.apmrc should respect $ATOM_HOME

[yochem]

Prerequisites

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  • Followed all applicable steps in the debugging guide: https://flight-manual.atom.io/hacking-atom/sections/debugging/
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Description

I have the following enviroment variables:

export XDG_CONFIG_HOME="$HOME/Library/Config"
export ATOM_HOME="$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/atom"

Because Atom is a GUI app, I've put these environment variables in a launchagent file, as suggested in for example here. $HOME/.atom/.apm/.apmrc keeps getting created though, even when not using atom (or apm).

Steps to Reproduce

1. Create $HOME/Library/LaunchAgents/environment.plist:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">

<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
 <key>Label</key>
 <string>setenv.XDG</string>
 <key>Program</key>
 <string>/bin/zsh</string>
 <key>ProgramArguments</key>
 <array>
 <string>/bin/zsh</string>
 <string>-c</string>
 <string>launchctl setenv XDG_CONFIG_HOME "$HOME/Library/Config";
 launchctl setenv XDG_DATA_HOME "$HOME/Library/Share";
launchctl setenv XDG_CACHE_HOME "$HOME/Library/Caches";
launchctl setenv ATOM_HOME "$HOME/Library/Config/atom";</string>
 </array>
 <key>RunAtLoad</key>
 <true/>
</dict>
</plist>

2. Make sure Atom is not running and run launchctl load "$HOME/Library/LaunchAgents/environment.plist"

3. Now, when opening Atom, it uses the ATOM_HOME for config, but the file ~/.atom/.apm/.apmrc is still created.

Expected behavior:
apmrc file is created in $ATOM_HOME/.apm/.apmrc.

Actual behavior:

apmrc file is created in ~/.atom/.apm/.apmrc (hardcoded)

Reproduces how often:

100%, but if the file is deleted (rm -rf ~/.atom) it does not appear immediately but after some time.

Versions

MacOS: 10.15.4
Atom: 1.47.0
Electron: 5.0.13
Chrome: 73.0.3683.121
Node: 12.0.0

Additional Information

Please let me know if any additional information could be helpful!

[Aerijo]

Unless Atom itself is doing something, the logic for creating the settings file is here. It is based on the getAtomDirectory method, which uses process.env.ATOM_HOME if it is not falsy.

I believe the package responsible is settings-view. There is a whenShellEnvironmentLoaded event in the Atom API; perhaps settings-view is causing apm to build the config folder before the ATOM_HOME variable is loaded? There's also potentially something happening here.

Can't look into it any more for now, but I hope this could be useful for someone.

[yochem]

Thanks for looking into it! Do you think I should report this at atom/atom or atom/settings-view?