openclaw - 💡(How to fix) Fix [Bug]: dist/index.js subcommands in official Docker image take 24s-49s to start [1 participants]

Summary

node dist/index.js subcommands are extremely slow in the official Docker image even when run directly inside the running openclaw-gateway container.

This does not look like an Ansible issue. The timings below were measured directly on the machine with docker compose exec.

The same container executes a trivial node -e command in about 0.3s, but dist/index.js commands take roughly 24s to 49s depending on subcommand.

Environment

• OpenClaw image: ghcr.io/openclaw/openclaw:2026.4.2
• Deployment: Docker Compose on Debian host
• Host hardware: Dell Wyse 5070 thin client
• CPU: Intel Celeron J4105
• RAM: 8 GB
• OS: Debian 13 (Trixie)
• Docker Engine: 29.3.1
• Docker storage driver: overlayfs
• Current OpenClaw shape: Matrix enabled, no local model provider configured

Steps to reproduce

Run directly on the host against the running container:

time sudo docker compose --project-name control --file /srv/compose/control/compose.yaml exec -T openclaw-gateway node -e 'console.log("ok")'

time sudo docker compose --project-name control --file /srv/compose/control/compose.yaml exec -T openclaw-gateway node dist/index.js --help

time sudo docker compose --project-name control --file /srv/compose/control/compose.yaml exec -T openclaw-gateway node dist/index.js channels status --json

time sudo docker compose --project-name control --file /srv/compose/control/compose.yaml exec -T openclaw-gateway node dist/index.js channels status --probe --json

time sudo docker compose --project-name control --file /srv/compose/control/compose.yaml exec -T openclaw-gateway node dist/index.js matrix --help

time sudo docker compose --project-name control --file /srv/compose/control/compose.yaml exec -T openclaw-gateway node dist/index.js matrix verify status

time sudo docker compose --project-name control --file /srv/compose/control/compose.yaml exec -T openclaw-gateway node dist/index.js matrix verify status --json

Measured timings

• node -e 'console.log("ok")'
  • real 0m0.288s
• node dist/index.js --help
  • real 0m41.923s
• node dist/index.js channels status --json
  • real 0m42.931s
• node dist/index.js channels status --probe --json
  • real 0m42.856s
• node dist/index.js matrix --help
  • real 0m43.671s
• node dist/index.js matrix verify status
  • real 0m48.759s
• node dist/index.js matrix verify status --json
  • real 0m48.840s

Expected behavior

dist/index.js commands should not have tens of seconds of startup or init latency inside the official Docker image.

Actual behavior

There appears to be a large command-startup or command-init cost in dist/index.js itself:

• docker compose exec is not the bottleneck (node -e is fast)
• the Matrix homeserver does not appear to be the primary bottleneck either, because node dist/index.js --help already takes about 42s
• Matrix-specific work adds some additional time, but only after an already very large startup or init delay

Additional notes

• channels status --json and channels status --probe --json are essentially the same duration here, which also suggests the dominant cost happens before the deeper probe work
• matrix verify status and matrix verify status --json are also essentially the same duration here
• This may be related to the node dist/index.js path specifically, but it does not look like the existing plugin-CLI-registration issue because the built-in commands do work here; they are just very slow