Fix ESM node processes being unable to fork into other scripts

src/bin.ts

@@ -48,7 +48,8 @@ export function main(
   const state: BootstrapState = {
     shouldUseChildProcess: false,
     isInChildProcess: false,
-    entrypoint: __filename,
+    isCli: true,
+    tsNodeScript: __filename,
     parseArgvResult: args,
   };
   return bootstrap(state);
@@ -62,7 +63,12 @@ export function main(
 export interface BootstrapState {
   isInChildProcess: boolean;
   shouldUseChildProcess: boolean;
-  entrypoint: string;
+  /**
+   * True if bootstrapping the ts-node CLI process or the direct child necessitated by `--esm`.
+   * false if bootstrapping a subsequently `fork()`ed child.
+   */
+  isCli: boolean;
+  tsNodeScript: string;
   parseArgvResult: ReturnType<typeof parseArgv>;
   phase2Result?: ReturnType<typeof phase2>;
   phase3Result?: ReturnType<typeof phase3>;
@@ -73,12 +79,16 @@ export function bootstrap(state: BootstrapState) {
   if (!state.phase2Result) {
     state.phase2Result = phase2(state);
     if (state.shouldUseChildProcess && !state.isInChildProcess) {
+      // Note: When transitioning into the child-process after `phase2`,
+      // the updated working directory needs to be preserved.
       return callInChild(state);
     }
   }
   if (!state.phase3Result) {
     state.phase3Result = phase3(state);
     if (state.shouldUseChildProcess && !state.isInChildProcess) {
+      // Note: When transitioning into the child-process after `phase2`,
+      // the updated working directory needs to be preserved.
       return callInChild(state);
     }
   }
@@ -264,8 +274,7 @@ function parseArgv(argv: string[], entrypointArgs: Record<string, any>) {
 }
 
 function phase2(payload: BootstrapState) {
-  const { help, version, code, interactive, cwdArg, restArgs, esm } =
-    payload.parseArgvResult;
+  const { help, version, cwdArg, esm } = payload.parseArgvResult;
 
   if (help) {
     console.log(`
@@ -319,28 +328,14 @@ Options:
     process.exit(0);
   }
 
-  // Figure out which we are executing: piped stdin, --eval, REPL, and/or entrypoint
-  // This is complicated because node's behavior is complicated
-  // `node -e code -i ./script.js` ignores -e
-  const executeEval = code != null && !(interactive && restArgs.length);
-  const executeEntrypoint = !executeEval && restArgs.length > 0;
-  const executeRepl =
-    !executeEntrypoint &&
-    (interactive || (process.stdin.isTTY && !executeEval));
-  const executeStdin = !executeEval && !executeRepl && !executeEntrypoint;
-
-  const cwd = cwdArg || process.cwd();
-  /** Unresolved.  May point to a symlink, not realpath.  May be missing file extension */
-  const scriptPath = executeEntrypoint ? resolve(cwd, restArgs[0]) : undefined;
+  const cwd = cwdArg ? resolve(cwdArg) : process.cwd();
 
+  // If ESM is explicitly enabled through the flag, stage3 should be run in a child process
+  // with the ESM loaders configured.
   if (esm) payload.shouldUseChildProcess = true;
+
   return {
-    executeEval,
-    executeEntrypoint,
-    executeRepl,
-    executeStdin,
     cwd,
-    scriptPath,
   };
 }
 
@@ -372,7 +367,15 @@ function phase3(payload: BootstrapState) {
     esm,
     experimentalSpecifierResolution,
   } = payload.parseArgvResult;
-  const { cwd, scriptPath } = payload.phase2Result!;
+  const { cwd } = payload.phase2Result!;
+
+  // NOTE: When we transition to a child process for ESM, the entry-point script determined
+  // here might not be the one used later in `phase4`. This can happen when we execute the
+  // original entry-point but then the process forks itself using e.g. `child_process.fork`.
+  // We will always use the original TS project in forked processes anyway, so it is
+  // expected and acceptable to retrieve the entry-point information here in `phase2`.
+  // See: https://github.com/TypeStrong/ts-node/issues/1812.
+  const { entryPointPath } = getEntryPointInfo(payload);
 
