PR #72503: fix(plugins): force non-native jiti on Windows to avoid ERR_UNSUPPORTED_ESM_URL_SCHEME

• Repository: openclaw/openclaw
• Author: Sanjays2402
• State: open | merged: False
• Link: https://github.com/openclaw/openclaw/pull/72503

Description (problem / solution / changelog)

Summary

Fixes #72488 and reopens the still-open Windows regression #71749.

On native Windows, OpenClaw 2026.4.24 crashes the first bundled plugin loaded with a built-JS entry on startup with:

ERR_UNSUPPORTED_ESM_URL_SCHEME: Only URLs with a scheme in: file, data,
and node are supported by the default ESM loader. On Windows, absolute
paths must be valid file:// URLs. Received protocol 'c:'

For @smeyer9 (#71749) that was the Telegram channel provider. For @xiao4d-lyf (#72488) it is the browser-control plugin (openclaw browser is the user-visible failure). Restarting the gateway doesn't fix it because the behavior is deterministic.

Regressing commit

9119ee6d75 ("fix(plugins): load mirrored runtime deps through ESM-safe aliases", v2026.4.24) dropped the existing win32 guard from supportsNativeJitiRuntime:

 function supportsNativeJitiRuntime(): boolean {
   const versions = process.versions as { bun?: string };
-  return typeof versions.bun !== "string" && process.platform !== "win32";
+  return typeof versions.bun !== "string";
 }

Without that guard, shouldPreferNativeJiti returns true for built JS on Windows, jiti's native import() fast-path forwards the raw absolute path (C:\Users\…\dist\extensions\browser\…) directly to Node's ESM loader, and Node's loader only accepts file:// URLs on Windows.

Fix

Single chokepoint: re-add the win32 short-circuit alongside the existing Bun exclusion in supportsNativeJitiRuntime, so both shouldPreferNativeJiti and resolvePluginLoaderJitiTryNative honor it consistently. Two Windows-specific tests in sdk-alias.test.ts that previously locked in the broken behavior are updated to assert the fixed behavior with comments pointing back to #71749.

Until jiti normalizes paths via pathToFileURL upstream, this is the right place to fix it. The reporter on #71749 independently confirmed this resolution end-to-end by patching their installed dist.

History

#71755 was the previous PR for this exact fix. It was auto-closed by the too-many-prs bot 1 minute after creation, before any human review. The bug never got fixed; #72488 is the same regression reproducing on a different bundled plugin.

Tests

pnpm test src/plugins/sdk-alias.test.ts
# 49 passed (49)

Behavior matrix

Risk

Low. Slight cold-start cost on Windows for built-JS plugins, in exchange for not crashing on startup. This is what every Windows install was effectively forced into anyway via reporter-side hotfixes.

Out of scope

A follow-up could push the fix down into jiti itself (normalize paths via pathToFileURL before native import()). That belongs in unjs/jiti, not here.

Closes #72488. Closes #71749. Related: #61911, #49716.

Changed files

• CHANGELOG.md (modified, +1/-0)
• src/plugins/sdk-alias.test.ts (modified, +10/-2)
• src/plugins/sdk-alias.ts (modified, +15/-1)