Description

OpenClaw version: 2026.5.2 (8b2a6e5)
Node: v22.22.0
OS: Linux 6.8.0-101-generic (x64), 5-core Intel Xeon Gold 6152 @ 2.10GHz, 5.8GB RAM

Every agent run incurs a ~3.5s delay during the core-plugin-tool stages phase caused by pdf-tool loading pdfjs-dist/legacy/build/pdf.mjs (~1MB) via dynamic import().

Evidence

core-plugin-tool stages: totalMs=4395 ... openclaw-tools:pdf-tool:3961ms@4395ms ...

Consistently reproducible across multiple runs:

The pdf-tool stage alone accounts for ~90% of total tool initialization time.

Root Cause

In dist/extensions/document-extract/document-extractor.js:

const PDFJS_MODULE = "pdfjs-dist/legacy/build/pdf.mjs";

async function loadPdfJsModule() {
  if (!pdfJsModulePromise)
    pdfJsModulePromise = import(PDFJS_MODULE)...
  return pdfJsModulePromise;
}

The pdfjs-dist/legacy/build/pdf.mjs file is ~1MB. Even though it uses a promise cache (pdfJsModulePromise), the import() is triggered during tool registration/staging, not on first actual PDF use. This means every agent session pays the 3.5s cost even when no PDF is involved.

Why This Is New

The core-plugin-tool stages trace logging and potentially the eager tool staging behavior appear to be introduced in 2026.5.2. Logs from 2026-05-02 (previous version) show zero core-plugin-tool stages entries, suggesting the tool initialization path changed.

Environment Context

Load average: 0.37, 0.23, 0.23
Memory: 5.8GB total, 1.7GB used, 4.1GB available
Swap: 5.0GB total, 1.6GB used

VPS is not under resource pressure. The delay is purely from pdfjs-dist module parse/compile time.

Suggested Fixes

1. Truly lazy-load pdfjs-dist: Only import() when a PDF file is actually being processed, not during tool registration/staging
2. Pre-compile/cache: Pre-compile the pdfjs-dist module during gateway startup (background warmup) so subsequent import() calls are near-instant
3. Make tools.deny configurable: Currently tools.deny is a protected path that cannot be set via config.patch or config.apply, only via CLI which the gateway ignores at runtime — making it impossible for users to disable specific expensive tools
4. Configurable enabled flag: Add a tools.media.pdf.enabled: false option (similar to tools.media.audio.enabled)

Workaround Attempted

• Renaming pdf.mjs → pdf.mjs.disabled did not prevent the delay (tool staging still attempted the import via fallback path)