FileNotFoundError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: '\.venv\\Scripts\\fastapi-forge'

[matteolavaggi]

Bug Report: fastapi-forge fails on Windows with FileNotFoundError

Environment

• OS: Windows 11/10
• Python Version: 3.13
• fastapi-forge Version: 0.13.0
• Shell: Both PowerShell and Git Bash
• Installation Method: pip install fastapi-forge

Description

When running fastapi-forge start on Windows, the application starts successfully and opens the NiceGUI interface on http://localhost:8777, but immediately crashes with a FileNotFoundError when trying to access the web interface.

Steps to Reproduce

1. Create a virtual environment on Windows
2. Install fastapi-forge: pip install fastapi-forge
3. Run the command: .venv/Scripts/fastapi-forge.exe start or fastapi-forge start
4. Confirm that UV is installed when prompted
5. Try to access the web interface at http://localhost:8777

Expected Behavior

The web interface should load successfully and allow the user to define database schema and service specifications.

Actual Behavior

The application crashes with the following error:

FileNotFoundError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: '\.venv\\Scripts\\fastapi-forge'

Full Error Stack Trace

ERROR:nicegui:[Errno 2] No such file or directory: '\.venv\\Scripts\\fastapi-forge'
  + Exception Group Traceback (most recent call last):
  |   File "C:\Users\Pineapple\Documents\Visual Studio Code\ubli\ubli-be\.venv\Lib\site-packages\nicegui\ui_run.py", line 131, in run_script
  |     runpy.run_path(sys.argv[0], run_name='__main__')
  |     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  |   File "<frozen runpy>", line 286, in run_path
  |   File "<frozen runpy>", line 254, in _get_code_from_file
  | FileNotFoundError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: '\.venv\\Scripts\\fastapi-forge'

Root Cause Analysis

The issue appears to be in how sys.argv[0] is handled on Windows. The executable is named fastapi-forge.exe, but sys.argv[0] returns fastapi-forge (without the .exe extension). When the code tries to use runpy.run_path(sys.argv[0]) in nicegui/ui_run.py, it fails because the file without the extension doesn't exist on Windows.

Verification

The file .venv/Scripts/fastapi-forge.exe exists and can be executed, confirming the installation is correct. The issue is purely with the internal path resolution.

$ ls .venv/Scripts/fastapi-forge*
.venv/Scripts/fastapi-forge.exe

Suggested Fix

The code should handle Windows executable extensions properly. Possible solutions:

1. Check if sys.argv[0] exists, and if not, try appending .exe on Windows
2. Use sys.executable and run as a module instead of using runpy.run_path(sys.argv[0])
3. Add platform-specific handling in the NiceGUI integration code

Workaround Attempted

Tried running as a Python module:

python -m fastapi_forge start

But fastapi_forge is not importable as a module (ModuleNotFoundError).

Additional Context

This appears to be a common issue with Python CLI tools on Windows when they use sys.argv[0] for script introspection. The NiceGUI framework's ui_run.py is trying to reload/run the script, which fails on Windows due to the missing .exe extension.

Related Files

The error originates from:

• nicegui/ui_run.py:131 - calls runpy.run_path(sys.argv[0])
• The fastapi-forge entry point that's executed by Windows

Would appreciate any guidance on this issue or if there's a workaround I'm missing. Thank you!