Windows support baseline

Windows is an active enablement target, not a released or fully supported Maka platform yet. The CLI and Electron desktop application can run from source, but release, recovery, sandbox, and computer-use guarantees are incomplete. Progress is tracked in GitHub issue #2142.

Phase 0 development target

The initial target is a native Windows 11 x64 development environment with:

• Node.js 22.19 or newer; CI currently standardizes on Node.js 24;
• npm 11 and the committed lockfile;
• Git for Windows with long-path support available;
• PowerShell 7 (pwsh) preferred, with Windows PowerShell 5.1 and cmd.exe supported fallbacks;
• ripgrep on PATH for the Runtime Grep tool;
• WebView/runtime components installed by a current Windows 11 installation;
• Windows Developer Mode or elevation only for tests that create file symlinks. Normal CLI and desktop startup must not require either.

Windows 10, Windows on Arm, packaged installation, automatic updates, sandbox enforcement, and computer-use are not covered by the Phase 0 baseline.

Reproducible checks

Install and build from a clean checkout:

npm ci
npm run build

Audit all test declarations excluded on Windows:

npm run windows:inventory

Run isolated CLI and real Electron startup smoke checks:

npm run smoke:windows

Run the complete repository test plan:

npm test

The generated Windows test skip inventory classifies every detected Windows-excluded test declaration. Adding or removing one requires regenerating the inventory with npm run windows:inventory:write and reviewing its classification.

Baseline captured on 2026-08-04

Environment: Windows 11 x64, Node.js 22.23.1, npm 11, Git for Windows.

Surface	Result	Notes
Workspace build	PASS	All root build:test workspace builds completed.
Repository script tests	110 pass, 0 fail, 1 skip	The skip is a real macOS pgrep probe.
Managed workspace baseline tests	17 pass, 0 fail, 5 skip	Passed after enabling Git for Windows long paths.
Storage suite	514 pass, 100 fail, 40 skip	Failures are dominated by EBUSY cleanup while SQLite files remain open.
Complete repository test plan	TIMEOUT	npm test did not exit within 10 minutes and left the workspace test runner alive.

The storage result is a diagnostic baseline, not an accepted support threshold. Windows does not allow POSIX-style unlink of an open SQLite database or shared-memory file. Stores, owners, and leases must close deterministically before their temporary root is removed.

The root test timeout is tracked separately from individual test failures. Phase 1 must make the workspace runner emit progress, terminate its children, and produce a bounded summary on Windows.

Current capability boundary

• CLI --help, --version, TUI startup, and non-interactive commands are native Node.js paths.
• Desktop development startup uses the Windows Electron binary.
• Runtime Host endpoints use Windows named pipes rather than Unix domain sockets.
• Shell selection prefers PowerShell 7, then Windows PowerShell, then cmd.exe.
• PTY execution uses ConPTY through node-pty; process-tree termination uses taskkill /T where required.
• Restricted sandbox profiles fail closed because there is no Windows sandbox backend.
• Computer-use has no Windows backend.
• There is no signed Windows installer or supported update channel.

Do not describe Windows as released or fully supported until the support criteria in issue #2142 are complete for the claimed support tier.