   const preloadedConfig = findAndReadConfig({
     cwd,
@@ -387,7 +390,12 @@ function phase3(payload: BootstrapState) {
     compilerHost,
     ignore,
     logError,
-    projectSearchDir: getProjectSearchDir(cwd, scriptMode, cwdMode, scriptPath),
+    projectSearchDir: getProjectSearchDir(
+      cwd,
+      scriptMode,
+      cwdMode,
+      entryPointPath
+    ),
     project,
     skipProject,
     skipIgnore,
@@ -403,23 +411,77 @@ function phase3(payload: BootstrapState) {
       experimentalSpecifierResolution as ExperimentalSpecifierResolution,
   });
 
+  // If ESM is enabled through the parsed tsconfig, stage4 should be run in a child
+  // process with the ESM loaders configured.
   if (preloadedConfig.options.esm) payload.shouldUseChildProcess = true;
+
   return { preloadedConfig };
 }
 
+/**
+ * Determines the entry-point information from the argv and phase2 result. This
+ * method will be invoked in two places:
+ *
+ *   1. In phase 3 to be able to find a project from the potential entry-point script.
+ *   2. In phase 4 to determine the actual entry-point script.
+ *
+ * Note that we need to explicitly re-resolve the entry-point information in the final
+ * stage because the previous stage information could be modified when the bootstrap
+ * invocation transitioned into a child process for ESM.
+ *
+ * Stages before (phase 4) can and will be cached by the child process through the Brotli
+ * configuration and entry-point information is only reliable in the final phase. More
+ * details can be found in here: https://github.com/TypeStrong/ts-node/issues/1812.
+ */
+function getEntryPointInfo(state: BootstrapState) {
+  const { code, interactive, restArgs } = state.parseArgvResult!;
+  const { cwd } = state.phase2Result!;
+  const { isCli } = state;
+
+  // Figure out which we are executing: piped stdin, --eval, REPL, and/or entrypoint
+  // This is complicated because node's behavior is complicated
+  // `node -e code -i ./script.js` ignores -e
+  const executeEval = code != null && !(interactive && restArgs.length);
+  const executeEntrypoint = !executeEval && restArgs.length > 0;
+  const executeRepl =
+    !executeEntrypoint &&
+    (interactive || (process.stdin.isTTY && !executeEval));
+  const executeStdin = !executeEval && !executeRepl && !executeEntrypoint;
+
+  /**
+   * Unresolved. May point to a symlink, not realpath. May be missing file extension
+   * NOTE: resolution relative to cwd option (not `process.cwd()`) is legacy backwards-compat; should be changed in next major: https://github.com/TypeStrong/ts-node/issues/1834
+   */
+  const entryPointPath = executeEntrypoint
+    ? isCli
+      ? resolve(cwd, restArgs[0])
+      : resolve(restArgs[0])
+    : undefined;
+
+  return {
+    executeEval,
+    executeEntrypoint,
+    executeRepl,
+    executeStdin,
+    entryPointPath,
+  };
+}
+
 function phase4(payload: BootstrapState) {
-  const { isInChildProcess, entrypoint } = payload;
+  const { isInChildProcess, tsNodeScript } = payload;
   const { version, showConfig, restArgs, code, print, argv } =
     payload.parseArgvResult;
+  const { cwd } = payload.phase2Result!;
+  const { preloadedConfig } = payload.phase3Result!;
+
   const {
+    entryPointPath,
+    executeEntrypoint,
     executeEval,
-    cwd,
-    executeStdin,
     executeRepl,
-    executeEntrypoint,
-    scriptPath,
-  } = payload.phase2Result!;
-  const { preloadedConfig } = payload.phase3Result!;
+    executeStdin,
+  } = getEntryPointInfo(payload);
+
   /**
    * <repl>, [stdin], and [eval] are all essentially virtual files that do not exist on disc and are backed by a REPL
    * service to handle eval-ing of code.
@@ -566,12 +628,13 @@ function phase4(payload: BootstrapState) {
 
