openclaw - 💡(How to fix) Fix bug: plugin-runtime-deps subdirectories are recursively scanned as plugin roots, causing repeated npm install on every gateway start (v2026.4.24) [1 comments, 2 participants]

Summary

On v2026.4.24, every gateway startup triggers repeated npm install runs because OpenClaw's bundled plugin runtime deps scanner recursively treats its own plugin-runtime-deps subdirectories as plugin roots, generating new install directories in a loop.

Environment

• OpenClaw: 2026.4.24 (cbcfdf6)
• OS: macOS 26.4.1 (arm64)
• Node: v22.22.2
• Setup: two gateway instances (main + rescue/doctor) on same machine

Root Cause

The install directory naming scheme is:

$OPENCLAW_HOME/.openclaw/plugin-runtime-deps/openclaw-<version>-<sha256(packageRoot)[:12]>

The scanner resolves packageRoot from the running binary path. For the rescue instance:

• Real packageRoot: /Users/zhangxm/openclaw-doctor/node_modules/openclaw
• Hash: e7d1a244873d
• Install dir created: plugin-runtime-deps/openclaw-2026.4.24-e7d1a244873d/

On the next startup, the scanner picks up plugin-runtime-deps/openclaw-2026.4.24-e7d1a244873d/ as a new plugin root candidate, computes its hash (3eb56de9c5f7), finds it "missing", and runs npm install again — creating openclaw-unknown-3eb56de9c5f7/ (version reads as "unknown" because there is no valid package.json in that directory).

This is confirmed by hash arithmetic:

const h = (v) => createHash('sha256').update(path.resolve(v)).digest('hex').slice(0, 12);

h('/Users/zhangxm/openclaw-doctor/node_modules/openclaw')
// => 'e7d1a244873d'  (real install dir)

h('/Users/zhangxm/openclaw-doctor/.openclaw/plugin-runtime-deps/openclaw-2026.4.24-e7d1a244873d')
// => '3eb56de9c5f7'  (recursively generated unknown dir)

The same pattern occurs on the main instance:

plugin-runtime-deps/openclaw-2026.4.24-da6bdffc3d96/  ← real (homebrew path)
plugin-runtime-deps/openclaw-unknown-3a739f4f35db/    ← recursive ghost
plugin-runtime-deps/openclaw-unknown-bde2536dc8d4/    ← recursive ghost from doctor's dir

Impact

• Every cold gateway start runs 5–10 sequential npm install processes (one per plugin with bundled deps)
• Startup takes 60–90 seconds instead of ~5 seconds
• During startup, Discord/Telegram connections are not established → messages go unanswered
• The openclaw doctor and openclaw status commands are also slow for the same reason

Steps to Reproduce

1. Install OpenClaw v2026.4.24 globally via npm
2. Start gateway once (creates plugin-runtime-deps/openclaw-<ver>-<hash>/)
3. Stop and restart gateway
4. Observe: a new openclaw-unknown-<hash>/ directory is created and npm install runs again

Expected Behavior

The plugin-runtime-deps directory (and its subdirectories) should be excluded from the bundled plugin root discovery scan. Only paths under dist/extensions/ should be considered as plugin roots.

Suggested Fix

In bundled-runtime-deps.ts (or wherever plugin roots are collected), add an exclusion for paths that are themselves inside plugin-runtime-deps or match the BUNDLED_RUNTIME_DEPS_LOCK_DIR / install stage patterns:

// Skip paths that are inside an existing plugin-runtime-deps install root
if (pluginRoot.includes('plugin-runtime-deps')) continue;

Or more robustly, scope the discovery glob to only dist/extensions/* and never walk into state directories.