Summary

Fresh follow-up for the stale-closed #59451.

The short-term UX fix is now handled separately by #69199: classify node:sqlite failures and return an actionable unavailable payload. This issue is for the longer-term capability fallback: keep memory_search useful when SQLite-backed search cannot initialize.

Current Reproduction

On a downlevel runtime, node:sqlite is unavailable:

$ node -e "try { require('node:sqlite'); console.log('node:sqlite available'); } catch (error) { console.log(error.code + ': ' + error.message); }"
ERR_UNKNOWN_BUILTIN_MODULE: No such built-in module: node:sqlite

OpenClaw currently requires Node.js >=22.19.0, and Node.js 24 is the recommended path. That is the right primary remediation, but constrained/containerized runtimes can still leave memory recall fully unavailable.

Requested Behavior

When vector memory search cannot initialize because node:sqlite is unavailable, memory_search should fall back to a small file-based keyword search path instead of returning only an unavailable response.

A minimal first scope would be:

• Search MEMORY.md and memory/*.md / equivalent local memory corpus files.
• Return bounded snippets with file paths and line ranges when possible.
• Mark results as fallback keyword results so users/agents do not confuse them with vector search.
• Respect existing maxResults behavior as closely as practical.
• Avoid embedding/provider calls and avoid requiring new gateway APIs.

Out of Scope

• Error-message remediation text, which belongs in fix(memory): improve error message when node:sqlite is unavailable #69199.
• Matching vector-search quality or ranking.
• Broad session transcript fallback unless maintainers want that in the first implementation.

Acceptance Criteria

• A missing node:sqlite runtime can still return basic keyword hits from memory files.
• The response clearly advertises fallback mode in debug/metadata.
• Existing vector-search behavior remains unchanged when SQLite-backed search is available.
• Fallback search is bounded and does not scan arbitrary files outside the configured memory corpus.

Related

• Previous stale issue: [Feature]: Add file-based fallback search when node:sqlite is unavailable #59451
• Short-term unavailable-payload PR: fix(memory): improve error message when node:sqlite is unavailable #69199