fix(start): pass app args with correct amount of --

[erickzhao]

Problem statement

Fixes #3873.

In #3848, we upgraded the commander library from v4 to v11, which brought in half a decade's worth of updates.

This change required us to use the newer passThroughOptions() setting to pass args to process.argv instead of to the program itself. I had previously tested that this worked specifically with the following invocation:

yarn start -- --inspect-electron -- --arg1 --arg2

However, as reported in the aforementioned issue, this approach didn't work with yarn start yarn start -- -- --arg1 --arg2 when attempting to pass in app args without passing any args to Forge.

Root cause

By inspecting the value of process.argv at the top level of electron-forge-start.ts, I noticed that the -- values were being swallowed, leading to args being passed straight to the CLI instead of the app itself. However, all -- args were being passed properly to the top-level electron-forge.ts file.

I think I had passThroughOptions misconfigured by not setting it at the top level, meaning that electron-forge would swallow one set of -- params even before it would touch the electron-forge start command level.

Test cases

We don't have CLI-level tests in Forge, so I went around and tested this manually.

With npm start:

$ npm start -- -- --remote-debugging-port=9222

> [email protected] start
> electron-forge start -- --remote-debugging-port=9222

✔ Checking your system
✔ Locating application
✔ Loading configuration
✔ Preparing native dependencies [0.1s]
✔ Running generateAssets hook
✔ Running preStart hook


DevTools listening on ws://127.0.0.1:9222/devtools/browser/9c325fd8-49ce-4f9e-aa34-82ba23742c6d

With yarn start:

$ yarn start -- -- --remote-debugging-port=9222

yarn start -- -- --remote-debugging-port=9222
yarn run v1.22.22
warning From Yarn 1.0 onwards, scripts don't require "--" for options to be forwarded. In a future version, any explicit "--" will be forwarded as-is to the scripts.
$ electron-forge start -- --remote-debugging-port=9222
✔ Checking your system
✔ Locating application
✔ Loading configuration
✔ Preparing native dependencies [0.1s]
✔ Running generateAssets hook
✔ Running preStart hook


DevTools listening on ws://127.0.0.1:9222/devtools/browser/4988f349-e621-470d-9150-6473f90f51e1

With npx electron-forge start:

$ npx electron-forge start -- --remote-debugging-port=9222
✔ Checking your system
✔ Locating application
✔ Loading configuration
✔ Preparing native dependencies [0.1s]
✔ Running generateAssets hook
✔ Running preStart hook


DevTools listening on ws://127.0.0.1:9222/devtools/browser/34d362be-29c5-49a5-9e37-dd70e7153ff2

Validating that there are no regressions with passing a CLI flag to Forge before passing additional args to the Electron app:

> npx electron-forge start --inspect-electron -- --remote-debugging-port=9222
✔ Checking your system
✔ Locating application
✔ Loading configuration
✔ Preparing native dependencies [0.1s]
✔ Running generateAssets hook
✔ Running preStart hook

Debugger listening on ws://127.0.0.1:9229/06515d95-2934-4e72-8763-6c4831f545d9
For help, see: https://nodejs.org/en/docs/inspector

DevTools listening on ws://127.0.0.1:9222/devtools/browser/f837a86f-a45c-464d-89ad-4750579c7701