revert(windows): roll back terminal-popup PRs #53791 #53810 #53829

[teknium1]

Summary

Reverts the four Windows terminal-popup PRs. They never fixed the reported symptom (hermes update → gateway restart still flashes and flurries on Windows), so we're resetting to baseline and will fix from a real Windows reproduction instead of more Linux-reasoned guesses.

Why they failed: all four chased the wrong layer — subprocess.* call sites reasoned about on Linux — while the actual flash lives elsewhere in the spawn chain (e.g. the gateway-restart watcher launched via sys.executable, .bat/VBS launchers, the uv python.exe re-exec, or the Electron desktop relaunch). The AST footgun checker is a call-site denylist that structurally cannot see those, so CI went green while the popup persisted. None of the four were ever run on native Windows.

Reverts

• fix(windows): stop subprocess console-window popups + add CI guard #53791 — AST footgun subprocess rule + 62-site sweep + tests (ef17cd204)
• fix(windows): stop terminal-window popups from background spawns #53810 — _subprocess_compat.run/popen wrappers + FreeConsole catch-all + test_no_visible_console_spawns.py (5db1430af)
• fix(windows): capture is not a no-window boundary; route flashing spawns through chokepoint #53829 — capture-invariant correction + 35-site chokepoint migration (2ecca1e7d)
• fix(windows): gateway-restart watcher leg must use windowless interpreter #53850 — never merged; closed alongside this.

Kept (unrelated, not popup work): dbbf102b8 (strip VIRTUAL_ENV/CONDA_PREFIX from terminal env), #53616 (route build output to update.log). The pre-existing check-windows-footguns.py rules (os.kill / signal / etc.) and its lint job are untouched — only the subprocess rule added in #53791 is removed.

Validation

	Result
git revert x3	clean, no conflicts (sequential newest→oldest)
check-windows-footguns.py --all (original rules)	✓ 709 files clean
Affected suites (windows_native_support, gateway, hermes_bootstrap, mcp_catalog, mem0)	191 pass
_subprocess_compat.py	back to pre-#53810 (pre-existing helpers intact, wrappers gone)
hermes_bootstrap.py	FreeConsole/detach_orphan_console removed

Next (not in this PR)

Capture the flashing window's actual process on Windows (cmd.exe / conhost.exe / python.exe / powershell) during hermes update → restart, identify the exact spawn leg, fix that, and verify the flurry is gone on Windows before merging.

Infographic

[github-actions]

⚠️ MCP catalog security review required

This PR changes the bundled MCP catalog or MCP catalog installer code. MCP entries can define local commands that users later install into mcp_servers, so this needs explicit maintainer review before merge.

A maintainer should verify:

• any new/changed optional-mcps/**/manifest.yaml command and args are expected,
• stdio transports do not use shell+egress/exfiltration payloads,
• git install refs are pinned and bootstrap commands are minimal,
• requested env vars/secrets match the upstream MCP's documented needs.

After review, add the mcp-catalog-reviewed label and re-run this check.

[github-actions]

🔎 Lint report: revert/windows-terminal-fixes vs origin/main

ruff

Total: 0 on HEAD, 0 on base (➖ 0)

🆕 New issues: none

✅ Fixed issues: none

Unchanged: 0 pre-existing issues carried over.

ty (type checker)

Total: 11516 on HEAD, 11526 on base (✅ -10)

🆕 New issues (1):

Rule	Count
unresolved-attribute	1

First entries

tools/environments/local.py:758: [unresolved-attribute] unresolved-attribute: Unresolved attribute `_hermes_pgid` on type `Popen[str]`

✅ Fixed issues (10):

Rule	Count
unresolved-attribute	4
unresolved-import	3
unresolved-reference	2
invalid-argument-type	1

First entries

tests/test_no_visible_console_spawns.py:24: [unresolved-import] unresolved-import: Cannot resolve imported module `pytest`
plugins/memory/mem0/_setup.py:527: [unresolved-reference] unresolved-reference: Name `windows_hide_flags` used when not defined
tests/scripts/test_windows_footgun_subprocess_rule.py:30: [unresolved-attribute] unresolved-attribute: Attribute `exec_module` is not defined on `None` in union `Loader | None`
tests/scripts/test_windows_footgun_subprocess_rule.py:26: [invalid-argument-type] invalid-argument-type: Argument to function `module_from_spec` is incorrect: Expected `ModuleSpec`, found `ModuleSpec | None`
tests/scripts/test_windows_footgun_subprocess_rule.py:15: [unresolved-import] unresolved-import: Cannot resolve imported module `pytest`
tests/hermes_cli/test_gateway.py:892: [unresolved-import] unresolved-import: Cannot resolve imported module `psutil`
tests/test_hermes_bootstrap.py:248: [unresolved-attribute] unresolved-attribute: Unresolved attribute `_syscmd_ver` on type `<module 'platform'>`.
plugins/platforms/photon/cli.py:398: [unresolved-reference] unresolved-reference: Name `windows_hide_flags` used when not defined
tests/test_hermes_bootstrap.py:245: [unresolved-attribute] unresolved-attribute: Module `platform` has no member `_syscmd_ver`
tests/scripts/test_windows_footgun_subprocess_rule.py:30: [unresolved-attribute] unresolved-attribute: Attribute `loader` is not defined on `None` in union `ModuleSpec | None`

Unchanged: 6061 pre-existing issues carried over.

Diagnostics are surfaced as warnings — this check never fails the build.