Bug type

Behavior bug (incorrect output/state without crash)

Summary

Memory search fails with "spawn qmd ENOENT" — qmd binary is not installed and cannot be found via brew or npm on macOS ARM (M4).

Steps to reproduce

Steps to reproduce

1. Fresh install OpenClaw 2026.3.2 on macOS Tahoe (Mac mini M4)
2. Configure memory backend as "qmd" in openclaw.json
3. Run: openclaw memory index --force
4. Observe: "spawn qmd ENOENT"
5. Run: which qmd → not found

Environment

• OpenClaw version: 2026.3.2
• macOS Tahoe (ARM, Mac mini M4)
• Node.js v24.14.0 (via NVM)
• Memory backend configured as "qmd" in openclaw.json

What I tried

• brew install qmd — not found in Homebrew
• npm install -g qmd — installs empty placeholder package ([email protected])
• npm install -g @anthropic/qmd — same empty package
• Switched to "backend": "builtin" — works but skips file sync ("Skipping memory file sync in FTS-only mode, no embedding provider")
• Searched OpenClaw node_modules — found qmd-manager JS files but no binary

Logs

openclaw memory status shows:
Provider: none (requested: auto)
Indexed: 0/12 files · 0 chunks

Gateway logs on every start:
warn memory qmd collection add failed for memory-root-main: spawn qmd ENOENT
warn memory qmd boot update failed: Error: spawn qmd ENOENT

Question

How do I install the qmd binary on macOS ARM?

Expected behavior

openclaw memory index should index all memory files and enable semantic search via qmd.

Actual behavior

Memory indexing fails with "spawn qmd ENOENT". The qmd binary is not found on the system and cannot be installed via brew or npm.

OpenClaw version

2026.3.2

Operating system

macOS Tahoe (ARM, Mac mini M4)

Install method

npm global

Model

anthropic/claude-opus-4-6

Provider / routing chain

openclaw -> anthropic

Additional provider/model setup details

No response

Logs, screenshots, and evidence

Impact and severity

No response

Additional information

QMD binary missing — "spawn qmd ENOENT" on macOS ARM (Apple Silicon)

Environment

• OpenClaw version: 2026.3.2
• macOS Tahoe (ARM, Mac mini M4)
• Node.js v24.14.0 (via NVM)
• Memory backend configured as "qmd" in openclaw.json

Problem

Memory search does not work. Every gateway start and every openclaw memory index call fails with:

warn memory qmd collection add failed for memory-root-main: spawn qmd ENOENT
warn memory qmd boot update failed: Error: spawn qmd ENOENT

openclaw memory status shows:

Provider: none (requested: auto)
Indexed: 0/12 files · 0 chunks

which qmd returns nothing. The qmd binary is not installed anywhere on the system.

What I tried

• brew install qmd — not found in Homebrew
• npm install -g qmd — installs empty placeholder package ([email protected])
• npm install -g @anthropic/qmd — same empty package
• Switched to "backend": "builtin" — works but skips file sync ("Skipping memory file sync in FTS-only mode, no embedding provider")
• Searched OpenClaw node_modules — found qmd-manager JS files but no binary

Question

How do I install the qmd binary on macOS ARM? Is it bundled somewhere in OpenClaw that I'm missing, or is it a separate installation step?