Shell/Bash tasks in Windows using the task runner

[Eric-Bonneau]

Hi there,

I've been struggling to try to some Shell/Bash tasks to work in Windows.

To start with, I had this configured:

task-runner.json

{
   "tasks": [
   ]
}

pre-commit

#!/bin/sh

. "$(dirname "$0")/_/husky.sh"

sh --version

Wish was working in Cmd:

I then tried to see if I could move the sh --version part to its own file and configured it like so:

display-version.sh

#!/bin/sh

sh --version

task-runner.json

{
   "tasks": [
      {
         "name": "display-version",
         "group": "pre-commit",
         "cwd": ".husky",
         "command": "bash",
         "args": [ "-c", "display-version.sh" ]
      }
   ]
}

pre-commit

#!/bin/sh

. "$(dirname "$0")/_/husky.sh"

dotnet husky run

But when committing in Cmd, I'm getting the following error:

It makes sense since Bash isn't available in a Windows environment. But I'm wondering how it's working when I inline the script within pre-commit. All the above configurations work when I run them in Git Bash instead of Cmd.

Is there any way I can define tasks that will allow them to run like they do when inlined in pre-commit?

An alternative solution I was playing around with was trying to see if I could run my display-version.sh script from my Git Bash installation with a command like: cmd /c "%PROGRAMFILES%\Git\bin\sh.exe" .husky\display-version.sh which seems to work:

When I try to write an equivalent like so:

task-runner.json

{
   "tasks": [
      {
         "name": "display-version",
         "group": "pre-commit",
         "cwd": ".husky",
         "command": "cmd",
         "args": [ "/c", "%PROGRAMFILES%\\Git\\bin\\sh.exe", "display-version.sh" ]
      }
   ]
}

I get an error message like:

I've tried many different ways of putting the %PROGRAMFILES% in quotes, using escape characters and such and have not been able to get it to work. I'm not sure if this is a bug with the way the tasks in the task runner are defined, or if I'm just doing something really silly.

In any case, I would really like to use tasks and the task runner. But at the moment, I'm stuck having to inline my Shell/Bash tasks within the hooks like pre-commit. I suppose another alternative could be to port my script to a .csx file, and rely on dotnet husky exec. But I want to avoid that for now unless I have to.

Any feedback is appreciated!

Thanks 😀.

[alirezanet]

Hi @Eric-Bonneau

Unfortunately Process.Start in Dotnet doesn't support this format (%PROGRAMFILES%) that's why you can not pass this value, but for now, you have a few workarounds to access sh.exe:

1. Adding C:\Program Files\Git\bin to your system environment PATH, this way sh.exe would be available through cmd. (also there is an option for this during git installation)
2. HardCode C:\Program Files\Git\bin\sh.exe instead of %PROGRAMFILES%\...
3. Use a CSX file to run your script. e.g

private var shPath = Path.Combine( Environment.GetFolderPath(Environment.SpecialFolder.ProgramFiles) , @"git\bin\sh.exe" );
private var startInfo = new ProcessStartInfo(shPath, "display-version.sh");
Process.Start(startInfo);

4. Open an issue and wait until I add support for Dotnet SpecialFolders as a variable (could be a cool feature) 😉🤔

[alirezanet]

5- If you can somehow find sh path using cmd or PowerShell you can use the custom variables to get access to it:

[Eric-Bonneau]

Regarding your 2nd suggestion, I was unable to do this. I would always get the 'C:\Program' is not recognized.... I tried many different ways of escaping " characters to get Program Files into something like "Program Files", but it wasn't working properly. I can open an issue with more details regarding what I tried; it's possible there's a bug, or I'm just not trying the right things 😋.

I think running the CSX script (your 3rd suggestion) would be the best long term approach. But rather than having the CSX script call the .sh script, it would be better to convert the .sh script into a CSX script directly.

Our quick fix for now is to drop the task runner altogether, and just inline our .sh script directly in pre-commit.