I need to spawn a child process in electron (currently MPV instance). As the contextIsolation, I am unable to directly use node in renderer, but If I understand correctly, in preload script it should be avaiable, but writing:

import child_process from 'child_process'

in preload.ts throws error in console:

VM39 sandbox_bundle:2 Error: module not found: child_process
    at preloadRequire (VM39 sandbox_bundle:2:82852)
    at <anonymous>:3:23
    at runPreloadScript (VM39 sandbox_bundle:2:83516)
    at VM39 sandbox_bundle:2:83813
    at VM39 sandbox_bundle:2:83968
    at ___electron_webpack_init__ (VM39 sandbox_bundle:2:83972)
    at VM39 sandbox_bundle:2:84095

So I tried another approach and used IPC. So in renderer.ts I wrote

window.electronAPI.spawn('/usr/bin/mpv', {})

in preload.ts:

import { ipcRenderer, contextBridge } from 'electron'

contextBridge.exposeInMainWorld('electronAPI', {
  spawn: (path: string, options: object) => ipcRenderer.invoke('spawnApp', path, options)
})

and in main.ts

ipcMain.handle('spawnApp', (event, path, options) => {
    return child_process.spawn(path, options);
})

which works and child process is spawned, but the problem is, that the child process reference can not be returned back to renderer.ts as it throws error in console:

Uncaught (in promise) Error: Error invoking remote method 'spawnApp': Error: An object could not be cloned

what is correct way to handle it?

Electron 30.x, node 20.x

I tried IPC approach and preload.ts approach