openclaw - 💡(How to fix) Fix Node minimum version enforcement is too low (22.16 vs required 22.19+) [1 comments, 2 participants]

Severity: medium / Confidence: high / Category: bug Triage: confirmed-bug 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:9-11 (MIN_NODE_MINOR)

const MIN_NODE_MAJOR = 22;
const MIN_NODE_MINOR = 16;
const MIN_NODE_VERSION = `${MIN_NODE_MAJOR}.${MIN_NODE_MINOR}`;

Reasoning

CLAUDE.md documents the runtime minimum as Node 22.19+, but the launcher enforces MIN_NODE_MINOR = 16. Users on Node 22.16–22.18 pass the version gate but may be running on versions where required APIs (compile-cache, module hooks, etc.) behave differently or are absent. The mismatch also means the error message printed to stderr tells users to install Node 22.16 when the project actually needs 22.19.

Reproduction

Run node --version → 22.17.0, then openclaw --help. The version check passes and the process continues instead of printing the upgrade message.

Recommendation

Change MIN_NODE_MINOR to 19 (matching the documented 22.19 minimum) and update MIN_NODE_VERSION accordingly.

Why existing tests miss this

There are no tests for the launcher entry point at all; the listed test files exercise runtime contracts and plugin manifests, not the launcher's version guard.

Suggested regression test

Add a unit test (or a snapshot test in a CI step) that imports/parses openclaw.mjs and asserts MIN_NODE_MAJOR === 22 && MIN_NODE_MINOR === 19.

Minimum fix scope

Single constant change: MIN_NODE_MINOR = 19 in openclaw.mjs.

Standardized clawpatch finding. Persistent in v2026.5.18 (not resolved by upgrading from v2026.5.12). Finding ID: fnd_sig-feat-cli-command-134cd3621e-_36f35fe6d1.