Try to catch "npm run" arguments without "--"

[bahmutov]

Sometimes our users forget that NPM run script needs command line arguments to the tool separated from the NPM's own arguments with --. For example, see #3467

We have a warning in our docs about it, and should put the warning in more places cypress-io/cypress-documentation#1418 but I think we can help users even in the current situation.

Here is how. Imagine we have index.js that just prints command line arguments

console.log('all args', process.argv)

and we have NPM script in package.json

{
  "scripts": {
    "test": "node ."
  }
}

Here is what happens when running script directly vs through npm run test

Calling directly with arguments

$ node . --foo bar
all args [ '/Users/gleb/.nvm/versions/node/v10.13.0/bin/node',
  '/Users/gleb/git/training/node/test-npm-params',
  '--foo',
  'bar' ]

Calling via NPM script npm test

{
  "scripts": {
    "test": "node ."
  }
}

$ npm test --foo bar

> test-npm-params@1.0.0 test /Users/gleb/git/training/node/test-npm-params
> node . "bar"

all args [ '/Users/gleb/.nvm/versions/node/v10.13.0/bin/node',
  '/Users/gleb/git/training/node/test-npm-params',
  'bar' ]

So we are losing "run" command.

But

If we prince process.env we can find the original command line arguments in NPM variable npm_config_argv passed as a string

npm_config_argv:
   '{"remain":["bar"],"cooked":["test","--foo","bar"],
   "original":["test","--foo","bar"]}',

Idea

In our Cypress CLI module, whenever we get an unknown command (because instead of open or run we see something like --record), we take a look at npm_config_argv original list of arguments, load user's package.json, if the first argument matches the script name like "test" we know the user forgot to add --, and in that case we can take the rest of the npm_config_argv original arguments as the real CLI arguments the user meant to use.

[brian-mann]

Yarn also does this by default, it doesn't need the -- and we could actually do the same without even warning the user.

[bahmutov]

I would still warn the user since this so custom and against what the NPM does, they should be aware that this is non-standard feature we are doing.

[cypress-app-bot]

This issue has not had any activity in 180 days. Cypress evolves quickly and the reported behavior should be tested on the latest version of Cypress to verify the behavior is still occurring. It will be closed in 14 days if no updates are provided.

[cypress-app-bot]

This issue has been closed due to inactivity.