Livebook Desktop: Why doesn't the default PATH include /usr/local/bin?

Elixir Framework Forums Livebook Forum
,
1

I’ve noticed that the default PATH env var used by Livebook Desktop does not include /usr/local/bin on my system.

(I know that the PATH can be set manually on the Settings page, and that does work, but I’m wondering if /usr/local/bin could be added to the default PATH without user intervention)

System.get_env("PATH")

"/Applications/Livebook.app/Contents/Resources/rel/vendor/otp/erts-15.0/bin:/Applications/Livebook.app/Contents/Resources/rel/vendor/otp/bin:/Applications/Livebook.app/Contents/Resources/rel/vendor/elixir/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin"

This appears to be specific to the Livebook Desktop installation. When running from a local build, the PATH is set to the value from my terminal session env, as expected.

1 Like
2

I was thinking about this very think yesterday. I did have it set manually (along with my zsh defined PATH) but I would be curious to know too

3

This appears to be specific to the Livebook Desktop installation. When running from a local build, the PATH is set to the value from my terminal session env, as expected.

When you start Livebook from the terminal it inherits all env vars, including PATH form your terminal session. Livebook Desktop on the other hand is started outside of the terminal session, so it doesn’t have access to the usual PATH.

4

Thank you, that makes sense. However, wouldnt it be preferable to have Livebook Desktop include standard system paths like /usr/local/bin and /usr/local/sbin in the default base path?

5

The main thing is that we need to draw the line somewhere. Many binaries will be installed to /opt/homebrew/bin, but that’s not a standard path. We could add only the default ones from /etc/paths or similar, but that just slightly moves the line, so currently we just prefer users to explicitly add whatever they need.

1 Like