`sudo` and other commands not found in terminal in startup options mode

Question

(EDITED for specificity)

When I use terminal in recovery mode (on a MacBook Pro with Apple silicon) a lot of bash commands seem to be missing and give me "command not found" errors when I try to run them. This goes for less basic commands like systemsetup that problem aren't standard bash, but also some really core ones like sudo and man and du (but not df). What causes this? I looked up another question (sudo: command not found) that suggested maybe there was an issue with my PATH, but the steps that were suggested to fix it didn't change anything:

-bash-3.2# /usr/bin/nano ~/.bash_profile
-bash: /usr/bin/nano: No such file or directory
-bash-3.2# /bin/cat /etc/paths
cat: /etc/paths: No such file or directory
-bash-3.2# export PATH="/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin"
-bash-3.2# sudo echo test
-bash: sudo: command not found

Is recovery mode running a super stripped down bash that doesn't recognize these commands? Or does this have to do with the way my system was damaged somehow? Or something else?

Answer 1

As already mentioned, you're running as root so sudo is not needed.

However, to elaborate more, you're not booting from your regular system - many tools will not be available. There is nothing wrong with your system. It is stripped down to the bare minimum to allow you to interact with your disk and diagnose problems.