fix: eliminate Windows console popups during daemon spawn and Chroma operations (#751)

* fix: eliminate Windows console popups during daemon spawn and Chroma operations

Two changes to fix Windows Terminal popup issues:

1. Worker daemon spawn (ProcessManager.spawnDaemon):
   - Windows: Use WMIC to spawn truly independent process without console
   - WMIC creates processes that survive parent exit and have no console association
   - Properly handles paths with spaces via double-quoting
   - Unix: Unchanged behavior with standard detached spawn

2. PID file handling (worker-service.ts):
   - Worker now writes its own PID after listen() succeeds (all platforms)
   - Removes race condition where spawner wrote PID before worker was ready
   - On Windows, spawner PID was useless anyway

3. Chroma vector search (ChromaSync.ts):
   - Temporarily disabled on Windows to prevent MCP SDK subprocess popups
   - Will be re-enabled when we migrate to persistent HTTP server architecture
   - Windows users still get full observation storage, just no semantic search

Tested on Windows 11 via SSH - worker spawns without console popups,
survives parent process exit, and all lifecycle commands (start/stop/restart)
work correctly.

Fixes #748, #708, #681, #676, #675

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

* fix: add YAML frontmatter to slash commands for discoverability

Commands /do and /make-plan were not appearing in Claude Code because
they lacked the required YAML frontmatter metadata. Added description
and argument-hint fields to both commands.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

---------

Co-authored-by: bigphoot <bigphoot@gmail.com>
Co-authored-by: Claude Opus 4.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

src/services/sync/ChromaSync.ts

@@ -83,10 +83,32 @@ export class ChromaSync {
   private readonly VECTOR_DB_DIR: string;
   private readonly BATCH_SIZE = 100;
 
+  // Windows: Chroma disabled due to MCP SDK spawning console popups
+  // See: https://github.com/anthropics/claude-mem/issues/675
+  // Will be re-enabled when we migrate to persistent HTTP server
+  private readonly disabled: boolean;
+
   constructor(project: string) {
     this.project = project;
     this.collectionName = `cm__${project}`;
     this.VECTOR_DB_DIR = path.join(os.homedir(), '.claude-mem', 'vector-db');
+
+    // Disable on Windows to prevent console popups from MCP subprocess spawning
+    // The MCP SDK's StdioClientTransport spawns Python processes that create visible windows
+    this.disabled = process.platform === 'win32';
+    if (this.disabled) {
+      logger.warn('CHROMA_SYNC', 'Vector search disabled on Windows (prevents console popups)', {
+        project: this.project,
+        reason: 'MCP SDK subprocess spawning causes visible console windows'
+      });
+    }
+  }
+
+  /**
+   * Check if Chroma is disabled (Windows)
+   */
+  isDisabled(): boolean {
+    return this.disabled;
   }
 
   /**
@@ -387,6 +409,7 @@ export class ChromaSync {
   /**
    * Sync a single observation to Chroma
    * Blocks until sync completes, throws on error
+   * No-op on Windows (Chroma disabled to prevent console popups)
    */
   async syncObservation(
     observationId: number,
@@ -397,6 +420,8 @@ export class ChromaSync {
     createdAtEpoch: number,
     discoveryTokens: number = 0
   ): Promise<void> {
+    if (this.disabled) return;
+
     // Convert ParsedObservation to StoredObservation format
     const stored: StoredObservation = {
       id: observationId,
@@ -431,6 +456,7 @@ export class ChromaSync {
   /**
    * Sync a single summary to Chroma
    * Blocks until sync completes, throws on error
+   * No-op on Windows (Chroma disabled to prevent console popups)
    */
   async syncSummary(
     summaryId: number,
@@ -441,6 +467,8 @@ export class ChromaSync {
     createdAtEpoch: number,
     discoveryTokens: number = 0
   ): Promise<void> {
+    if (this.disabled) return;
+
     // Convert ParsedSummary to StoredSummary format
     const stored: StoredSummary = {
       id: summaryId,
@@ -491,6 +519,7 @@ export class ChromaSync {
   /**
    * Sync a single user prompt to Chroma
    * Blocks until sync completes, throws on error
+   * No-op on Windows (Chroma disabled to prevent console popups)
    */
   async syncUserPrompt(
     promptId: number,
@@ -500,6 +529,8 @@ export class ChromaSync {
     promptNumber: number,
     createdAtEpoch: number
   ): Promise<void> {
+    if (this.disabled) return;
+
     // Create StoredUserPrompt format
     const stored: StoredUserPrompt = {
       id: promptId,
@@ -614,8 +645,11 @@ export class ChromaSync {
    * Backfill: Sync all observations missing from Chroma
    * Reads from SQLite and syncs in batches
    * Throws error if backfill fails
+   * No-op on Windows (Chroma disabled to prevent console popups)
    */
   async ensureBackfilled(): Promise<void> {
+    if (this.disabled) return;
+
     logger.info('CHROMA_SYNC', 'Starting smart backfill', { project: this.project });
 
     await this.ensureCollection();
@@ -782,12 +816,17 @@ export class ChromaSync {
   /**
    * Query Chroma collection for semantic search
    * Used by SearchManager for vector-based search
+   * Returns empty results on Windows (Chroma disabled to prevent console popups)
    */
   async queryChroma(
     query: string,
     limit: number,
     whereFilter?: Record<string, any>
   ): Promise<{ ids: number[]; distances: number[]; metadatas: any[] }> {
+    if (this.disabled) {
+      return { ids: [], distances: [], metadatas: [] };
+    }
+
     await this.ensureConnection();
 
     if (!this.client) {