Add an apply API for Bash environment changes #52

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1. tesujimath commented on Jul 28, 2026

   

   tesujimath

   on Jul 28, 2026

   Last edited by tesujimath

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   Thanks for raising this. There are certainly some considerations here.

   Here are my initial thoughts.

   1. I think load-env itself should handle null/ nothing as unset variable. Obviously would need this proposal to be taken to the core Nushell team, but my feeling is that is the right solution.
   2. PATH handling I am unsure about. Is the current behaviour that Nushell itself doesn’t notice the new path, but any child processes do? If so isn’t that also arguably a mis-feature in Nushell core which should be fixed there (also in load-env)?
   3. I think PWD should be filtered out by bash-env-json and simply not appear in the output. I would be happy to make such a change there. The point is, cd is simply out of scope for what an environment file is reasonably expected to do.
   4. Yes 😁

   Trying to give you an early reply as I’m otherwise pretty tied up this week sorry. Hopefully this suggests alternative solutions for you?

   Thanks for your interest!

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2. TyceHerrman commented on Jul 29, 2026

   

   TyceHerrman

   on Jul 29, 2026

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   Very helpful!

   For load-env handling null or nothing as an unset variable, I agree now that this is a better fit in Nushell core. There’s nushell/nushell#15872, which covers explicit unset flags but doesn’t cover treating nothing as removal, so I’ll bring this up over there in core.

   For PATH handling, Nushell sees the change. which finds new commands from the updated PATH and they execute. Child processes also receive the updated PATH. Only $env.PATH changes from a list to a string. Nushell’s Direnv guide tells users to convert PATH after load-env to restore its usual list form. This issue would affect any external environment importer, so Nushell core providing an explicit conversion option that applies $env.ENV_CONVERSIONS may make the most sense. I’ll raise that upstream too.

   Filtering PWD would be better in bash-env-json. I agree. That prevents load-env from rejecting the entire delta. As an extra wrinkle, OLDPWD can change with it, so filtering both avoids inconsistent directory state.

   I’ll leave this open for now and reevaluate what this issue should actually be scoped to after those things are resolved.
3. tesujimath commented on Aug 1, 2026

   

   tesujimath

   on Aug 1, 2026

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   The PWD aspects of this are now fixed in tesujimath/bash-env-json#19, released as bash-env-json 0.11.0.

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4. TyceHerrman commented on Oct 15, 2026

   

   TyceHerrman

   on Oct 15, 2026

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   status with Nushell 0.116.1 and bash-env-json 0.11.0:

   • Directory variable filtering is fixed upstream. bash-env-json #19, released in 0.11.0, filters PWD, OLDPWD, and DIRSTACK. I confirmed that changing directories in the Bash input no longer causes load-env to reject the delta.
   • PATH normalization is available in Nushell core. Nushell #18832 makes refreshing ENV_CONVERSIONS also restore PATH to its usual list form.
   • Unset semantics remain unresolved in Nushell core. Nushell #15872 remains open. load-env still keeps keys with nothing values in $env, although child processes don't receive them. Actual removal still requires hide-env.

   When the imported Bash environment changes PATH, load-env leaves it as a string. The second line restores it to a Nushell list and applies configured environment conversions.

   bash-env ./environment.sh | load-env
   $env.ENV_CONVERSIONS = $env.ENV_CONVERSIONS

   pattern needs documenting and a regression test

   Separately, project's bash-env-json pin dependency could use an update to bring in the directory filtering fix from 0.11.0 (will open pr for this)

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