diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
index 9fdde3d670c..f5071899cd5 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -433,6 +433,7 @@ Docs: https://docs.openclaw.ai
 - Exec approvals: enforce allowlist `argPattern` argument restrictions on Linux and macOS as well as Windows, so an entry like `{ pattern: "python3", argPattern: "^safe\.py$" }` no longer silently relaxes to a path-only match on non-Windows hosts. (#75143) Thanks @eleqtrizit.
 - Agents/compaction: disable Pi auto-compaction whenever OpenClaw effectively owns safeguard compaction, including provider-backed safeguard mode, so Pi and OpenClaw no longer fight over long-session compaction. Fixes #73003. (#73839) Thanks @bradhallett.
 - Telegram/streaming: finalize text replies by stopping the edited stream message instead of sending a second answer bubble, so Telegram turns cannot duplicate the streamed final response. (#77947) Thanks @obviyus.
+- web_search/Brave: fix provider selection when Brave is installed as an external plugin and `tools.web.search.provider: "brave"` is explicitly configured — a redundant provider re-resolution at startup could race and return an empty list, causing a spurious `WEB_SEARCH_PROVIDER_INVALID_AUTODETECT` warning and treating the explicitly configured provider as absent. Fixes #77676. Thanks @openperf.
 
 ## 2026.5.3-1
 
diff --git a/src/secrets/runtime-web-tools.shared.ts b/src/secrets/runtime-web-tools.shared.ts
index eb91134f94d..930761867a3 100644
--- a/src/secrets/runtime-web-tools.shared.ts
+++ b/src/secrets/runtime-web-tools.shared.ts
@@ -234,7 +234,11 @@ export async function resolveRuntimeWebProviderSurface<
   ) {
     configuredBundledPluginId = undefined;
   }
-  if (params.rawProvider && !configuredBundledPluginId) {
+  if (
+    params.rawProvider &&
+    !configuredBundledPluginId &&
+    !allProviders.some((provider) => provider.id === params.rawProvider)
+  ) {
     const resolveManifestContractOwnerPluginId = await loadResolveManifestContractOwnerPluginId();
     configuredBundledPluginId = resolveManifestContractOwnerPluginId({
       contract: params.contract,
diff --git a/src/secrets/runtime-web-tools.test.ts b/src/secrets/runtime-web-tools.test.ts
index 1870ee357b5..d7df13a71c5 100644
--- a/src/secrets/runtime-web-tools.test.ts
+++ b/src/secrets/runtime-web-tools.test.ts
@@ -1564,4 +1564,94 @@ describe("runtime web tools resolution", () => {
     expect(resolveBundledWebFetchProvidersFromPublicArtifactsMock).not.toHaveBeenCalled();
     expect(resolvePluginWebFetchProvidersMock).not.toHaveBeenCalled();
   });
+
+  describe("when brave is installed as an external plugin and explicitly configured", () => {
+    const externalBraveImpl = ({
+      value,
+      origin,
+    }: {
+      value: string;
+      origin?: string;
+    }): string | undefined => {
+      if (origin === "bundled" && value === "brave") {
+        return undefined;
+      }
+      return (
+        {
+          brave: "brave",
+          firecrawl: "firecrawl",
+          gemini: "google",
+          grok: "xai",
+          kimi: "moonshot",
+          perplexity: "perplexity",
+        } as Record<string, string | undefined>
+      )[value];
+    };
+
+    const defaultImpl = ({ value }: { value: string }): string | undefined =>
+      (
+        ({
+          brave: "brave",
+          firecrawl: "firecrawl",
+          gemini: "google",
+          grok: "xai",
+          kimi: "moonshot",
+          perplexity: "perplexity",
+        }) as Record<string, string | undefined>
+      )[value];
+
+    beforeEach(() => {
+      loadInstalledPluginIndexInstallRecordsSyncMock.mockReturnValue({
+        brave: { source: "npm", spec: "@openclaw/brave-search" },
+      });
+      resolveManifestContractOwnerPluginIdMock.mockImplementation(externalBraveImpl);
+    });
+
+    afterEach(() => {
+      resolveManifestContractOwnerPluginIdMock.mockImplementation(defaultImpl);
+    });
+
+    it("selects the configured provider without re-invoking provider discovery when found in the first pass", async () => {
+      resolvePluginWebSearchProvidersMock
+        .mockReturnValueOnce(buildTestWebSearchProviders())
+        .mockReturnValueOnce([]);
+
+      const { metadata, context } = await runRuntimeWebTools({
+        config: asConfig({
+          tools: {
+            web: {
+              search: {
+                provider: "brave",
+              },
+            },
+          },
+          plugins: {
+            entries: {
+              brave: {
+                config: {
+                  webSearch: {
+                    apiKey: "brave-api-key", // pragma: allowlist secret
+                  },
+                },
+              },
+            },
+          },
+        }),
+      });
+
+      expect(metadata.search.selectedProvider).toBe("brave");
+      expect(metadata.search.providerSource).toBe("configured");
+      expect(metadata.search.selectedProviderKeySource).toBe("config");
+      expect(context.warnings).not.toEqual(
+        expect.arrayContaining([
+          expect.objectContaining({ code: "WEB_SEARCH_PROVIDER_INVALID_AUTODETECT" }),
+        ]),
+      );
+      expect(resolvePluginWebSearchProvidersMock).toHaveBeenCalledTimes(1);
+      expect(
+        resolveBundledExplicitWebSearchProvidersFromPublicArtifactsMock,
+      ).not.toHaveBeenCalled();
+      expect(resolveBundledWebSearchProvidersFromPublicArtifactsMock).not.toHaveBeenCalled();
+    });
+  });
 });