Description of Change

Mirrors a modification in the ESM patch that avoids loading source for the electron module to the same (synchronous) code used for CJS interoperability. This code path can only be triggered in packaged applications.

It was an interesting journey figuring out the root cause for this one.

There exists two flows in the ESM loader: asynchronous (ESM) and synchronous (CJS). The second flow enables CJS modules to load ESM modules and vice versa. When a CJS module loads an ESM module, its imports are loaded synchronously for compatibility.

We patch the ESM loader to avoid loading source code for the electron module (because there is none). The patch only applies to the asynchronous flow. The patch also needs to be applied to the synchronous flow, which only runs on the electron module in packaged applications.

In an unpackaged application, default_app is the entrypoint. At the beginning of default_app, the electron module is loaded via import as an ESM module. Loading the electron module this way uses the (patched) asynchronous flow. As a side effect, the module instance gets cached.

In a packaged application, the app's main script is the entrypoint. default_app is not present and does not run. As a consequence, the module cache is relatively fresh.

The domino effect starts when (1) a CJS module loads via require (2) an ESM module that loads via import (3) the electron module (4) for the first time.¹² The ESM loader's synchronous flow does not take the usual cache hit branch and instead attempts to load the module. Since the synchronous flow is not patched to avoid loading the electron module's source code, an error ends up getting thrown.³ 💥

I also took the opportunity to move some code between patches, but honestly I don't know what goes where, so lmk if there's a better home for these changes. As for testing, I couldn't find a simple way to get our test runner to skip the default_app entrypoint, so I'm pushing the fix up by itself. If you accept "it works on my machine" though, then rest assured I manually verified this fix.

Fixes #46614

Checklist

• PR description included and stakeholders cc'd
• npm test passes
• tests are changed or added
• relevant API documentation, tutorials, and examples are updated and follow the documentation style guide
• PR release notes describe the change in a way relevant to app developers, and are capitalized, punctuated, and past tense.

Release Notes

Notes: Fixed an error when importing electron for the first time from an ESM module loaded by a CJS module in a packaged app.