spawn. Notably we do NOT
   add CREATE_NEW_PROCESS_GROUP - on Python 3.11 Windows the flag
   interacts badly with asyncio's ProactorEventLoop and makes things
   worse.

Verified end-to-end on Windows 10 / Windows Terminal / PowerShell:
browser_navigate to https://example.com returns
{"success": true, "title": "Example Domain"} and the CLI stays alive
for follow-up tool calls and assistant turns.

Refs: earlier Windows quirks commits 1cebb3bad (Ctrl+Enter newline),
26f5af52a (environment hints), aefd1a37f (Playwright Chromium).
2026-05-08 14:27:40 -07:00
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