Best possible solution:

Land a narrow PATH-bootstrap fix after redacted real gateway/Skills proof shows npm-global clawhub and mcporter are detected without changing trust ordering.

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

No, not as a high-confidence live reproduction. Source inspection shows the current gateway status path scans process.env.PATH, and current PATH bootstrap omits npm-global/prefix dirs, matching the reported sparse-service PATH failure.

Is this the best way to solve the issue?

Yes, the PR's narrow bootstrap change is the right layer because the UI is reporting backend Skills status. It still needs real behavior proof before merge.

Acceptance criteria:

• pnpm test src/infra/path-env.test.ts -- --reporter=verbose
• pnpm test src/agents/skills.buildworkspaceskillstatus.test.ts -- --reporter=verbose
• git diff --check
• pnpm check:changed

What I checked:

• Current main omits npm-global PATH discovery: Current candidateBinDirs appends Homebrew, mise, pnpm, XDG, .local/bin, Bun, and Yarn locations after trusted system dirs, but it does not append npm global prefix directories or ~/.npm-global/bin. (src/infra/path-env.ts:103, 0451a9fb312c)
• Skills status depends on process PATH: buildSkillStatus evaluates required binaries with hasBinary, and hasBinary scans process.env.PATH, which makes a sparse gateway PATH sufficient to produce false missing-requirements status. (src/agents/skills-status.ts:228, 0451a9fb312c)
• PR diff is scoped to npm bin discovery: The diff adds npm prefix parsing from NPM_CONFIG_PREFIX, npm_config_prefix, user .npmrc, OpenClaw-managed npm tools, and ~/.npm-global/bin, then appends discovered directories after existing user-writable paths. (src/infra/path-env.ts:30, 0a8d90546525)
• Regression coverage targets the new prefix cases: The PR adds path-env coverage for env npm prefixes, user .npmrc prefix, managed npm tools, and ~/.npm-global/bin, while preserving the after-system-dir ordering assertion. (src/infra/path-env.test.ts:290, 0a8d90546525)
• Related issue supports the source-level root cause: The linked issue reports clawhub and mcporter working in terminal but missing in Skills UI, and a follow-up commenter reported clawhub at /home/azfar/.npm-global/bin/clawhub with a sparse systemd service PATH.
• Real behavior proof is absent: The PR body lists unit/changed checks, and the PR discussion only contains a ClawSweeper placeholder comment; there is no terminal/log/screenshot/recording proof showing the fixed gateway Skills status in a real npm-global setup. (0a8d90546525)

Likely related people:

• steipete: Recent commits shaped daemon and gateway PATH handling, and current source/blame in this checkout also routes the relevant PATH/bootstrap and requirement-evaluation area through his commits. (role: recent path/bootstrap contributor; confidence: high; commits: 85ce75c005a2, eb3e4f20a0af, abf5dea7ddb5; files: src/infra/path-env.ts, src/shared/config-eval.ts, src/daemon/service-env.ts)
• mbelinky: Authored the recent merged Skills status visibility change in the central status report builder used by the Control UI. (role: recent skills status contributor; confidence: medium; commits: 3b347d1c7ea0; files: src/agents/skills-status.ts)
• BunsDev: Authored the recent LaunchAgent PATH change that added Homebrew paths, which is adjacent to the service/gateway PATH mismatch being addressed here. (role: recent adjacent contributor; confidence: medium; commits: 84fe3c5409cb; files: src/daemon/service-env.ts)
• optimol: Authored the path hardening commit that is relevant to preserving non-user-writable ordering while adding more package-manager paths. (role: path trust contributor; confidence: medium; commits: c40884d306e8; files: src/infra/path-env.ts)

Remaining risk / open question:

• The contributor has not shown after-fix real behavior proof from a real gateway/npm-global setup.
• No live macOS launchd or Linux systemd gateway run was inspected, so the exact reporter environment remains source-proven rather than live-proven.

Codex review notes: model gpt-5.5, reasoning high; reviewed against 0451a9fb312c.