openclaw - 💡(How to fix) Fix [Bug] 2026.4.26: sharp not installed with media-understanding-core extension — image optimization fails [1 comments, 2 participants]

Bug Description

The media-understanding-core extension (new in 2026.4.26) declares sharp as a runtime dependency, but sharp is not installed when upgrading from 2026.4.25 via npm update. This causes image optimization to fail for all image-sending operations (message tool sending images to Telegram, etc.) with the error: Failed to optimize image.

Steps to Reproduce

1. Upgrade from 2026.4.25 to 2026.4.26 via openclaw update (npm global update)
2. Any agent attempts to send a generated image via Telegram
3. Image generation succeeds but the message tool fails with Failed to optimize image

Environment

• OpenClaw version: 2026.4.26 (be8c246)
• Node.js: v24.14.1
• Platform: Linux (WSL2)
• Extension: @openclaw/media-understanding-core (new in 2026.4.26)
• Dependency declared: sharp@^0.34.5 in dist/extensions/media-understanding-core/package.json

Error Log

[tools] image_generate failed: Failed to optimize image raw_params={"prompt":"...","media":"/path/to/media/image.png","target":"8703284429"}
[tools] message failed: Failed to optimize image raw_params={"action":"send","media":"/path/to/media/image.png","target":"8703284429"}

The error originates in web-media-<hash>.js optimizeImageToJpeg() → loadMediaAttachmentImageOps() which loads sharp from media-understanding-core/image-ops.js. The loadSharp() function does import('sharp') which throws MODULE_NOT_FOUND since sharp is not in the npm tree.

Root Cause

The media-understanding-core extension is new in 2026.4.26. Its package.json declares:

"dependencies": {
  "sharp": "^0.34.5"
}

However, the npm global update (npm i -g openclaw@latest) did not install this dependency into the extension's node_modules or the main OpenClaw node_modules. The postinstall-inventory mechanism (dist/postinstall-inventory.json) tracks dist/extensions/media-understanding-core/image-ops.js but apparently did not trigger sharp's installation.

Workaround

Manually install sharp into the OpenClaw installation:

cd /path/to/openclaw && npm install sharp@^0.34.5 --no-fund --no-audit

Then restart the gateway.

Expected Behavior

Image optimization should work out-of-the-box after upgrading. The media-understanding-core extension's sharp dependency should be installed automatically during openclaw update.

Additional Context

• No prior issues with image sending (this is the first version with media-understanding-core)
• Verified: after manually installing sharp, image optimization works correctly (tested resize of 864x1152 JPEG → 35KB in <1s)
• This was first reported after upgrading from 2026.4.25 → 2026.4.26