openclaw - 💡(How to fix) Fix No tests cover the launcher (version gate, compile-cache respawn, signal forwarding, module-loading cascade) [1 comments, 2 participants]

Severity: medium / Confidence: high / Category: test-gap Triage: test-gap Detected against: openclaw v2026.5.18 (latest stable at time of scan, 2026-05-18) Tooling: clawpatch 0.3.0 + acpx/claude-sonnet-4-5 via Brad Mills protocol

Evidence

• openclaw.mjs:1-300 (None)

• extensions/codex/src/app-server/openclaw-owned-tool-runtime-contract.test.ts:1-10 (None)

import { createCodexDynamicToolBridge } from "./dynamic-tools.js";

• src/agents/openclaw-gateway-tool.test.ts:1-10 (None)

import { createGatewayTool } from "./tools/gateway-tool.js";

Reasoning

All five test files listed as contextFiles and tests for this feature exercise downstream runtime contracts (tool hooks, gateway config, plugin manifests, agent lists). None import or execute openclaw.mjs or its helpers. The launcher contains several non-trivial code paths with real failure modes: the Node version check, the two-branch compile-cache respawn logic (source vs packaged), the isDirectModuleNotFoundError heuristic that distinguishes direct misses from transitive failures, the signal forwarding and force-kill cascade, and the help fast-path module probe. A regression in any of these would go undetected until a user reports a broken install.

Recommendation

Add tests (can be pure unit tests that import individual helpers by re-exporting them) for: (1) isSupportedNodeVersion boundary cases, (2) sanitizeCompileCachePathSegment, (3) isDirectModuleNotFoundError distinguishing direct vs transitive errors, (4) the respawn sentinel env-var guards. Integration: a smoke test that spawns node openclaw.mjs --help in the built package and asserts exit 0.

Why existing tests miss this

No existing test file imports or exercises openclaw.mjs; the feature's listed tests are all downstream runtime-contract tests unrelated to the launcher.

Suggested regression test

Create openclaw.launcher.test.ts colocated with openclaw.mjs that unit-tests parseNodeVersion, isSupportedNodeVersion, sanitizeCompileCachePathSegment, and isDirectModuleNotFoundError with synthetic Error objects.

Minimum fix scope

New test file; no production code changes required.

Standardized clawpatch finding. Persistent in v2026.5.18 (not resolved by upgrading from v2026.5.12). Finding ID: fnd_sig-feat-cli-command-134cd3621e-_30adcc1544.