[bug] Can't start executor with npm registry access blocked #2301

Executor version

2.0.0-beta.11

How do you run Executor?

CLI

Operating system

macOS (Apple Silicon)

Integration involved

No response

What happened

When I try to run executor through the desktop it hangs indefinitely, and on the CLI it pauses for a 30s timeout during startup, then exits with "message":"Local server startup failed"

I asked an agent to look in the code and figure out possible causes, and it looks plausible that this failure is caused by the security policy on my laptop which prevents access to the default NPM registry (we have a specific hosted npm registry proxy to avoid supply chain attacks).

I can install executor from that registry without a problem, but it seems that executor tries to install more packages when it starts up and although you can pass an EXECUTOR_NPM_REGISTRY env variable, it doesn't pick up the required credentials

What you expected

Ideally, starting executor should 'just work' without needing to install packages from npm (especially when running the desktop app?)

failing which, picking up credentials from my ~/.npmrc would be great

Steps to reproduce

1. somehow block network access to default npm registry
2. run executor

Diagnostics / logs

{"message":"Starting local server","level":"INFO","timestamp":"2026-10-16T09:45:46.549Z","annotations":{},"spans":{},"fiberId":"#1"}
{"message":"process.runtime","level":"INFO","timestamp":"2026-10-16T09:45:47.552Z","annotations":{"event.name":"process.runtime","service.name":"executor-local","process.pid":19940,"process.uptime.seconds":1.785186791,"sample.duration.seconds":1.0017390000000002,"process.cpu.cores":0.9355211287570913,"process.cpu.user.seconds":1.352761,"process.cpu.system.seconds":0.204608,"process.memory.rss.bytes":1091076096,"process.memory.heap.used.bytes":97523192,"process.memory.heap.total.bytes":145719296,"process.memory.external.bytes":269060556,"eventloop.utilization":0.4323677712613756,"eventloop.delay.mean.ms":32.90585158620689,"eventloop.delay.p99.ms":197.132287,"eventloop.delay.max.ms":197.132287},"spans":{},"fiberId":"#12"}
{"message":"Local telemetry collector ready","level":"INFO","timestamp":"2026-10-16T09:45:48.790Z","annotations":{"url":"http://127.0.0.1:53144"},"spans":{},"fiberId":"#17"}
{"message":"Executor sends anonymous usage analytics. Set DO_NOT_TRACK=1 or EXECUTOR_DISABLE_ANALYTICS=1 to turn them off.","level":"INFO","timestamp":"2026-10-16T09:45:49.075Z","annotations":{},"spans":{},"fiberId":"#1"}
{"message":"Data step pass finished: {"step":"4_expire_idle_agent_grants","mode":"apply","run":"apply","pass":1,"status":"complete","outcomes":{},"owners":{}}","level":"INFO","timestamp":"2026-10-16T09:45:49.996Z","annotations":{},"spans":{},"fiberId":"#1"}
{"message":"Data step pass finished: {"step":"5_redeploy_pre_beta10_executor_apps","mode":"apply","run":"apply","pass":1,"status":"complete","outcomes":{},"owners":{}}","level":"INFO","timestamp":"2026-10-16T09:45:49.999Z","annotations":{},"spans":{},"fiberId":"#1"}
{"message":["Idle agent grant expiry finished",{}],"level":"INFO","timestamp":"2026-10-16T09:45:50.046Z","annotations":{},"spans":{},"fiberId":"#311"}
{"message":"process.runtime","level":"INFO","timestamp":"2026-10-16T09:46:17.559Z","annotations":{"event.name":"process.runtime","service.name":"executor-local","process.pid":19940,"process.uptime.seconds":31.792376666,"sample.duration.seconds":30.003900291,"process.cpu.cores":0.08057895728727009,"process.cpu.user.seconds":3.438537,"process.cpu.system.seconds":0.536515,"process.memory.rss.bytes":563560448,"process.memory.heap.used.bytes":112915664,"process.memory.heap.total.bytes":115900416,"process.memory.external.bytes":108183464,"eventloop.utilization":0.045336838272731814,"eventloop.delay.mean.ms":21.43697081915654,"eventloop.delay.p99.ms":23.429119,"eventloop.delay.max.ms":740.818943},"spans":{},"fiberId":"#12"}
{"message":"Local server startup failed","level":"ERROR","timestamp":"2026-10-16T09:46:20.096Z","annotations":{"startup.stage":"composition","error.type":"StartupFailed"},"spans":{},"fiberId":"#1"}
{"message":"Local server stopped","level":"INFO","timestamp":"2026-10-16T09:46:20.100Z","annotations":{},"spans":{},"fiberId":"#1"}
Executor could not start. Check the configured keys and whether the port is already in use.

Before you submit

• I searched the open issues for a duplicate.
• I removed all keys, tokens, and credentials from this report.