openclaw - 💡(How to fix) Fix Brave plugin latest still ships activation.onStartup=false, causing agent web_search provider discovery regressions

Summary

The current published @openclaw/[email protected] package still ships its manifest with:

{
  "id": "brave",
  "activation": {
    "onStartup": false
  }
}

In my local OpenClaw setup, the CLI web search path could use Brave, but the first-class in-agent web_search tool could fail to discover the Brave provider or surface a misleading fallback/provider error. Manually changing the installed Brave plugin manifest to activation.onStartup=true and restarting the Gateway made first-class web_search resolve Brave correctly again.

This appears related to #76626, but the issue is worth revisiting because the latest published Brave plugin tarball still contains the trigger condition.

Environment

• OpenClaw: 2026.5.12 (f066dd2)
• Published plugin checked: @openclaw/[email protected]
• Platform: macOS / Darwin arm64
• Configured web search provider: Brave
• Local installed manifest path: ~/.openclaw/npm/node_modules/@openclaw/brave-plugin/openclaw.plugin.json

Evidence

The latest npm tarball still has activation.onStartup=false:

tmp=$(mktemp -d)
cd "$tmp"
npm pack @openclaw/[email protected] --silent
tar -xzf *.tgz package/openclaw.plugin.json
cat package/openclaw.plugin.json

Relevant output:

{
  "id": "brave",
  "activation": {
    "onStartup": false
  },
  "providerAuthEnvVars": {
    "brave": ["BRAVE_API_KEY"]
  },
  "contracts": {
    "webSearchProviders": ["brave"]
  }
}

Local workaround that resolved the issue:

{
  "id": "brave",
  "activation": {
    "onStartup": true
  }
}

After changing that field and restarting the Gateway, first-class agent web_search successfully used Brave again.

Expected behavior

If Brave is installed/enabled/configured as the web search provider, the in-agent first-class web_search tool should discover and use the Brave provider without requiring a manual manifest patch in node_modules.

Actual behavior

With the latest published Brave plugin manifest set to activation.onStartup=false, the Brave web search provider may not be present in the active provider registry for the agent web_search tool, even though CLI/provider configuration paths can appear valid.

This can produce misleading errors that point at the wrong provider/fallback instead of clearly identifying that the Brave web search provider was not loaded/discovered.

Why this is worth fixing

• The failure mode is confusing: config and CLI checks can look correct while agent web_search fails.
• The workaround edits installed package files under node_modules, so it is fragile and will be lost on upgrade/reinstall.
• The latest published plugin package still contains the manifest value that appears to cause or preserve the regression risk.
• Previous related issues such as #76626 are closed, so users may assume this no longer applies.

Possible fixes

One of:

1. Publish the Brave plugin manifest with activation.onStartup=true, or
2. Ensure agent web_search provider discovery always loads configured web-search provider plugins even when their plugin manifest has activation.onStartup=false, or
3. Improve diagnostics so this failure reports "configured Brave provider was not loaded/discovered" rather than surfacing misleading fallback/provider errors.

Workaround

Patch the installed manifest and restart Gateway:

# edit:
~/.openclaw/npm/node_modules/@openclaw/brave-plugin/openclaw.plugin.json

# set:
"activation": { "onStartup": true }