openclaw - 💡(How to fix) Fix Add selective installation for plugins, skills, and channels — reduce install size and startup overhead [1 participants]

User Pain Point

OpenClaw currently uses an all-or-nothing installation strategy: every channel plugin (WhatsApp, Telegram, Discord, WeChat, Feishu, etc.), skill module, and API interface is installed regardless of whether the user needs them.

Specific Impacts

1. Bloated install size: Unneeded plugins and their dependencies (e.g., WhatsApp @whiskeysockets/baileys and transitive deps) consume significant disk space
2. Slower startup: Plugin discovery scans all extensions directories, and loading performs jiti compilation for every discovered plugin — even unused ones
3. Dependency conflicts: More plugins = more dependency trees = higher risk of namespace collisions or version incompatibilities
4. Log noise: Discovered but unconfigured plugins trigger "loaded without provenance" warnings, making it harder to diagnose real issues
5. Security surface area: Unneeded plugin code loaded into process memory increases the potential attack surface

Typical Scenario

"I only use QQ and Feishu. Why does the installer put every messaging platform on my machine? And why are all API interfaces pre-configured? It wastes disk space and slows down startup."

Current State in Codebase

1. Plugin discovery (src/plugins/discovery.ts):

   • Scans extensions/ (bundled), ~/.openclaw/extensions/ (global), ./.openclaw/extensions/ (workspace)
   • No filtering: anything in these directories is discovered and loaded

2. Optional bundled clusters (scripts/lib/optional-bundled-clusters.mjs):

   • Has a basic optional cluster concept via OPENCLAW_INCLUDE_OPTIONAL_BUNDLED env var
   • But this is a build-time switch, not an install-time or runtime user choice

3. plugins.deny list (src/plugins/loader.ts):

   • Can deny specific plugins in config, but plugins are still installed and discovered
   • This is "exclude after the fact" rather than "select beforehand"

4. Postinstall script (scripts/postinstall-bundled-plugins.mjs):

   • Installs dependencies for ALL bundled plugins
   • Has no logic to skip specific plugins based on user preference

Proposed Approach

Phase 1: Install-time Selection

# Interactive selection
openclaw setup
> Select channels to install (space to select, enter to confirm):
>   [ ] WhatsApp
>   [x] Feishu
>   [ ] Telegram
>   [x] QQ
>   [ ] Discord
>   [x] Terminal (required)

# Or declarative
openclaw setup --channels feishu,qq,terminal

Phase 2: Config-driven On-demand Loading

{
  "plugins": {
    "enabled": true,
    "allow": ["openclaw-feishu", "openclaw-qq"],
    "strictMode": true
  }
}

When strictMode: true:

• Only load plugins declared in plugins.allow
• Skip auto-scanning of ~/.openclaw/extensions/
• Skip dependency installation for undeclared plugins

Phase 3: Lazy Registration of Skills and APIs

• Skills (skills/) become lazy-loaded: registered on first use only
• APIs registered per-channel: only register APIs for enabled channels
• Add openclaw plugins status to show installed / enabled / loaded state

Expected Benefits

Related Files

• scripts/postinstall-bundled-plugins.mjs
• scripts/lib/optional-bundled-clusters.mjs
• src/plugins/discovery.ts
• src/plugins/loader.ts
• src/plugins/roots.ts
• src/config/types.plugins.ts