Plugin skills: use Windows junction links

Fixes #77958.\n\nMaintainer-prepped by narrowing the branch to the Windows plugin-skills junction fix, rebasing onto current main, adding cleanup/idempotence regression coverage and changelog, and verifying local gates plus green CI.\n\nCo-authored-by: hcl <7755017+hclsys@users.noreply.github.com>\nCo-authored-by: Brad Groux <3053586+BradGroux@users.noreply.github.com>

CHANGELOG.md

@@ -6,6 +6,7 @@ Docs: https://docs.openclaw.ai
 
 ### Changes
 
+- Plugin skills/Windows: publish plugin-provided skill directories as junctions on Windows so standard users without Developer Mode can register plugin skills without symlink EPERM failures. Fixes #77958. (#77971) Thanks @hclsys and @jarro.
 - MS Teams: surface blocked Bot Framework egress by logging JWKS fetch network failures and adding a Bot Connector send hint for transport-level reply failures. Fixes #77674. (#78081) Thanks @Beandon13.
 - PR triage: mark external pull requests with `proof: supplied` when Barnacle finds structured real behavior proof, keep stale negative proof labels in sync across CRLF-edited PR bodies, and let ClawSweeper own the stronger `proof: sufficient` judgement.
 - Sessions CLI: show the selected agent runtime in the `openclaw sessions` table so terminal output matches the runtime visibility already present in JSON/status surfaces. Thanks @vincentkoc.

src/agents/skills/plugin-skills.test.ts

@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-import fsSync from "node:fs";
+import fsSync, { type Dirent } from "node:fs";
 import fs from "node:fs/promises";
 import path from "node:path";
 import { afterEach, beforeAll, beforeEach, describe, expect, it, vi } from "vitest";
@@ -366,7 +366,18 @@ describe("resolvePluginSkillDirs", () => {
 });
 
 describe("publishPluginSkills", () => {
-  const { publishPluginSkills } = __testing;
+  const { isGeneratedPluginSkillEntry, publishPluginSkills, resolvePluginSkillLinkType } =
+    __testing;
+
+  function withPlatform<T>(platform: NodeJS.Platform, fn: () => T): T {
+    const originalPlatform = process.platform;
+    Object.defineProperty(process, "platform", { configurable: true, value: platform });
+    try {
+      return fn();
+    } finally {
+      Object.defineProperty(process, "platform", { configurable: true, value: originalPlatform });
+    }
+  }
 
   async function writeSkillDir(
     parentDir: string,
@@ -399,6 +410,12 @@ describe("publishPluginSkills", () => {
     expect(fsSync.readlinkSync(linkB)).toBe(dirB);
   });
 
+  it("uses junction links for plugin skill directories on Windows", async () => {
+    expect(resolvePluginSkillLinkType("win32")).toBe("junction");
+    expect(resolvePluginSkillLinkType("linux")).toBe("dir");
+    expect(resolvePluginSkillLinkType("darwin")).toBe("dir");
+  });
+
   it("is idempotent: skips symlinks that already point to the same target", async () => {
     const skillParent = await tempDirs.make("plugin-skills-");
     const managedDir = await tempDirs.make("managed-skills-");
@@ -446,6 +463,37 @@ describe("publishPluginSkills", () => {
     expect(fsSync.existsSync(path.join(managedDir, "stale-skill"))).toBe(false);
   });
 
