Bug: plugin context engine resolves before plugin registration in OpenClaw 2026.3.7

Summary

When plugins.slots.contextEngine is set to lossless-claw, OpenClaw 2026.3.7 loads the Lossless Claw plugin successfully, but the gateway fails engine resolution at boot with:

Context engine "lossless-claw" is not registered. Available engines: legacy

This suggests context-engine resolution is happening before plugin-provided context engines are registered.

Environment

• OpenClaw version: 2026.3.7
• Install path: Homebrew-managed npm/global install under /opt/homebrew/lib/node_modules/openclaw
• Plugin: @martian-engineering/[email protected]
• Node: v25.6.1
• SQLite FTS5: available/working
• macOS: Darwin 25.0.0 arm64

Repro

1. Install plugin:
   openclaw plugins install @martian-engineering/lossless-claw
2. Confirm plugin loads successfully.
3. Set config:

   "plugins": {
     "slots": {
       "memory": "openclaw-mem0",
       "contextEngine": "lossless-claw"
     }
   }

4. Restart gateway:
   openclaw gateway restart

Expected

Gateway should resolve and activate the lossless-claw context engine.

Actual

• Plugin loads and lcm.db is created/used.
• Plugin tools/data layer appear healthy.
• Gateway log reports:
  Context engine "lossless-claw" is not registered. Available engines: legacy
• Removing the contextEngine slot restores clean startup.

Evidence

• Plugin source calls api.registerContextEngine("lossless-claw", () => lcm);
• OpenClaw dist contains registerContextEngine() / resolveContextEngine() support and plugins.slots.contextEngine handling.
• Dist also registers legacy eagerly in core.
• Logs show plugin load happening after the gateway has already proceeded with runtime startup.

Relevant log ordering

After rollback, startup consistently shows plugin registration late in the sequence, e.g.:

• Checking channel status (probe)…
• Gateway reachable ...
• later: [lcm] Plugin loaded (enabled=true, db=/Users/dakotagarman/.openclaw/lcm.db, threshold=0.75)

Earlier, when plugins.slots.contextEngine = "lossless-claw" was set, the gateway logged:

• Context engine "lossless-claw" is not registered. Available engines: legacy

That ordering strongly suggests configured context-engine resolution is happening before plugin-provided context engines are registered.

Hypothesis

A load-order / initialization timing bug: configured context-engine resolution occurs before plugin registration has populated the registry with plugin-provided engines.

Potential fixes

• Ensure plugin context engines are registered before resolveContextEngine(config) is called.
• Or defer configured engine resolution until plugin initialization completes.
• Or retry engine resolution after plugin load/registry initialization.

Notes

This is not a generic plugin-install problem:

• plugin install succeeds
• plugin load succeeds
• plugin DB/tools initialize
• only host-level engine selection fails at boot