### Changes

- Gradium: add a bundled text-to-speech provider with voice-note and telephony output support. (#64958) Thanks @LaurentMazare.

- Plugins/setup: honor explicit `setup.requiresRuntime: false` as a descriptor-only setup contract while keeping omitted values on the legacy setup-api fallback path. Thanks @vincentkoc.

- TUI/dependencies: remove direct `cli-highlight` usage from the OpenClaw TUI code-block renderer, keeping themed code coloring without the extra root dependency. Thanks @vincentkoc.

- Diagnostics/OTEL: export run, model-call, and tool-execution diagnostic lifecycle events as OTEL spans without retaining live span state. Thanks @vincentkoc.

- Plugins/activation: expose activation plan reasons and a richer plan API so callers can inspect why a plugin was selected while preserving existing id-list activation behavior. (#70943) Thanks @vincentkoc.

Setup discovery now prefers descriptor-owned ids such as `setup.providers` and

`setup.cliBackends` to narrow candidate plugins before it falls back to

`setup-api` for plugins that still need setup-time runtime hooks. If more than

one discovered plugin claims the same normalized setup provider or CLI backend

id, setup lookup refuses the ambiguous owner instead of relying on discovery

order.

`setup-api` for plugins that still need setup-time runtime hooks. Explicit

`setup.requiresRuntime: false` is a descriptor-only cutoff; omitted

`requiresRuntime` keeps the legacy setup-api fallback for compatibility. If more

than one discovered plugin claims the same normalized setup provider or CLI

backend id, setup lookup refuses the ambiguous owner instead of relying on

discovery order.

### What the loader caches

hooks, set `requiresRuntime: true` and keep `setup-api` in place as the

fallback execution path.

Set `requiresRuntime: false` only when those descriptors are sufficient for the

setup surface. OpenClaw treats explicit `false` as a descriptor-only contract

and will not execute `setup-api` for setup lookup. Omitted `requiresRuntime`

keeps legacy fallback behavior so existing plugins that added descriptors

without the flag do not break.

Because setup lookup can execute plugin-owned `setup-api` code, normalized

`setup.providers[].id` and `setup.cliBackends[]` values must stay unique across

discovered plugins. Ambiguous ownership fails closed instead of picking a

expect(mocks.createJiti.mock.calls[0]?.[0]).toBe(path.join(pluginRoot, "setup-api.js"));

});

it("treats explicit descriptor-only setup as a runtime cutoff", () => {

const pluginRoot = makeTempDir();

fs.writeFileSync(

path.join(pluginRoot, "setup-api.js"),

"export default { register(api) { api.registerProvider({ id: 'openai', label: 'OpenAI', auth: [] }); api.registerCliBackend({ id: 'codex-cli', config: { command: 'codex' } }); } };\n",

"utf-8",

);

mocks.loadPluginManifestRegistry.mockReturnValue({

plugins: [

{

id: "openai",

rootDir: pluginRoot,

setup: {

providers: [{ id: "openai" }],

cliBackends: ["codex-cli"],

requiresRuntime: false,

},

},

],

diagnostics: [],

});

expect(resolvePluginSetupProvider({ provider: "openai", env: {} })).toBeUndefined();

expect(resolvePluginSetupCliBackend({ backend: "codex-cli", env: {} })).toBeUndefined();

expect(resolvePluginSetupRegistry({ env: {} })).toEqual({

providers: [],

cliBackends: [],

configMigrations: [],

autoEnableProbes: [],

});

expect(mocks.createJiti).not.toHaveBeenCalled();

});

it("does not load setup-api modules from the current working directory", () => {

const pluginRoot = makeTempDir();

const workspaceRoot = makeTempDir();

setupSource: string;

register: (api: ReturnType<typeof buildPluginApi>) => void | Promise<void>;

} | null {

if (record.setup?.requiresRuntime === false) {

return null;

}

const setupSource = record.setupSource ?? resolveSetupApiPath(record.rootDir);

if (!setupSource) {

return null;