fix(compositor): PR #170's asset-path fix was a no-op in the packaged app — bypass asar-transparent fs

[EtienneLescot]

Fast-follow on #170 (already merged). Rebuilt and relaunched the packaged app to visually confirm that fix, and the exact same bug came right back: a bundled wallpaper still rendered as a flat colour, a themed cursor still fell back to default art, and the main-process log still showed

[compositor] wallpaper image "...\resources\app.asar\dist\wallpapers\wallpaper5.jpg" : ... Le chemin d'accès spécifié est introuvable. (os error 3)

— the exact path #170 was supposed to stop sending.

Root cause

resolveSceneAssetPath's candidate-probe loop used plain fs.existsSync. Electron patches fs to read through an asar archive transparently — from JS's point of view, .../app.asar/dist/wallpapers/wallpaper5.jpg "exists". So the probe locked onto the first candidate (VITE_PUBLIC, pointing into the asar) on every single call and never reached the second, real one (resourcesPath). #170's fix compiled correctly, shipped correctly, and never actually resolved anything, because the existence check itself was lying.

Confirmed the mechanism directly rather than guessing: ran a probe script inside the packaged binary via ELECTRON_RUN_AS_NODE=1.

patched fs.existsSync (asar-transparent) on asar path: true
original-fs.existsSync on asar path:                   false
original-fs.existsSync on real resourcesPath:           true

The native addon calls raw fopen/CreateFile with no concept of asar, so it agrees with original-fs, not with patched fs — which is exactly why the wrong candidate kept winning.

Fix

original-fs is Electron's own escape hatch for precisely this: same API, unpatched. Route the existence check through it, falling back to plain fs where original-fs doesn't exist — outside Electron, i.e. the vitest suite, where plain Node's fs was never patched in the first place, so no fallback behavior changes.

function realExistsSync(candidate: string): boolean {
	try {
		return (localRequire("original-fs") as typeof fs).existsSync(candidate);
	} catch {
		return fs.existsSync(candidate);
	}
}

Verification

• Rebuilt (tsc && vite build && electron-builder, native addon unchanged), grepped the packaged app.asar bytes directly to confirm realExistsSync/original-fs actually compiled in.
• Relaunched the packaged app against the same project that reproduced the original bug report. Confirmed live:
  • The bundled wallpaper now renders (padding/roundness/shadow all visible around it) instead of falling back to a flat colour.
  • Switching cursor themes now visibly changes the rendered sprite on the recording.
  • The [compositor] wallpaper image ... introuvable log line is gone.
• tsc --noEmit clean, biome clean, existing 15 tests in compositorViewService.test.ts still pass (they run under plain Node, so they exercise the fs fallback branch, not the asar-bypass itself — that half is Electron-runtime-specific and is what the live verification above covers).

Note for review

I did not add a mocked unit test simulating Electron's asar-fs patching — a test that only asserts localRequire("original-fs") gets called would be closer to tautological than to a real regression guard, since the actual failure mode (patched fs.existsSync lying about an asar-internal path) can't be faithfully reproduced outside a real Electron + real asar. The live verification above is the real check for this one.

[coderabbitai]

Important

Review skipped

Auto reviews are disabled on base/target branches other than the default branch.

Please check the settings in the CodeRabbit UI or the .coderabbit.yaml file in this repository. To trigger a single review, invoke the @coderabbitai review command.

⚙️ Run configuration

Configuration used: defaults

Review profile: CHILL

Plan: Pro Plus

Run ID: bf6cfd59-ed5c-47fa-b21e-5bc0ab1417b9

You can disable this status message by setting the reviews.review_status to false in the CodeRabbit configuration file.

Use the checkbox below for a quick retry:

• 🔍 Trigger review

✨ Finishing Touches

🧪 Generate unit tests (beta)

• Create PR with unit tests
• Commit unit tests in branch claude/asar-existsSync-fastfollow

---

Thanks for using CodeRabbit! It's free for OSS, and your support helps us grow. If you like it, consider giving us a shout-out.

❤️ Share

• X
• Mastodon
• Reddit
• LinkedIn

_{Comment @coderabbitai help to get the list of available commands.}