Ralph Wiggum plugin: undocumented jq dependency breaks Windows/Git Bash users

[sgeraldes]

Bug Description

The Ralph Wiggum plugin (ralph-wiggum@claude-plugins-official) has an undocumented dependency on jq that causes the stop hook to fail on Windows systems where jq is not installed.

Error Message

Stop says: Plugin hook error: /c/Users/.../.claude/plugins/cache/claude-plugins-official/ralph-wiggum/6d3752c000e2/hooks/stop-hook.sh: line 58: jq: command not found

Root Cause

The hooks/stop-hook.sh script uses jq in three places:

1. Line 58: TRANSCRIPT_PATH=$(echo "$HOOK_INPUT" | jq -r '.transcript_path')
2. Lines 90-95: Parsing assistant message JSON
3. Lines 167-173: Building JSON output

However:

• README.md does not mention jq as a requirement
• plugin.json does not list dependencies
• jq is not a standard tool on Windows/Git Bash - it must be explicitly installed

Environment

• OS: Windows 11
• Shell: Git Bash (MSYS2)
• Claude Code version: Latest

Additional Windows Issues

On Windows with WSL installed, there's also a path resolution issue:

• /bin/bash may resolve to WSL bash instead of Git Bash
• Windows paths (C:\Users\...) are passed to bash which expects Unix paths

Suggested Fixes

1. Document the dependency: Add jq to requirements in README.md
2. Bundle jq: Include jq binary with the plugin
3. Remove jq dependency: Rewrite stop-hook.sh using pure bash/sed/awk (avoid external dependencies)
4. Windows compatibility: Use explicit Git Bash path and cygpath for path conversion

Workaround

Manual fix that works:

1. Install jq to ~/bin/:

   mkdir -p ~/bin
   curl -L -o ~/bin/jq.exe "https://github.com/jqlang/jq/releases/download/jq-1.7.1/jq-windows-amd64.exe"
   chmod +x ~/bin/jq.exe

2. Add to ~/.bashrc:

   export PATH="$HOME/bin:$PATH"

3. Update hooks/hooks.json to use Git Bash explicitly with PATH set:

   {
     "command": "\"C:/Program Files/Git/usr/bin/bash.exe\" -c \"export PATH=\\\"$HOME/bin:$PATH\\\"; source \\\"$(/usr/bin/cygpath -u '${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/hooks/stop-hook.sh')\\\"\""
   }

This workaround gets overwritten on plugin updates.

[7-of-9]

:(

[oinani0721]

I created a comprehensive fix for this issue. PR Ready: anthropics/claude-plugins-official#127 - Fixes PATH, UTF-8, cygpath, output format, and race conditions. Tested on Windows 11. See #16377 for details.

[oinani0721]

The jq dependency issue is part of a larger Windows compatibility problem. The root cause is that Git Bash subprocess doesn't inherit PATH.

Fix: Add this at the beginning of your hook scripts:

export PATH="/usr/bin:/bin:/mingw64/bin:$PATH"

Full solution with all Windows 11 fixes: #9758

Related: #16377 #17257 #16560