`./setup` hangs on "Installing Playwright Chromium" (macOS arm64); re-running spawns multiple stuck processes

[francoag17]

Environment

• gstack: v1.58.5.0 (commit 11de390)
• macOS 15 (Darwin 25.5.0), Apple Silicon (arm64)
• bun 1.3.14, node v24.16.0
• Fresh install via the documented one-liner

What happens
./setup reaches Installing Playwright Chromium... and never returns. The browser binary (browse/dist/browse) builds fine and Chromium downloads to 100% on the first run, but the step does not complete, so the script never reaches the Claude skill-linking block (link_claude_skill_dirs, setup line ~983). Result: only the gstack router skill is registered — none of the flat-name skills (/qa, /ship, /review, …) get linked into ~/.claude/skills/.

Re-running ./setup to retry makes it worse: each invocation launches another bash ./setup + node .../playwright install chromium + oopDownloadBrowserMain.js that also hangs, so several stuck process trees accumulate:

node .../node_modules/.bin/playwright install chromium
bash ./setup --host claude --no-prefix
node .../playwright-core/lib/server/registry/oopDownloadBrowserMain.js

Likely root cause
ensure_playwright_browser() (setup line 252) verifies Chromium on macOS with a bun-based launch:

bun --eval 'import { chromium } from "playwright"; const browser = await chromium.launch(); await browser.close();'

This appears to fail/hang on macOS arm64 (similar to the Bun pipe bug oven-sh/bun#4253 that the code already works around with Node on Windows). Because the check returns non-zero, setup believes Chromium is missing on every run and re-enters bunx playwright install chromium (line 483), which itself hangs — an effectively permanent reinstall loop. Chromium is in fact already present under ~/Library/Caches/ms-playwright/.

Workaround that fixed it
Kill the stuck processes, then link skills directly without touching the Chromium step:

pkill -f "gstack/setup"; pkill -f "playwright install chromium"; pkill -f oopDownloadBrowserMain
~/.claude/skills/gstack/bin/gstack-relink   # "Relinked 53 skills as flat names"

After this, all skills (/qa, etc.) register correctly.

Suggested fixes

1. Use the Node-based launch check on macOS too (not only Windows), or add a timeout around the bun chromium.launch() probe so a hung probe can't force a reinstall.
2. Guard the install step against re-entry / wrap bunx playwright install chromium in a timeout, and detect an already-downloaded Chromium in ~/Library/Caches/ms-playwright/ before reinstalling.
3. Consider running link_claude_skill_dirs before the Chromium step (or in a trap/finally) so a browser-download failure doesn't leave skills unregistered.