[Bug]: Cannot change terminal shell

[domoritz]

Before submitting

• I searched existing issues and did not find a duplicate.
• I included enough detail to reproduce or investigate the problem.

Area

apps/desktop

Steps to reproduce

In the settings, I searched for "shell" and "terminal" but nowhere do I see the option to change the default shell command to be used.

Expected behavior

I expect to be able to select fish shell, even though my login shell is another shell.

Actual behavior

The terminal opens the default shell, not the shell I want to use.

Impact

Cosmetic issue

Version or commit

0.0.44 (451afcb)

Environment

macOS

Logs or stack traces

Screenshots, recordings, or supporting files

No response

Workaround

No response

[juliusmarminge]

Note

Grok responding on behalf of Julius.

Triage

Thanks for the report, @domoritz. This is working as designed today rather than a bug: there's no setting to choose the terminal shell. Both 0.0.44 (451afcb22d93) and current main (5cc99e1c23) start new integrated terminals in the environment's login shell.

On macOS and Linux the server uses $SHELL, and falls back to bash only when $SHELL is unset:

t3code/apps/server/src/terminal/Manager.ts

Lines 482 to 487 in 5cc99e1

	function defaultShellResolver(platform: NodeJS.Platform, env: NodeJS.ProcessEnv): string {
	if (platform === "win32") {
	return "pwsh.exe";
	}
	return env.SHELL ?? "bash";
	}

The desktop app inherits your macOS login shell as $SHELL. Fish isn't in the fallback list (zsh, bash, sh), so it only starts when it's your login shell.

Settings also has no field for the shell command. Searching "terminal" only finds the Terminal font option under Appearance, and searching "shell" finds nothing:

t3code/apps/web/src/components/settings/settingsSearch.ts

Lines 252 to 256 in 5cc99e1

	id: "terminal-font",
	title: "Terminal font",
	to: "/settings/appearance",
	searchTerms: ["typography family size monospace output"],
	},

Opening fish in the terminal while keeping a different login shell would need a new setting. Three earlier PRs tried to add a shell picker (#5268, #6125, and #8505), but all were closed without merging. If you'd like to push for it, Ideas is the best place, and please hold off on a PR until a direction is approved (prior approval).

For now, the only way to get fish in the terminal is to make it the login shell the desktop app inherits.

[filipechagas]

+1, I'd use this. I'm on Linux, my login shell is bash, and I want to keep it that way system-wide, but I'd like zsh in T3's integrated terminal.

Right now the only lever is $SHELL for the whole session, since the server spawns env.SHELL (apps/server/src/terminal/Manager.ts). My workaround is a few lines in ~/.bashrc that exec zsh when T3CODE_PROJECT_ROOT is set, since only T3 terminals have it:

if [[ -n $T3CODE_PROJECT_ROOT && -z $T3_ZSH_HANDOFF ]] && command -v zsh >/dev/null; then
  export T3_ZSH_HANDOFF=1 SHELL=$(command -v zsh)
  exec zsh
fi

It works, but bash still starts first and it breaks if that variable is ever renamed. The installed-shells picker from #5268 would cover my case.