Best possible solution:

Land a fingerprint-keyed, process-scoped metadata snapshot memo only after CI and plugin-area review confirm the cache stays fresh across install, discovery, and lifecycle boundaries.

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

Yes, at source/proof level: current main has many loadPluginMetadataSnapshot callers and no outer snapshot memo, while the PR body provides before/after terminal timing for real CLI commands on a 104-plugin install. I did not recreate that large install locally in this read-only checkout.

Is this the best way to solve the issue?

Likely yes: keying a single-slot process memo on caller params plus discovery fingerprints and cloning returned snapshots is a narrow implementation for the repeated in-process rebuild cost. Because the cache surface is broad and plugin guidance is strict about metadata freshness, maintainer review and CI should remain the merge gate.

What I checked:

• Current main behavior: Current main calls loadPluginMetadataSnapshotImpl directly inside the diagnostics span, so repeated callers rebuild the registry snapshot wrapper work rather than using a process-local snapshot memo. (src/plugins/plugin-metadata-snapshot.ts:176, 6a5290e49e2b)
• PR memo implementation: At PR head, loadPluginMetadataSnapshot computes a memo key, returns a cloned cached snapshot on hit, stores a cloned snapshot on miss, and reports memo diagnostics attributes. (src/plugins/plugin-metadata-snapshot.ts:184, d0bb9dbefb94)
• Fingerprint implementation: The PR head builds the memo fingerprint from configured load paths, persisted registry inputs, recovered npm installs, bundled/global/workspace roots, installed indexes, candidate file stats, nested candidates, and diagnostic source paths. (src/plugins/manifest-metadata-scan.ts:886, d0bb9dbefb94)
• Regression coverage: The new memo test file covers cache hits with fresh literal params, independent returned objects, lifecycle invalidation, env/cwd/index changes, external manifest changes, configured load paths, runtime outputs, and nested candidate metadata changes. (src/plugins/plugin-metadata-snapshot.memo.test.ts:156, d0bb9dbefb94)
• Plugin boundary context: The scoped plugin guidance says metadata caches must preserve freshness and discourages persistent metadata caches, so this process-local memo is an intentional architecture exception that should receive maintainer review. (src/plugins/AGENTS.md:30, 6a5290e49e2b)
• Real behavior proof context: The PR body supplies after-fix terminal timing data for real openclaw plugins list and openclaw gateway status runs on a 104-plugin install, with matching output byte counts, line counts, and SHA-256 hashes between patched and unpatched variants. (d0bb9dbefb94)

Likely related people:

• shakkernerd: Local blame maps the current loadPluginMetadataSnapshot, manifest metadata scan, and current metadata state implementations on main to Shakker, and GitHub commit metadata also shows adjacent diagnostics timeline work in this area. (role: recent area contributor; confidence: high; commits: a5557d1fb54e, c795a1a8ef19; files: src/plugins/plugin-metadata-snapshot.ts, src/plugins/manifest-metadata-scan.ts, src/plugins/current-plugin-metadata-state.ts)
• steipete: Recent GitHub commit metadata shows plugin metadata snapshot fixes around sparse metadata handling, including a direct touch to src/plugins/plugin-metadata-snapshot.ts. (role: recent adjacent contributor; confidence: medium; commits: 2294f5c95a6f, c58319ff50f6; files: src/plugins/plugin-metadata-snapshot.ts)
• vincentkoc: GitHub commit metadata shows a recent plugin metadata snapshot cycle fix that introduced the shared current metadata state path touched by this PR. (role: adjacent owner; confidence: medium; commits: a2ec5a7d72f4; files: src/plugins/current-plugin-metadata-state.ts, src/plugins/current-plugin-metadata-snapshot.ts)

Remaining risk / open question:

• The invalidation fingerprint mirrors a broad discovery/control-plane surface, and I did not run the full test or build lanes in this read-only review.
• The scoped plugin guidance discourages persistent metadata caches, so maintainers should explicitly accept this process-local memo as the right exception.

Codex review notes: model gpt-5.5, reasoning high; reviewed against 6a5290e49e2b.