OpenClaw issue draft — QMD managed collection naming mismatch

Suggested title

QMD memory backend: managed collection naming mismatch causes Collection not found: memory-dir-main

Repository

• Target: openclaw/openclaw

Summary

When OpenClaw is configured with memory.backend = "qmd", memory_search can fail because the Gateway expects managed collections such as:

• memory-root-main
• memory-alt-main
• memory-dir-main

but the actual QMD collections may exist under different names (for example older / differently generated names such as memory-root, memory-alt, memory-dir, or user-created path-equivalent collections).

This causes memory search to fail with:

Collection not found: memory-dir-main

and OpenClaw falls back away from QMD even though the underlying QMD index may already be healthy.

Environment

• OpenClaw version: 2026.4.2
• QMD version: 2.0.1
• OS: macOS
• Install method: global / local gateway service

Relevant config shape

{
  memory: {
    backend: "qmd",
    qmd: {
      includeDefaultMemory: true,
      paths: [
        { name: "magi-shared", path: "~/Library/Mobile Documents/iCloud~md~obsidian/Documents/MAGI/shared", pattern: "**/*.md" }
      ],
      searchMode: "search"
    }
  }
}

Steps to reproduce

1. Enable memory.backend = "qmd"
2. Start OpenClaw Gateway
3. Let QMD initialize / index default memory files
4. Trigger memory recall via memory_search or openclaw memory search
5. Observe intermittent / immediate failure like:

qmd search ... -c memory-dir-main failed (code 1): Collection not found: memory-dir-main

Expected behavior

OpenClaw should either:

• always create and use the same managed collection names it later searches for, or
• repair / migrate mismatched collection names before searching, or
• tolerate path-equivalent existing collections without getting stuck on naming mismatch.

Actual behavior

OpenClaw may try to search for memory-dir-main, while a different path-equivalent collection already exists. That can cause:

• qmd collection add skipped ... A collection already exists for this path and pattern
• followed by
• Collection not found: memory-dir-main

This creates a broken state where:

• the path is already indexed,
• but the expected managed name is still missing,
• so QMD search from OpenClaw fails.

Evidence from logs

Representative log pattern:

qmd collection add skipped for memory-dir-main: qmd collection add /Users/.../workspace/memory --name memory-dir-main --mask **/*.md failed (code 1): A collection already exists for this path and pattern

followed by:

qmd search failed because a managed collection is missing; repairing collections and retrying once

and then:

qmd search ... -c memory-dir-main failed (code 1): Collection not found: memory-dir-main

Why this matters

This makes memory_search appear broken even though QMD itself may be working correctly. In our case, direct QMD search on the same index worked, while OpenClaw-managed search failed until the collection naming was manually aligned.

Related known reports

This looks related to existing collection naming mismatch reports such as:

• openclaw/openclaw#54942
• openclaw/openclaw#20727

Suggested fix direction

• Make managed collection naming deterministic and consistent between index creation and search
• If a path-equivalent collection already exists, allow OpenClaw to rename / adopt it instead of repeatedly trying and skipping
• Improve recovery logic so repairing collections and retrying once actually converges on a searchable state
• Consider storing a path→managed-name mapping in the OpenClaw-side state instead of assuming the expected name always exists

Current workaround

Manual alignment of QMD collection names to the names OpenClaw expects (for example ensuring memory-dir-main actually exists) can restore search.

However, this is fragile and should not be required for normal users.