   // Prepend `ts-node` arguments to CLI for child processes.
   process.execArgv.push(
-    entrypoint,
+    tsNodeScript,
     ...argv.slice(2, argv.length - restArgs.length)
   );
-  // TODO this comes from BoostrapState
+
+  // TODO this comes from BootstrapState
   process.argv = [process.argv[1]]
-    .concat(executeEntrypoint ? ([scriptPath] as string[]) : [])
+    .concat(executeEntrypoint ? ([entryPointPath] as string[]) : [])
     .concat(restArgs.slice(executeEntrypoint ? 1 : 0));
 
   // Execute the main contents (either eval, script or piped).

src/child/argv-payload.ts

@@ -0,0 +1,18 @@
+import { brotliCompressSync, brotliDecompressSync, constants } from 'zlib';
+
+/** @internal */
+export const argPrefix = '--brotli-base64-config=';
+
+/** @internal */
+export function compress(object: any) {
+  return brotliCompressSync(Buffer.from(JSON.stringify(object), 'utf8'), {
+    [constants.BROTLI_PARAM_QUALITY]: constants.BROTLI_MIN_QUALITY,
+  }).toString('base64');
+}
+
+/** @internal */
+export function decompress(str: string) {
+  return JSON.parse(
+    brotliDecompressSync(Buffer.from(str, 'base64')).toString()
+  );
+}

src/child/child-entrypoint.ts

@@ -1,16 +1,24 @@
 import { BootstrapState, bootstrap } from '../bin';
-import { brotliDecompressSync } from 'zlib';
+import { argPrefix, compress, decompress } from './argv-payload';
 
 const base64ConfigArg = process.argv[2];
-const argPrefix = '--brotli-base64-config=';
 if (!base64ConfigArg.startsWith(argPrefix)) throw new Error('unexpected argv');
 const base64Payload = base64ConfigArg.slice(argPrefix.length);
-const payload = JSON.parse(
-  brotliDecompressSync(Buffer.from(base64Payload, 'base64')).toString()
-) as BootstrapState;
-payload.isInChildProcess = true;
-payload.entrypoint = __filename;
-payload.parseArgvResult.argv = process.argv;
-payload.parseArgvResult.restArgs = process.argv.slice(3);
+const state = decompress(base64Payload) as BootstrapState;
 
-bootstrap(payload);
+state.isInChildProcess = true;
+state.tsNodeScript = __filename;
+state.parseArgvResult.argv = process.argv;
+state.parseArgvResult.restArgs = process.argv.slice(3);
+
+// Modify and re-compress the payload delivered to subsequent child processes.
+// This logic may be refactored into bin.ts by https://github.com/TypeStrong/ts-node/issues/1831
+if (state.isCli) {
+  const stateForChildren: BootstrapState = {
+    ...state,
+    isCli: false,
+  };
+  state.parseArgvResult.argv[2] = `${argPrefix}${compress(stateForChildren)}`;
+}
+
+bootstrap(state);

src/child/spawn-child.ts

@@ -1,12 +1,15 @@
 import type { BootstrapState } from '../bin';
 import { spawn } from 'child_process';
-import { brotliCompressSync } from 'zlib';
 import { pathToFileURL } from 'url';
 import { versionGteLt } from '../util';
+import { argPrefix, compress } from './argv-payload';
 
-const argPrefix = '--brotli-base64-config=';
-
-/** @internal */
+/**
+ * @internal
+ * @param state Bootstrap state to be transferred into the child process.
+ * @param targetCwd Working directory to be preserved when transitioning to
+ *   the child process.
+ */
 export function callInChild(state: BootstrapState) {
   if (!versionGteLt(process.versions.node, '12.17.0')) {
     throw new Error(
@@ -22,9 +25,7 @@ export function callInChild(state: BootstrapState) {
       // Node on Windows doesn't like `c:\` absolute paths here; must be `file:///c:/`
       pathToFileURL(require.resolve('../../child-loader.mjs')).toString(),
       require.resolve('./child-entrypoint.js'),
-      `${argPrefix}${brotliCompressSync(
-        Buffer.from(JSON.stringify(state), 'utf8')
-      ).toString('base64')}`,
+      `${argPrefix}${compress(state)}`,
       ...state.parseArgvResult.restArgs,
     ],
     {

