Summary

External/non-bundled plugins can declare contracts.webFetchProviders and register a web fetch provider with api.registerWebFetchProvider(...), but web_fetch does not appear to consider those providers at runtime.

When tools.web.fetch.readability is set to false, web_fetch fails with:

Web fetch extraction failed: Readability disabled and no fetch provider is available.

This happens even when the config explicitly selects the external provider.

Reproduction

1. Install or link a local external plugin, for example via plugins.load.paths:

{
  "plugins": {
    "entries": {
      "xfetch": {
        "enabled": true,
        "config": {
          "webFetch": {
            "apiKey": "sk-test-placeholder",
            "baseUrl": "https://example.invalid/",
            "timeoutSeconds": 60
          }
        }
      }
    },
    "load": {
      "paths": ["/home/o1/xfetch"]
    }
  }
}

1. The external plugin manifest declares the fetch provider contract:

{
  "id": "xfetch",
  "contracts": {
    "webFetchProviders": ["xfetch"]
  }
}

1. The plugin runtime registers the provider:

api.registerWebFetchProvider({
  id: "xfetch",
  label: "xfetch",
  envVars: ["XFETCH_API_KEY"],
  createTool: () => ({
    description: "Fetch through xfetch",
    parameters: { type: "object", additionalProperties: true, properties: {} },
    execute: async () => ({ text: "ok" }),
  }),
});

1. Configure web_fetch to use it:

{
  "tools": {
    "web": {
      "fetch": {
        "provider": "xfetch",
        "readability": false,
        "timeoutSeconds": 30
      }
    }
  }
}

1. Refresh the plugin registry, restart the gateway, and call web_fetch for an HTML URL.

Expected behavior

web_fetch should resolve and use the explicitly configured external provider xfetch.

Actual behavior

web_fetch behaves as if no fetch provider exists and fails when Readability is disabled:

[tools] web_fetch failed: Web fetch extraction failed: Readability disabled and no fetch provider is available.

Suspected cause

In src/web-fetch/runtime.ts, provider lookup appears to restrict candidates to bundled plugins:

resolvePluginWebFetchProviders({
  config: options?.config,
  bundledAllowlistCompat: true,
  origin: "bundled",
})

This appears in both provider id resolution and provider definition resolution. As a result, providers from plugins.load.paths, global extensions, workspace extensions, or other non-bundled origins are filtered out before the explicit configured provider id is considered.

This looks inconsistent with the documented plugin contract: contracts.webFetchProviders is described as the provider ownership declaration, but the runtime only considers bundled origins.

Environment

• OpenClaw version: 2026.4.27
• Install style: npm/global gateway
• External plugin source: local path via plugins.load.paths
• Platform: Linux

Notes

This is related in shape to earlier external plugin runtime/tool surfacing issues, but the concrete failure here is specific to web_fetch provider resolution filtering by origin: "bundled".

A likely fix is to let explicit tools.web.fetch.provider resolve across installed/active plugin origins, or otherwise document that webFetchProviders are currently bundled-only and reject non-bundled provider config earlier with a clear diagnostic.