[Bug]: Regression: #35930 broke CJS via ESM loading when exporting null/undefined with ELECTRON_RUN_AS_NODE

[Prinzhorn]

Preflight Checklist

• I have read the Contributing Guidelines for this project.
• I agree to follow the Code of Conduct that this project adheres to.
• I have searched the issue tracker for a bug report that matches the one I want to file, without success.

Electron Version

22.0.3

What operating system are you using?

Ubuntu

Operating System Version

Ubuntu 22.10

What arch are you using?

x64

Last Known Working Electron version

20.3.1 / 21.1.0

Expected Behavior

1. npm i electron@20.3.1 ava
2. ELECTRON_RUN_AS_NODE=true ./node_modules/.bin/electron ./node_modules/.bin/ava
3. Works (can't find any tests obviously)

I was successfully running my esm tests via ELECTRON_RUN_AS_NODE until now

Actual Behavior

1. npm i electron@20.3.2 ava
2. ELECTRON_RUN_AS_NODE=true ./node_modules/.bin/electron ./node_modules/.bin/ava
3. Crashes

node:internal/modules/esm/translators:178
      if (!ObjectPrototypeHasOwnProperty(exports, exportName) ||
           ^

TypeError: Cannot convert undefined or null to object
    at hasOwnProperty (<anonymous>)
    at ModuleWrap.<anonymous> (node:internal/modules/esm/translators:178:12)
    at ModuleJob.run (node:internal/modules/esm/module_job:193:25)
    at async Promise.all (index 0)
    at async ESMLoader.import (node:internal/modules/esm/loader:533:24)
    at async loadESM (node:internal/process/esm_loader:91:5)
    at async handleMainPromise (node:internal/modules/run_main:65:12)

Testcase Gist URL

No response

Additional Information

I was able to track this down and repro without ava as well (avajs/ava#3155). It appears you can no longer export null because it crashes the esm loader patch.

index.mjs

import m from './module.cjs';

module.cjs

module.exports = null;

ELECTRON_RUN_AS_NODE=true ./node_modules/.bin/electron index.mjs

It broke between 20.3.1 and 20.3.2 because of #35930 . If you're curious, in ava this comes from this dep https://github.com/jamiebuilds/ci-parallel-vars/blob/994940e4882bdddf046a5c076b49d700449e4b38/index.js#L41-L56

Weirdly, this is like the 4th time I've tried this.

@MarshallOfSound fifth time is the charm

[Prinzhorn]

I think this is the culprit, because it assumes you can only export objects when in reality you can export anything.

Object.keys(module.exports)

[Prinzhorn]

Thanks for your reply.

1. I already quoted fix: expose the built-in electron module via the ESM loader #35930 (even in the title) and mentioned the author of the PR
2. It's not a module I control (as mentioned it comes from ci-parallel-vars which ava uses), hence I cannot not export null (which is perfectly valid code)
3. Yes, I downgraded to 21.1.0 which is the most recent version without the patch