Bug: Lifecycle scripts use child_process.spawn instead of PTY, breaking interactive tools

[arnestrickmann]

Bug Report

Description
Lifecycle scripts (setup/run/teardown) in TaskLifecycleService.ts use child_process.spawn with shell: true and piped stdout/stderr — no TTY. This means any tool that checks for an interactive terminal fails when run via lifecycle scripts, even though the exact same command works perfectly in the terminal tab right next to it.

Root Cause

The terminal tab uses node-pty which provides full TTY support. Lifecycle scripts use child_process.spawn which provides no TTY — programs see process.stdout.isTTY === false and either degrade or fail.

Affected Tools

Any dev tool that detects TTY and changes behavior:

Tool	In terminal tab (PTY)	In lifecycle script (spawn)
Turborepo	TUI dashboard works	Falls back to plain logs or crashes
Expo	Interactive device menu	Fails or skips interactivity
Vite / Next.js	Colored output, key shortcuts	Plain text, no interactivity
Docker Compose	Colored, formatted output	Raw unformatted logs

Steps to Reproduce

1. Set a project's run script to something interactive (e.g., turbo dev)
2. Start a task — lifecycle script runs the command
3. The tool fails or degrades because it detects no TTY
4. Run the same command manually in the terminal tab — works perfectly

Expected Behavior

Lifecycle scripts should run with full TTY support, matching the terminal tab behavior.

Suggested Fix

Run lifecycle scripts via node-pty (same as the terminal tab does) instead of child_process.spawn. At minimum, offer this as a configuration option so users can opt into PTY-backed lifecycle scripts when their tools require interactivity.

Affected Code

• src/main/services/LifecycleScriptsService.ts — Currently uses child_process.spawn
• Should leverage the same node-pty infrastructure used by src/main/services/ptyManager.ts

[ckafrouni]

Pushing this issue up :)

I checked out the PR #1364 but it seems to give me worse results when running dev on a turbo project, i'm getting more unhandled terminal color codes.

[32m@zentio/server:dev: [0m
[32m@zentio/web:dev: [0m

I'm guessing using the same terminal as the other ones would be the better fix ? And maybe disabling inputs or smtgh ?