Bug

Description

After upgrading OpenClaw to 2026.3.8, the diagnostics-otel extension fails to load because its node_modules are missing:

[plugins] diagnostics-otel failed to load from /opt/homebrew/lib/node_modules/openclaw/extensions/diagnostics-otel/index.ts: 
Error: Cannot find module '@opentelemetry/api'

This causes all CLI commands (e.g., openclaw message send) to exit with code 1 silently.

Root Cause

The diagnostics-otel extension has its own package.json with dependencies (72 packages including @opentelemetry/api, @opentelemetry/sdk-node, etc.), but the main npm install / openclaw update process does not run npm install inside extension subdirectories.

Workaround

cd /opt/homebrew/lib/node_modules/openclaw/extensions/diagnostics-otel
npm install

Expected Behavior

openclaw update (or the npm global install process) should automatically install dependencies for all extensions that have a package.json.

Suggested Fix

During the update/install lifecycle, iterate over extensions/*/package.json and run npm install for each. Alternatively, hoist extension dependencies into the main package.json.

Environment

• OpenClaw: 2026.3.8 (3caab92)
• Node: v25.2.1
• OS: macOS (Darwin arm64)
• Install method: npm global (/opt/homebrew/lib/node_modules/openclaw)