Best possible solution:

Finish maintainer review, resolve mergeability/check gating, and land the scoped manifest-first/runtime-fallback implementation with its install-persistence coverage and changelog entry if the branch remains green.

Do we have a high-confidence way to reproduce the issue?

Yes. Current main inspection provides a high-confidence reproduction path: enabled plugin installs and plugins enable call applySlotSelectionForPlugin, which builds a broad plugin snapshot and can load unscoped runtime diagnostics; the PR body adds timing traces showing the observed install slowdown before and after the change.

Is this the best way to solve the issue?

Yes, with maintainer sign-off. The PR uses existing scoped manifest pluginIds and diagnostics onlyPluginIds contracts, keeps runtime kind lookup as a selected-plugin legacy fallback, and avoids adding a new plugin API or broad core behavior.

What I checked:

• Protected PR state: Provided GitHub context shows this PR is open, ready for review, authored by vincentkoc with authorAssociation=MEMBER, labeled maintainer, and currently mergeable=false, so conservative cleanup must not close it. (cb217a7e5a63)
• Current main broad slot path: Current main's applySlotSelectionForPlugin builds a broad plugin snapshot and can call buildPluginDiagnosticsReport without onlyPluginIds before applying slot selection. (src/cli/plugins-command-helpers.ts:50, 3a24a25f4b97)
• Install and enable paths reach slot selection: persistPluginInstall calls applySlotSelectionForPlugin during enabled installs, and the plugins enable command calls the same helper after enablePluginInConfig. (src/cli/plugins-install-persist.ts:91, 3a24a25f4b97)
• Existing scoped manifest contract: loadPluginManifestRegistryForPluginRegistry already accepts pluginIds and forwards them into loadPluginManifestRegistryForInstalledIndex, which filters candidates before manifest loading. (src/plugins/plugin-registry-contributions.ts:279, 3a24a25f4b97)
• Existing scoped runtime contract: buildPluginDiagnosticsReport already accepts onlyPluginIds and passes that scope to loadOpenClawPlugins, matching the PR's selected-plugin runtime fallback direction. (src/plugins/status.ts:298, 3a24a25f4b97)
• PR diff scope: The public PR diff replaces broad snapshot status loading with selected-plugin manifest registry loading and onlyPluginIds diagnostics fallback, updates tests to assert sibling runtimes stay loaded/enabled, and adds the required changelog line. (src/cli/plugins-command-helpers.ts:1, cb217a7e5a63)

Likely related people:

• vincentkoc: Local blame and path history show the slot-selection helper, install-persist slot call, slot implementation, and related tests all trace to bcaf980 by Vincent Koc; the same maintainer authored this focused PR branch. (role: introduced behavior and recent maintainer; confidence: high; commits: bcaf9800157b; files: src/cli/plugins-command-helpers.ts, src/cli/plugins-install-persist.ts, src/cli/plugins-install-persist.test.ts)

Remaining risk / open question:

• Provided GitHub context reports mergeable=false, so branch mergeability and required checks still need the normal maintainer gate before landing.

Codex review notes: model gpt-5.5, reasoning high; reviewed against 3a24a25f4b97.