clawX/harness/specs/scenarios/plugin-lifecycle-management.md

id, title, type, ownedPaths, requiredProfiles, conditionalProfiles, requiredRules

id	title	type	ownedPaths	requiredProfiles	conditionalProfiles	requiredRules
plugin-lifecycle-management	Plugin Lifecycle Management	plugin-lifecycle	electron/gateway/config-sync.ts electron/utils/openclaw-auth.ts electron/utils/channel-config.ts electron/utils/plugin-install.ts electron/gateway/skills-symlink-cleanup.ts electron/api/routes/skills.ts src/stores/skills.ts resources/skills/** tests/unit/openclaw-auth.test.ts tests/unit/channel-config.test.ts tests/unit/plugin-install.test.ts tests/unit/harness-specs.test.ts harness/src/cli.mjs harness/src/rules.mjs harness/src/specs.mjs harness/specs/scenarios/gateway-backend-communication.md harness/specs/scenarios/plugin-lifecycle-management.md harness/specs/rules/** harness/specs/tasks/**	fast	comms e2e when plugin activation changes Gateway startup or runtime message delivery channel/provider plugin ownership changes OpenClaw runtime config when plugin status, install, recovery, or diagnostics behavior is visible in the UI	channel-plugin-migration-guards capability-owner-resolution active-config-guards packaged-runtime-pruning-guards

Plugin lifecycle management covers bundled and external plugins as one system with different source types. The core model has two layers:

• PluginPackage: a discoverable, installable, upgradable, and recoverable package with identity, version, source, manifest, install location, and validation state.
• PluginCapability: an integration surface declared by a package, such as a channel, provider, skill, or runtime extension.

Lifecycle stages:

• Declare: plugin manifests describe package identity, source expectations, compatibility, and provided capabilities.
• Discover: ClawX scans bundled and external sources and produces a factual inventory. Discovery does not choose active owners.
• Resolve: ClawX chooses canonical package/capability owners, applies migration rules, and marks conflicts before config activation.
• Materialize: ClawX installs, upgrades, copies, links, or verifies the physical package selected by resolution.
• Validate: ClawX verifies package manifests, dependencies, capability config, ownership uniqueness, and startup requirements.
• Activate: only resolved and validated capabilities enter final OpenClaw runtime config.
• Recover: failed upgrades, stale registrations, conflicts, and removed channels converge to a single diagnosable state with rollback or cleanup paths.
• Package: cleanup and pruning keep packaged artifacts small without deleting target runtime assets; macOS universal packages keep both x64 and arm64 native payloads.

First-stage priority is integration safety: single-owner capability resolution, active config guards, direct regression tests for migration cases, and explicit task specs for resolution, validation, and recovery work.