Summary

In 2026.5.4, the login shell environment probe (execLoginShellEnvZero) in the new io-*.js bundle spawns a child process without windowsHide: true. On Windows this causes a brief PowerShell console window to flash every time the gateway initialises or re-probes the shell environment.

Affected file (2026.5.4)

dist/io-D-sSCO_A.js   (exact hash varies per build — grep for execLoginShellEnvZero)

Reproduction (from 2026.5.4 source):

function execLoginShellEnvZero(params) {
    return params.exec(params.shell, ["-l", "-c", "env -0"], {
        encoding: "buffer",
        timeout: params.timeoutMs,
        maxBuffer: DEFAULT_MAX_BUFFER_BYTES,
        env: params.env,
        // windowsHide: true   <-- MISSING
        stdio: ["ignore", "pipe", "pipe"]
    });
}

Impact

• Every gateway start / shell-env re-probe flashes a PowerShell window for ~100–300 ms on Windows.
• Same user-facing symptom as the spawn paths already patched in PR fix(windows): add windowsHide to all Windows spawn resolution paths #48320 and PR fix(gateway): hide child process windows to prevent startup flicker on Windows #70238 #70308, but through a different code path introduced in 2026.5.4.

Fix

Add windowsHide: true to the options object:

function execLoginShellEnvZero(params) {
    return params.exec(params.shell, ["-l", "-c", "env -0"], {
        encoding: "buffer",
        timeout: params.timeoutMs,
        maxBuffer: DEFAULT_MAX_BUFFER_BYTES,
        env: params.env,
        windowsHide: true,
        stdio: ["ignore", "pipe", "pipe"]
    });
}

Environment

• OS: Windows 11 Pro (Build 26200)
• OpenClaw: 2026.5.4
• Shell: PowerShell 7 (pwsh.exe) resolved via resolvePowerShellPath()

Related

• Issue [Bug]: Windows: exec tool causes console window flash when spawning commands #59362 — general Windows exec console flash tracking issue
• PR fix(windows): add windowsHide to all Windows spawn resolution paths #48320 — windowsHide added to spawn resolution paths (does not cover execLoginShellEnvZero)
• PR fix(gateway): hide child process windows to prevent startup flicker on Windows #70238 #70308 — windowsHide for gateway child processes (merged, different code path)