+  it("cleans up stale generated junction-like directories on Windows", async () => {
+    const skillParent = await tempDirs.make("plugin-skills-");
+    const managedDir = await tempDirs.make("managed-skills-");
+
+    const dir = await writeSkillDir(skillParent, "current-skill");
+    const staleDir = path.join(managedDir, "stale-skill");
+    await fs.mkdir(staleDir, { recursive: true });
+
+    await withPlatform("win32", async () => {
+      publishPluginSkills([dir], { pluginSkillsDir: managedDir });
+    });
+
+    expect(fsSync.existsSync(path.join(managedDir, "current-skill"))).toBe(true);
+    expect(fsSync.existsSync(staleDir)).toBe(false);
+  });
+
+  it("treats Windows directory entries as generated plugin skill entries", () => {
+    const directoryEntry = {
+      isDirectory: () => true,
+      isSymbolicLink: () => false,
+    } as Dirent;
+    const regularEntry = {
+      isDirectory: () => false,
+      isSymbolicLink: () => false,
+    } as Dirent;
+
+    expect(withPlatform("win32", () => isGeneratedPluginSkillEntry(directoryEntry))).toBe(true);
+    expect(withPlatform("linux", () => isGeneratedPluginSkillEntry(directoryEntry))).toBe(false);
+    expect(withPlatform("win32", () => isGeneratedPluginSkillEntry(regularEntry))).toBe(false);
+  });
+
   it("cleans up broken symlinks (dangling)", async () => {
     const skillParent = await tempDirs.make("plugin-skills-");
     const managedDir = await tempDirs.make("managed-skills-");

src/agents/skills/plugin-skills.ts

@@ -16,6 +16,8 @@ import { CONFIG_DIR } from "../../utils.js";
 
 const log = createSubsystemLogger("skills");
 
+type PluginSkillLinkType = "dir" | "junction";
+
 export function resolvePluginSkillDirs(params: {
   workspaceDir: string | undefined;
   config?: OpenClawConfig;
@@ -111,6 +113,12 @@ function resolveDefaultPluginSkillsDir(): string {
   return path.join(CONFIG_DIR, "plugin-skills");
 }
 
+function resolvePluginSkillLinkType(
+  platform: NodeJS.Platform = process.platform,
+): PluginSkillLinkType {
+  return platform === "win32" ? "junction" : "dir";
+}
+
 /**
  * Collect skill dir targets from a resolved directory.
  * If the directory contains a direct SKILL.md it is published as-is.
@@ -205,7 +213,7 @@ function publishPluginSkills(skillDirs: string[], opts?: { pluginSkillsDir?: str
       if (existingTarget === target) {
         continue;
       }
-      fs.unlinkSync(linkPath);
+      removeGeneratedPluginSkillEntry(linkPath);
     } catch (err) {
       if (!isNotFoundError(err)) {
         log.warn(`failed to inspect plugin skill symlink "${linkPath}": ${String(err)}`);
@@ -213,7 +221,7 @@ function publishPluginSkills(skillDirs: string[], opts?: { pluginSkillsDir?: str
       }
     }
     try {
-      fs.symlinkSync(target, linkPath, "dir");
+      fs.symlinkSync(target, linkPath, resolvePluginSkillLinkType());
     } catch (err) {
       log.warn(`failed to create plugin skill symlink "${linkPath}" → "${target}": ${String(err)}`);
     }
@@ -229,18 +237,26 @@ function publishPluginSkills(skillDirs: string[], opts?: { pluginSkillsDir?: str
     return;
   }
   for (const entry of existingEntries) {
-    if (!entry.isSymbolicLink()) {
+    if (!isGeneratedPluginSkillEntry(entry)) {
       continue;
     }
     if (managedTargets.has(entry.name)) {
       continue;
     }
     const linkPath = path.join(pluginSkillsDir, entry.name);
-    try {
-      fs.unlinkSync(linkPath);
-    } catch {
-      // best-effort cleanup
-    }
+    removeGeneratedPluginSkillEntry(linkPath);
+  }
+}
+
+function isGeneratedPluginSkillEntry(entry: fs.Dirent): boolean {
+  return entry.isSymbolicLink() || (process.platform === "win32" && entry.isDirectory());
+}
+
+function removeGeneratedPluginSkillEntry(linkPath: string): void {
+  try {
+    fs.rmSync(linkPath, { recursive: true, force: true });
+  } catch {
+    // best-effort cleanup
   }
 }
 
@@ -253,5 +269,7 @@ function isNotFoundError(err: unknown): boolean {
 }
 
 export const __testing = {
+  isGeneratedPluginSkillEntry,
   publishPluginSkills,
+  resolvePluginSkillLinkType,
 };