openclaw - 💡(How to fix) Fix Global npm update drops node-llama-cpp (optional peerDep not re-installed) [1 comments, 2 participants]

Summary

npm i -g openclaw@latest drops node-llama-cpp on every update, breaking local memory-search embeddings until manually re-installed.

Environment

• macOS 15.3.1 (arm64, Apple M2)
• Node.js 22.22.0
• npm 10.x (global install)
• OpenClaw versions affected: at least 2026.3.24 → 2026.3.28 (and 2026.3.x prior)

Root cause

node-llama-cpp is declared as an optional peerDependency:

"peerDependencies": {
  "node-llama-cpp": "^3.18.1"
},
"peerDependenciesMeta": {
  "node-llama-cpp": {
    "optional": true
  }
}

When npm performs a global update (npm i -g openclaw@latest), it replaces the package tree and does not re-install optional peer dependencies that were previously manually added. The result is that node-llama-cpp disappears from node_modules/ after every update.

Impact

• memory_search with provider: local fails immediately after update:

  Cannot find package 'node-llama-cpp' imported from
  .../dist/memory-core-host-engine-embeddings-BwxuPjnM.js

• Requires manual npm i node-llama-cpp inside the install path + gateway restart to recover.
• This has occurred on at least 2026-03-26 and 2026-03-30 on the same host.

Suggested fix

Consider one of:

1. Move node-llama-cpp to optionalDependencies instead of peerDependencies — npm will attempt to install it during npm i -g and gracefully skip on failure (e.g., unsupported platform).
2. Post-install hook that detects and re-installs previously present optional peer deps.
3. Runtime guidance — if node-llama-cpp is missing at startup, log a one-time warning with the exact re-install command and suggest adding it to a post-update script.

Workaround

After every openclaw update / npm i -g openclaw@latest:

cd /opt/homebrew/lib/node_modules/openclaw  # or your global install path
npm i node-llama-cpp --no-fund --no-audit
# then restart the gateway
openclaw gateway restart