openclaw - 💡(How to fix) Fix [Bug]: Codex ACP falls back to `npm exec` (`acpx` bundle issue) [1 comments, 1 participants]

Bug type

Bug (packaging regression in acpx?)

Beta release blocker

No

Summary

On my openclaw 2026.4.24, every Codex ACP startup shells out through npm exec rather than running the package's own binary. @zed-industries/codex-acp dep is not present so the npx fallback fires and adds significant SD Card IO load on my Raspberry Pi 500.

Steps to reproduce

1. Install openclaw 2026.4.24 fresh via npm install -g openclaw@latest.
2. Configure acp.enabled = true and acp.backend = "acpx" in openclaw.json.
3. Trigger a Codex ACP session from a Discord channel.
4. Watch ps/pstree and/or the gateway journal.

Expected behaviour

The Codex ACP child process uses the bundled @zed-industries/codex-acp binary and starts directly. Startup time is quick. No npm/npx cache work.

Actual behaviour

The Codex ACP child is sh -c 'npm exec --yes --package=@zed-industries/codex-acp@^0.11.1 -- codex-acp' or npx @zed-industries/codex-acp@^0.11.1

It also makes Codex ACP startup dependent on npm/npx cache state so ACP startup failed with:

ACP_SESSION_INIT_FAILED
ACP agent exited before initialize completed (exit=127, signal=null):
sh: 1: codex-acp: Permission denied
agentCommand: npx @zed-industries/codex-acp@^0.11.1

OpenClaw version

2026.4.24 (also in 2026.4.23).

acpx: 0.5.3 @zed-industries/codex-acp: ^0.11.1 per prompt-turn-CXMtXBl-.js:16 codex-cli: 0.125.0

Logs, screenshots, and evidence

Bundled dep absent on my install:

$ find ~/.npm-global/lib/node_modules/openclaw/node_modules/@zed-industries/codex-acp 2>/dev/null
$ find ~/.openclaw/plugin-runtime-deps/openclaw-2026.4.24-30062883dcaf/node_modules/@zed-industries/codex-acp 2>/dev/null
$

Impact and severity

Affected: any deployment using acp.backend = "acpx" with the codex agent where @zed-industries/codex-acp is not separately installed adjacent to acpx. On constrained hardware (Raspberry Pi 500 with all paths on SD card) the npm/npx work and the native binary load piles onto session-store I/O.

Severity: medium - costly and brittle during startup on hardware like Raspberry Pi 500. Frequency: every Codex ACP session start. Consequence: startup latency, dependency on a multi-GB cache, and (Permission denied) failures.

Additional information

I set plugins.entries.acpx.config.agents.codex.command in openclaw.json to node /home/username/.openclaw/acpx/codex-acp-wrapper.mjs, where the wrapper directly spawns the existing 0.11.1 native binary out of ~/.npm/_npx/<hash>/node_modules/@zed-industries/codex-acp-linux-arm64/bin/codex-acp and preserves the existing CODEX_HOME bridge. This is fragile but works for me for now.