Windows: Daemon fails to start due to Unix socket path

[MJSSG]

Windows: Daemon fails to start due to Unix socket path

Environment

• OS: Windows 10 Home China (10.0.19045)
• agent-browser version: 0.13.0
• Node.js version: v20.x
• Installation method: npm install -g agent-browser

Description

The agent-browser daemon fails to start on Windows because it
attempts to use a Unix socket path
(C:\Users\MJSSG\.agent-browser\default.sock), which is not
natively supported by Windows.

Steps to Reproduce

1. Install agent-browser globally: npm install -g agent-browser
2. Install Chromium: agent-browser install
3. Try to open any URL: agent-browser open https://example.com

Expected Behavior

The daemon should start successfully and browser automation
commands should work.

Actual Behavior

✗ Daemon failed to start (socket:
C:\Users\MJSSG.agent-browser\default.sock)

The .agent-browser directory exists but is empty - no daemon log is created, indicating the daemon fails before it can even
initialize.

Root Cause

Windows does not natively support Unix domain sockets. The IPC
mechanism needs to use:

• Named pipes (Windows native IPC)
• TCP loopback connection
• Or a cross-platform abstraction layer

Possible Solutions

1. Use a cross-platform IPC library that detects the OS and uses
   appropriate mechanisms
2. For Windows, use named pipes like
   \\.\pipe\agent-browser-default
3. Or allow configuration via environment variable to use TCP
   instead

Workaround

Using Playwright directly works fine on the same system:

npm install -D @playwright/test
npx playwright install chromium
# Tests run successfully

Additional Context

- Multiple node.exe processes are running (likely from other      
development tools)
- No daemon log file is created
- Socket file path format is Unix-style: / instead of 

[rxing365]

I got the same issue on Windows 11 X64. The daemon does not appear to be running. If I manually start it from the

C:\Users\user-name\AppData\Roaming\npm\node_modules\agent-browser\dist

folder using

node daemon.js

then run

agent-browser open example.com

It will work.

[rxing365]

I got the problem.

---

Issue Location:

cli/src/connection.rs:278-281

let exe_path = env::current_exe().map_err(|e| e.to_string())?;
// Canonicalize to resolve symlinks (e.g., npm global bin symlink -> actual binary)
let exe_path = exe_path.canonicalize().unwrap_or(exe_path);  // <- Problem here
let exe_dir = exe_path.parent().unwrap();

Problem Description:

On Windows, the canonicalize() call returns paths with the NT extended-length path format (prefixed with \\?\). Node.js cannot handle this path format properly, which prevents the daemon from starting normally on Windows systems.

It behaves like this on Windows:

1. env::current_exe():
     Path: F:\Projects\rust\agent-browser\test_canonicalize.exe

2. canonicalize():
     Path: \\?\F:\Projects\rust\agent-browser\test_canonicalize.exe

---

I think I can fix it using a piece of normalizing code with #[cfg(target_os = "windows")].

[teolaz]

+1, in my case I'm trying to use the skill that calls it through opencode