src/test/esm-loader.spec.ts

@@ -22,6 +22,7 @@ import {
   TEST_DIR,
   tsSupportsImportAssertions,
   tsSupportsResolveJsonModule,
+  tsSupportsStableNodeNextNode16,
 } from './helpers';
 import { createExec, createSpawn, ExecReturn } from './exec-helpers';
 import { join, resolve } from 'path';
@@ -358,6 +359,53 @@ test.suite('esm', (test) => {
         });
       }
 
+      test.suite('esm child process working directory', (test) => {
+        test('should have the correct working directory in the user entry-point', async () => {
+          const { err, stdout, stderr } = await exec(
+            `${BIN_PATH} --esm --cwd ./esm/ index.ts`,
+            {
+              cwd: resolve(TEST_DIR, 'working-dir'),
+            }
+          );
+
+          expect(err).toBe(null);
+          expect(stdout.trim()).toBe('Passing');
+          expect(stderr).toBe('');
+        });
+      });
+
+      test.suite('esm child process and forking', (test) => {
+        test('should be able to fork vanilla NodeJS script', async () => {
+          const { err, stdout, stderr } = await exec(
+            `${BIN_PATH} --esm --cwd ./esm-child-process/ ./process-forking-js/index.ts`
+          );
+
+          expect(err).toBe(null);
+          expect(stdout.trim()).toBe('Passing: from main');
+          expect(stderr).toBe('');
+        });
+
+        test('should be able to fork TypeScript script', async () => {
+          const { err, stdout, stderr } = await exec(
+            `${BIN_PATH} --esm --cwd ./esm-child-process/ ./process-forking-ts/index.ts`
+          );
+
+          expect(err).toBe(null);
+          expect(stdout.trim()).toBe('Passing: from main');
+          expect(stderr).toBe('');
+        });
+
+        test('should be able to fork TypeScript script by absolute path', async () => {
+          const { err, stdout, stderr } = await exec(
+            `${BIN_PATH} --esm --cwd ./esm-child-process/ ./process-forking-ts-abs/index.ts`
+          );
+
+          expect(err).toBe(null);
+          expect(stdout.trim()).toBe('Passing: from main');
+          expect(stderr).toBe('');
+        });
+      });
+
       test.suite('parent passes signals to child', (test) => {
         test.runSerially();
 

src/test/index.spec.ts

@@ -617,6 +617,33 @@ test.suite('ts-node', (test) => {
       }
     });
 
+    test('should have the correct working directory in the user entry-point', async () => {
+      const { err, stdout, stderr } = await exec(
+        `${BIN_PATH} --cwd ./cjs index.ts`,
+        {
+          cwd: resolve(TEST_DIR, 'working-dir'),
+        }
+      );
+
+      expect(err).toBe(null);
+      expect(stdout.trim()).toBe('Passing');
+      expect(stderr).toBe('');
+    });
+
+    // Disabled due to bug:
+    // --cwd is passed to forked children when not using --esm, erroneously affects their entrypoint resolution.
+    // tracked/fixed by either https://github.com/TypeStrong/ts-node/issues/1834
+    // or https://github.com/TypeStrong/ts-node/issues/1831
+    test.skip('should be able to fork into a nested TypeScript script with a modified working directory', async () => {
+      const { err, stdout, stderr } = await exec(
+        `${BIN_PATH} --cwd ./working-dir/forking/ index.ts`
+      );
+
+      expect(err).toBe(null);
+      expect(stdout.trim()).toBe('Passing: from main');
+      expect(stderr).toBe('');
+    });
+
     test.suite('should read ts-node options from tsconfig.json', (test) => {
       const BIN_EXEC = `"${BIN_PATH}" --project tsconfig-options/tsconfig.json`;