Bug Report: v2026.4.5 Plugin Loading Regression

Summary

Upgrading from v2026.4.2 to v2026.4.5 causes every worker child process (openclaw, openclaw-cron, openclaw-approvals) to independently register all plugins (BlockRun, partner tools, etc.), creating massive CPU overhead. On a Mac Mini with 8-10 cores, the gateway spawns 87+ child processes each consuming 20-50% CPU, saturating all cores and rendering the system unusable.

Environment

• Platform: macOS arm64, Mac Mini
• Node: v22.22.1
• OpenClaw: v2026.4.5 (3e72c03) — regressed from v2026.4.2 (d74a122)
• Config: 12 agents, 19 enabled cron jobs, Discord + iMessage channels

Steps to Reproduce

1. Install [email protected] globally
2. Start gateway via launchd with existing v2026.4.2 config
3. Wait 2-3 minutes for plugins to initialize

Expected Behavior

Plugin registration happens once in the gateway process. Worker processes inherit the registered providers without re-initializing.

Actual Behavior

Every child worker process independently loads and registers all plugins:

[plugins] BlockRun provider registered (55+ models via x402)
[plugins] Registered 1 partner tool(s): blockrun_x_users_lookup
[plugins] Not in gateway mode — proxy will start when gateway runs

This message repeats for each of 87+ spawned worker processes. Observable effects:

• 103 total openclaw processes (vs ~8 on v2026.4.2)
• 888% total CPU across all processes (vs ~2% on v2026.4.2)
• Load average 17.77 on 8-10 core machine
• Paperclip API response time >2 minutes (vs 10ms on v2026.4.2)
• fseventsd also spikes to 27% CPU from filesystem watchers across all processes
• Log shows infinite loop of "BlockRun provider registered" / "Not in gateway mode" messages

Additional Observations

• The dingtalk extension also fails repeatedly on v2026.4.5 with: Cannot find module '/opt/homebrew/lib/node_modules/openclaw/dist/plugin-sdk/root-alias.cjs/telegram-core' — the plugin-sdk module paths appear to have changed.
• Config keys added in v2026.4.5 (plugins.entries.memory-core.config.dreaming, agents.defaults.memorySearch) cause v2026.4.2 to reject config on downgrade: "must NOT have additional properties"

Workaround

Downgrade to v2026.4.2:

npm install -g [email protected]
launchctl kickstart -k gui/$(id -u)/ai.openclaw.gateway

Suggested Fix

Plugin registration should be gated to the gateway process only. Worker/child processes should either:

1. Skip plugin initialization entirely (inherit from parent)
2. Check process.env.OPENCLAW_SERVICE_KIND === 'gateway' before registering providers
3. Use a shared plugin registry instead of per-process initialization