claude-code - 💡(How to fix) Fix Windows: LSP servers fail with ENOENT because spawn doesn't resolve .cmd files [1 comments, 2 participants]

Description

On Windows, LSP server plugins (e.g. typescript-lsp, php-lsp, kotlin-lsp) fail with:

Error performing documentSymbol: ENOENT: no such file or directory, uv_spawn 'typescript-language-server'

Root Cause

npm global packages on Windows are installed as .cmd wrapper files (e.g. typescript-language-server.cmd). Node.js child_process.spawn without shell: true does not resolve .cmd files — it looks for an exact executable match.

The marketplace.json defines LSP commands without the .cmd extension:

{
  "typescript": {
    "command": "typescript-language-server",
    "args": ["--stdio"]
  }
}

Steps to Reproduce

1. Install Claude Code on Windows
2. Enable typescript-lsp plugin
3. Install typescript-language-server globally: npm install -g typescript-language-server typescript
4. Try any LSP operation on a .ts file
5. Get ENOENT: no such file or directory, uv_spawn 'typescript-language-server'

Expected Behavior

LSP servers should start successfully on Windows, just as they do on macOS/Linux.

Suggested Fix

When spawning LSP server processes on Windows, either:

1. Use shell: true option in child_process.spawn
2. Use the cross-spawn package
3. Automatically append .cmd to commands on win32 platform

This is a well-known Node.js issue: https://nodejs.org/api/child_process.html#spawning-bat-and-cmd-files-on-windows

Workaround

Manually edit marketplace.json to append .cmd to LSP command values, or use a SessionStart hook to patch it automatically. Note that marketplace.json gets overwritten on plugin updates, so manual edits don't persist.

Environment

• OS: Windows 11
• Claude Code: latest stable
• Affected plugins: all LSP plugins (typescript-lsp, php-lsp, kotlin-lsp, and others)