From 4835185d66e239f706f9c3d63f24036a689e4bff Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Eduard Ruzga <wonderwhy.er@gmail.com>
Date: Fri, 5 Jun 2026 13:32:34 +0300
Subject: [PATCH] fix(windows): preserve quotes in cmd commands via verbatim
 args

On Windows, start_process spawns the shell executable directly
(`cmd /c <command>`) with useShellOption=false. Node/libuv then applies
its default MSVCRT-style argument quoting, which escapes embedded double
quotes as \". cmd.exe does not treat \" as an escape, so every quoted
command was corrupted before cmd parsed it -- e.g. a quoted path with
spaces ("C:\Program Files\app.exe") or `tasklist /fi "imagename eq x"`
would fail with "syntax incorrect" / "Invalid argument".

Set windowsVerbatimArguments=true for the cmd branch so cmd parses its
own quoting (the same thing Node does internally for `shell: true`).

Scoped to cmd only via a new ShellSpawnConfig.windowsVerbatim flag:
PowerShell/pwsh have different quote rules and must NOT use verbatim
(it splits quoted arguments into separate tokens), and POSIX shells
(bash/zsh/fish, incl. WSL) are unaffected -- windowsVerbatimArguments
is a no-op outside win32. No behaviour change on macOS/Linux.

Before: echo "hello world" a"b"c  ->  \"hello world\" a\"b\"c
After:  echo "hello world" a"b"c  ->  "hello world" a"b"c
---
 src/terminal-manager.ts | 15 +++++++++++++++
 1 file changed, 15 insertions(+)

diff --git a/src/terminal-manager.ts b/src/terminal-manager.ts
index 00ffb6f2..821a514b 100644
--- a/src/terminal-manager.ts
+++ b/src/terminal-manager.ts
@@ -62,6 +62,9 @@ interface ShellSpawnConfig {
   executable: string;
   args: string[];
   useShellOption: string | boolean;
+  // When true, pass args verbatim on Windows (see executeCommand). Only cmd.exe
+  // needs this; its quote parsing conflicts with libuv's default \" escaping.
+  windowsVerbatim?: boolean;
 }
 
 /**
@@ -103,6 +106,7 @@ function getShellSpawnArgs(shellPath: string, command: string): ShellSpawnConfig
     return { 
       executable: shellPath, 
       args: ['/c', command],
+      windowsVerbatim: true,
       useShellOption: false 
     };
   }
@@ -222,6 +226,17 @@ export class TerminalManager {
       spawnOptions.env.PATHEXT = getRepairedPathExt();
     }
 
+    // On Windows, when we invoke cmd.exe directly and pass the user's command as a
+    // single argument, Node/libuv applies MSVCRT-style quoting that escapes embedded
+    // double quotes as \" . cmd.exe does not understand that escaping, so any command
+    // containing quotes (e.g. a quoted path with spaces like "C:\Program Files\app.exe")
+    // is corrupted before the shell ever parses it. Passing arguments verbatim lets
+    // cmd handle its own quoting. Scoped to shells that set windowsVerbatim (cmd only)
+    // because PowerShell/pwsh have different quote rules and must NOT use verbatim.
+    if (process.platform === 'win32' && spawnConfig.windowsVerbatim) {
+      spawnOptions.windowsVerbatimArguments = true;
+    }
+
     // Spawn the process with appropriate arguments
     const childProcess = spawn(spawnConfig.executable, spawnConfig.args, spawnOptions);
     let output = '';