From 252d1d09a0183d1c852e6b44a4a267d9400a970f Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: =?UTF-8?q?Bar=C4=B1=C5=9F=20Soner=20U=C5=9Fakl=C4=B1?=
 <barisusakli@gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2026 20:31:16 -0500
Subject: [PATCH] fix: closes #13734, set process.env.NODE_ENV early using argv

if commander or one of the core deps isn't found then packageInstall.installAll is called and uses process.env.NODE_ENV, which was always undefined.
---
 src/cli/index.js | 11 ++++++++++-
 1 file changed, 10 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/src/cli/index.js b/src/cli/index.js
index eeda530f5b..8e3db4e344 100644
--- a/src/cli/index.js
+++ b/src/cli/index.js
@@ -5,6 +5,15 @@ const path = require('path');
 
 require('../../require-main');
 
+// https://github.com/NodeBB/NodeBB/issues/13734
+// check dev flag early so packageInstall.installAll() can use it
+const isDev = process.argv.some(arg =>
+	arg === '-d' ||
+	arg === '--dev' ||
+	(arg.startsWith('-') && !arg.startsWith('--') && arg.includes('d')));
+
+process.env.NODE_ENV = isDev ? 'development' : (process.env.NODE_ENV || 'production');
+
 const packageInstall = require('./package-install');
 const { paths } = require('../constants');
 
@@ -96,7 +105,7 @@ nconf.argv(opts).env({
 	separator: '__',
 });
 
-process.env.NODE_ENV = process.env.NODE_ENV || 'production';
+
 
 prestart.setupWinston();