fix: retry rctx.execute() on SIGKILL (exit 137) for macOS 26

macOS 26 (Tahoe) has a bug in its networking framework's
pthread_atfork handler that intermittently kills child processes
with SIGKILL (exit 137) when spawned via fork+exec. This affects
all rctx.execute() calls in repository rules, causing yq, cp, and
mkdir commands to fail randomly during npm_translate_lock.

Add an execute_with_retry() wrapper in utils.bzl that catches exit
code 137 and retries up to 3 times. Apply it to all rctx.execute()
call sites in npm_translate_lock_state.bzl (yq lockfile parsing,
mkdir, cp) and utils.bzl (reverse_force_copy).

The failure is intermittent so retries reliably work around it.

References:
- GoogleContainerTools/skaffold#9925
- bazelbuild/bazel#27026

Made-with: Cursor

Author: yetanotheralex

npm/private/npm_translate_lock_state.bzl

@@ -335,7 +335,8 @@ def _copy_input_file(priv, rctx, attr, path, repository_path):
     if len(dst_segments) > 1:
         dirname = "/".join(dst_segments[:-1])
         mkdir_args = [coreutils, "mkdir", "-p", dirname]
-        result = rctx.execute(
+        result = utils.execute_with_retry(
+            rctx,
             mkdir_args,
             quiet = attr.quiet,
         )
@@ -344,7 +345,8 @@ def _copy_input_file(priv, rctx, attr, path, repository_path):
             fail(msg)
 
     cp_args = [coreutils, "cp", path, repository_path]
-    result = rctx.execute(
+    result = utils.execute_with_retry(
+        rctx,
         cp_args,
         quiet = attr.quiet,
     )
@@ -395,7 +397,7 @@ def _yaml_to_json(rctx, yaml_path, is_windows):
         yaml_path,
         "-o=json",
     ]
-    result = rctx.execute(yq_args)
+    result = utils.execute_with_retry(rctx, yq_args)
     if result.return_code:
         return None, "failed to parse {} with yq. '{}' exited with {}: \nSTDOUT:\n{}\nSTDERR:\n{}".format(yq_args, yaml_path, result.return_code, result.stdout, result.stderr)
 

npm/private/utils.bzl

@@ -12,6 +12,36 @@ load("@bazel_skylib//lib:paths.bzl", "paths")
 _SUPPORTS_SYMLINK_TARGET_TYPE = bazel_features.rules.symlink_action_has_target_type
 
 INTERNAL_ERROR_MSG = "ERROR: rules_js internal error, please file an issue: https://github.com/aspect-build/rules_js/issues"
+
+# macOS 26 (Tahoe) has a bug in its networking framework's pthread_atfork
+# handler that intermittently kills child processes with SIGKILL (exit 137)
+# when spawned via fork+exec. This retry wrapper handles the transient failure.
+# See https://github.com/GoogleContainerTools/skaffold/issues/9925
+_MACOS_SIGKILL_EXIT_CODE = 137
+_MACOS_SIGKILL_MAX_ATTEMPTS = 3
+
+def _execute_with_retry(rctx, args, **kwargs):
+    """Wrapper around rctx.execute that retries on SIGKILL (exit 137).
+
+    On macOS 26+, child processes spawned by Bazel repository rules can be
+    intermittently killed with SIGKILL due to a bug in the OS networking
+    framework's pthread_atfork handler. This wrapper retries the command
+    to work around the transient failure.
+    """
+    result = None
+    for attempt in range(_MACOS_SIGKILL_MAX_ATTEMPTS):
+        result = rctx.execute(args, **kwargs)
+        if result.return_code != _MACOS_SIGKILL_EXIT_CODE:
+            return result
+
+        # buildifier: disable=print
+        print("WARNING: command '{}' was killed (exit 137), attempt {}/{} failed".format(
+            " ".join([str(a) for a in args]),
+            attempt + 1,
+            _MACOS_SIGKILL_MAX_ATTEMPTS,
+        ))
+    return result
+
 DEFAULT_REGISTRY_DOMAIN = "registry.npmjs.org"
 DEFAULT_REGISTRY_DOMAIN_SLASH = "{}/".format(DEFAULT_REGISTRY_DOMAIN)
 DEFAULT_REGISTRY_PROTOCOL = "https"
@@ -212,7 +242,7 @@ def _reverse_force_copy(rctx, label, dst = None):
     dst_dirname = paths.dirname(dst)
     if dst_dirname:
         mkdir_args = [coreutils, "mkdir", "-p", dst_dirname]
-        result = rctx.execute(mkdir_args)
+        result = _execute_with_retry(rctx, mkdir_args)
         if result.return_code != 0:
             msg = """
 
@@ -229,7 +259,7 @@ STDERR:
             fail(msg)
 
     cp_args = [coreutils, "cp", src, dst]
-    result = rctx.execute(cp_args)
+    result = _execute_with_retry(rctx, cp_args)
     if result.return_code != 0:
         msg = """
 
@@ -375,6 +405,7 @@ utils = struct(
     hash = _hash,
     dicts_match = _dicts_match,
     reverse_force_copy = _reverse_force_copy,
+    execute_with_retry = _execute_with_retry,
     replace_npmrc_token_envvar = _replace_npmrc_token_envvar,
     is_tarball_extension = _is_tarball_extension,
     hex_to_base64 = _hex_to_base64,