jstimps
Livebook Desktop: Why doesn't the default PATH include /usr/local/bin?
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.
Most Liked Responses
jonatanklosko
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.








