Plugin hooks fail with fish shell - bun not found in /bin/sh PATH

[yungweng]

Bug Description

When using fish shell, the plugin hooks fail with bun: command not found even though Bun is properly installed and configured in the fish shell PATH.

Root Cause

The plugin hooks run via /bin/sh, not the user's login shell. Fish shell users have Bun configured in ~/.config/fish/config.fish:

# bun
set --export BUN_INSTALL "$HOME/.bun"
set --export PATH $BUN_INSTALL/bin $PATH

However, /bin/sh doesn't read fish config files, so it can't find bun even though:

1. Bun is installed at ~/.bun/bin/bun
2. Bun works perfectly in fish shell
3. The Bun installer ran successfully

Error Output

SessionStart:startup says: Plugin hook error: /bin/sh: bun: command not found

Workaround

Create a symlink to make bun available system-wide:

sudo ln -sf ~/.bun/bin/bun /usr/local/bin/bun

Suggested Fix

Options to consider:

1. Use absolute path: Instead of just bun, use $HOME/.bun/bin/bun or detect the bun location
2. Fall back to npm: If bun isn't found, fall back to npm which is more universally available
3. Document the workaround: Add fish shell compatibility note to README
4. Auto-create symlink: During installation, offer to create the /usr/local/bin/bun symlink

Environment

• claude-mem version: 7.1.3
• Claude Code version: 2.0.69
• Shell: fish 3.x
• Platform: macOS
• Bun version: 1.3.4 (installed at ~/.bun/bin/bun)

Additional Context

This likely affects any shell that isn't bash/zsh, since /bin/sh typically only reads POSIX-compatible configs. The switch from PM2 to Bun in v7.x introduced this regression for non-bash/zsh users.

[thedotmack]

Thanks for reporting this! Your bug report led to an interesting discovery.

The Fix

We initially built a bun-wrapper to resolve PATH issues across shells, but after deeper analysis, we realized the hooks don't need Bun at all - they're compiled to standard JavaScript that Node can run perfectly fine.

So instead of adding complexity to make Bun work everywhere, we simplified: hooks now run with Node directly.

What Changed

Before (what you experienced):

Hook runs under /bin/sh → tries to find bun → fails because fish PATH not loaded

After (PR #290):

Hook runs with node (guaranteed available) → HTTP request to worker → worker runs on Bun

The worker service still uses Bun for performance where it matters, but hooks are just lightweight HTTP clients that work great with Node.

Benefits for You

• ✅ No more PATH issues with fish shell
• ✅ No symlink workaround needed
• ✅ Works out of the box on any shell
• ✅ Simpler, cleaner architecture

Your report helped us spot overengineering and remove ~100 lines of unnecessary code. Thanks!

Fix is in PR #290, ready for merge.