Cross-Platform Shell Support

Kangentic spawns Claude Code processes in platform-native shells. This page documents how shells are detected, adapted, and configured across platforms.

Shell Detection Order

Kangentic auto-detects the user’s shell in the following order:

Platform	Detection Order
Windows	PowerShell 7 (pwsh) → PowerShell 5 (powershell) → Git Bash (bash) → cmd.exe
macOS	zsh → bash → fish → nushell → sh (default: $SHELL or zsh)
Linux	bash → zsh → fish → dash → nushell → ksh → sh (default: $SHELL or bash)

Override the detected shell in Settings under the Terminal tab, or set terminal.shell in the config file.

Shell-Specific Adaptations

Kangentic adapts command execution for each shell:

Shell	Adaptation
PowerShell	Commands are prefixed with & for proper invocation
WSL Bash	Windows paths are converted to /mnt/c/... format
fish	No --login flag (fish doesn’t support it)
nushell	No --login flag
dash	Standard POSIX invocation
bash/zsh	Standard --login invocation

Path Handling

Cross-platform path handling uses two key utilities:

toForwardSlash()

Converts Windows backslashes to forward slashes for consistent path handling across platforms. Used when passing paths to shells and CLI tools.

quoteArg()

Properly escapes and quotes arguments for the target shell. Handles spaces, special characters, and platform-specific quoting rules.

Git Bash Paths

When running under Git Bash on Windows, paths like /c/Users/... are used instead of C:\Users\.... Kangentic detects Git Bash and adjusts path formatting accordingly.

WSL Paths

For WSL shells, Windows paths are converted using the /mnt/ prefix:

• C:\Users\project → /mnt/c/Users/project

WSL Support

Kangentic detects WSL shells and applies special handling:

• Detection: Checks for WSL-specific environment variables and /mnt/ path patterns
• Docker filtering: WSL Docker Desktop distributions are filtered out of the shell list
• Path conversion: Automatic bidirectional path conversion between Windows and WSL formats

Caution

Install the Windows version of Kangentic, not the Linux version, even when working with WSL projects. Kangentic is a desktop app that needs the Windows display server.

Environment Stripping

When spawning Claude Code processes, Kangentic strips the CLAUDECODE environment variable from the child process environment. This prevents nested Claude Code detection issues.

AUMID Handling (Windows)

On Windows, Kangentic sets the Application User Model ID (AUMID) for proper taskbar grouping and notification association:

Context	AUMID
Development	com.kangentic.dev
Production	com.kangentic.app

This ensures development and production instances have separate taskbar entries and notification channels.

macOS Title Bar

On macOS, the custom title bar positions the traffic light buttons (close, minimize, maximize) with specific offsets to align with the app’s header layout. The position is defined in the main process window configuration.