Add support for commandline arguments

[jandubois]

Any value in settings.json should be configurable from the commandline:

# on MacOS
open -a "Rancher Desktop" --args --debug --kubernetes-version 1.21.8

# on  Windows
start "%LOCALAPPDATA%\Programs\Rancher Desktop\Rancher Desktop.exe" --debug --kubernetes-version 1.21.8

This can be implemented by simply changing the settings.yaml file before initializing the app. It would be more robust than the user editing the JSON file manually.

I think the easiest way to map settings properties to argument names would be to take them verbatim, and separate levels with a -, as I've done above: --kubernetes-version.

Aesthetically it looks weird to me to keep the uppercase (e.g. --portForwarding-includeKubernetesServices), but it would be the easiest to explain/document.

For boolean options I would like to see us use the Go convention that --debug is equivalent to --debug=true.

[jandubois]

I've added this to the Next milestone because I want it to be considered in conjunction with #816 to have a consistent UX. Actual implementation may not happen for this milestone.

[ericpromislow]

Regarding the weird case:

I decided not to do case-insensitive matching. It's easy to see how each preference field is spelled, and just copy it. That simplifies the code, and the story for users.

And of course +1 on the go-ish implicit true.

[ericpromislow]

Usage

In development mode:

npm run dev -- --option1=value1 --option2 value2 --boolean-option-with-implicit-true --boolean-option-set-to-false=false ...

So the -- is needed after the dev

Running a release build:

macos:

open -a "/Applications/Rancher Desktop" --args <ARGS AS FOR NPM RUN DEV>

Windows & Linux:

./path/to/rancher-desktop-executable <ARGS AS FOR NPM RUN DEV>

Limitations

The kubernetes.WSLIntegrations setting is a dynamic object. On Linux its fields are paths to various executables. On Windows its field names are the names of any installed WSL distros that the user would like to activate. If any of these field names contain a hyphen, they cannot be set on the command-line.

[ericpromislow]

Closed in #2025 (comment)