Since 0.14.1, `mcp-inspector` does not work under `child_process.spawn`

[vanyauhalin]

Describe the bug

Hi. After upgrading from version 0.14.0 to 0.14.1, the following script has stopped working. Specifically, after the upgrade, mcp-inspector does not take into account the passed arguments.

import * as child from "node:child_process"

process.loadEnvFile("../.env")

child.spawn(
	"npm",
	[
		"exec",
		"mcp-inspector",
		"--",
		"-e",
		`CUSTOM_VAR=${process.env.CUSTOM_VAR}`,
		"--",
		"node",
		"../main.js" // just a placeholder
	],
	{
		env: process.env,
		stdio: "inherit",
		shell: true,
	},
)

To Reproduce

Steps to reproduce the behavior:

1. Clone repository https://github.com/vanyauhalin/mcp-inspector-issue
2. Go to directory (0.14.0 and 0.14.1).
3. Run npm install.
4. Run npm run serve.
5. Clear local storage between runs.

Expected behavior

I would expect the script to work in newer versions as well as it does in version 0.14.0.

Logs

No logs.

Additional context

This is the second time. The first one is here #495.

[olaservo]

Closing as duplicate of #495 (same issue reported again after regression in 0.14.1).

---

This comment was posted by Claude during issue triage.

[vanyauhalin]

@olaservo Hi. Sorry, I did not understand from your message. Is this issue fixed? You pointed to #495, but that issue is about different version of the inspector.

Edit: Update to version 0.18.0. At first glance, everything seems to work. Thank you.