dev-ops

Ed’s Windows laptop — traps

For agents running on Ed’s own machine (Windows 11, PowerShell 5.1, Git Bash). Cloud sessions and CI runners are Linux and can ignore this file.

• Never rewrite source files with Get-Content/Set-Content: UTF-8 read as ANSI turns non-ASCII into mojibake, and -Encoding utf8 adds a BOM. Use an edit tool.
• sed -i and perl -pi in Git Bash strip CRs from the whole file. In a CRLF repo a one-line substitution rewrites every line. Use an edit tool; git diff --ignore-cr-at-eol --stat against plain --stat tells a real change from line-ending churn.
• Multi-line commit messages via PowerShell here-strings get mangled (lines starting -- parse as options) — use git commit -F <file> or Git Bash.
• gh with quoted or multi-line arguments: use Git Bash, not PowerShell.
• Long briefs and nudges go in a file, never on the command line: Windows caps a command line at 32,767 characters, which claude -p "…" hits (plan-queue, 2026-08-25: ENAMETOOLONG).
• Auto mode refuses cd <dir> && … compounds whatever the allowlist says: pass the path to the command, or set the working directory, instead.
• Kill dev servers that earlier sessions left on ports before running walks, or the walk tests a stale build.
• A process started detached with Start-Process dies with its terminal.
• A scheduled task that runs cmd.exe under an interactive logon flashes a console window every time it fires; the task’s hidden setting does not hide it (plan-queue’s serve task, every 5 minutes until 2026-10-02).
• Memory is 16 GB and runs short under several headless browsers at once: run one browser-heavy process at a time, and prefer a cloud session or CI for browser walks.