fix(backup+admission): drop redundant api.resolvePath on already-absolute paths (Issue #682, supersedes PR #695)

[jlin53882]

Summary

Fixes Issue #682 — two code paths crashed on OpenClaw 2026.4.x with:

TypeError [ERR_INVALID_ARG_TYPE]: The "path" argument must be of type
string or an instance of Buffer or URL. Received undefined.

This PR supersedes PR #695 (closed 2026-05-04 by maintainer due to inactivity after review).

---

Root Cause

OpenClaw 2026.4.x tightened the plugin API: calling api.resolvePath() on an already-absolute path that points outside the agent workspace root now returns undefined.

Two call sites had this pattern:

1. runBackup() — plugin internal timer backup

resolvedDbPath is produced by api.resolvePath(...) at plugin init and is always absolute. Inside runBackup():

// BEFORE (crashes on 2026.4.x)
const backupDir = api.resolvePath(
  join(resolvedDbPath, "..", "backups"),
);
// api.resolvePath(absolute-path) → undefined → mkdir crashes

Fix: resolvedDbPath is already absolute — join directly without re-wrapping.

Defensive guard: Additionally guards against resolvedDbPath being undefined (edge case where api.resolvePath() returns undefined for empty-string input rather than throwing), preventing the TypeError at the join() call site.

2. createAdmissionRejectionAuditWriter() — admission audit sidecar

Same redundant wrapper pattern:

// BEFORE (same crash)
const filePath = api.resolvePath(
  resolveRejectedAuditFilePath(resolvedDbPath, config.admissionControl),
);

resolveRejectedAuditFilePath() returns:

Scenario	Return value	Re-resolve needed?
No explicit config	join(dbPath, "..", "admission-audit", "rejections.jsonl") — already absolute	NO
Explicit relative path	"data/audit/rejections.jsonl" — caller must resolve	YES
Explicit absolute path	"/var/log/memory/rejections.jsonl" — must NOT be re-resolved	NO

Fix: Guard with startsWith("/") — only resolve relative paths.

---

Changes

index.ts — runBackup() (~line 4015)

  async function runBackup() {
    try {
+     // ── Defensive: guard against undefined resolvedDbPath ─────────────────
+     // api.resolvePath() may return undefined when config.dbPath is an
+     // empty string or an unhandled edge-case, rather than throwing.
+     if (!resolvedDbPath || typeof resolvedDbPath !== "string") {
+       api.logger.warn(
+         `memory-lancedb-pro: backup skipped — resolvedDbPath is "${String(resolvedDbPath)}"`,
+       );
+       return;
+     }
+
      // resolvedDbPath is already absolute; wrapping it again triggered
      // api.resolvePath(absolute-path) → undefined in OpenClaw 2026.4.x.
      const backupDir = join(resolvedDbPath, "..", "backups");
+
+     // ── Secondary guard: ensure join() also returned a valid string ──────
+     if (!backupDir || typeof backupDir !== "string") {
+       api.logger.warn(
+         `memory-lancedb-pro: backup skipped — backupDir resolved to "${String(backupDir)}"`,
+       );
+       return;
+     }

      await mkdir(backupDir, { recursive: true });

index.ts — createAdmissionRejectionAuditWriter() (~line 1675)

- const filePath = api.resolvePath(
-   resolveRejectedAuditFilePath(resolvedDbPath, config.admissionControl),
- );
+ const rawPath = resolveRejectedAuditFilePath(resolvedDbPath, config.admissionControl);
+ const filePath = rawPath.startsWith("/") ? rawPath : api.resolvePath(rawPath);

test/admission-rejection-audit-path.test.mjs — new regression test (11 cases)

Covers all three resolveRejectedAuditFilePath() scenarios:

• Default derived path is always absolute (no re-resolve needed)
• Explicit relative path returned as-is for caller to resolve
• Explicit absolute path returned as-is and must NOT be re-resolved

---

Relationship to PR #695

PR #695 (closed 2026-05-04, commit 82b0b6b) was opened by an external contributor and closed due to inactivity after maintainer review. Maintainer feedback:

"The direction is good and the one-line backup path change looks like the right root-cause fix."

"One related follow-up: there appears to be the same redundant resolve pattern in the admission rejection audit path. It may not need to be in this PR if admission-control is out of scope, but please either fix it here or split a follow-up so the same class of path bug does not remain."

This PR:

• Takes the same runBackup() fix from PR fix(backup): drop redundant api.resolvePath on already-absolute path (Issue #682) #695 ✅
• Adds the admission audit writer fix that PR fix(backup): drop redundant api.resolvePath on already-absolute path (Issue #682) #695 was asked to consider ✅
• Adds the regression test that PR fix(backup): drop redundant api.resolvePath on already-absolute path (Issue #682) #695 was asked to add ✅
• Rebased onto latest upstream/master ✅
• Adds defensive guards in runBackup() against undefined path values ✅

---

Verification

# After applying patch, restart gateway:
# 2026-04-24T23:29:45.785+09:00 [plugins] memory-lancedb-pro: backup completed

# Regression tests:
node --test test/admission-rejection-audit-path.test.mjs
# → 11/11 pass

---

Test Plan

• Apply patch, restart gateway on OpenClaw 2026.4.x
• Confirm backup completed log appears within ~60s (no TypeError)
• Run full npm test — no regression
• If admission control configured with explicit path, verify audit writes correctly

[chatgpt-codex-connector]

💡 Codex Review

Here are some automated review suggestions for this pull request.

Reviewed commit: 136cff7247

ℹ️ About Codex in GitHub

Your team has set up Codex to review pull requests in this repo. Reviews are triggered when you

• Open a pull request for review
• Mark a draft as ready
• Comment "@codex review".

If Codex has suggestions, it will comment; otherwise it will react with 👍.

Codex can also answer questions or update the PR. Try commenting "@codex address that feedback".

[chatgpt-codex-connector]

Detect absolute audit paths with path.isAbsolute

The new absolute-path guard only checks rawPath.startsWith("/"), which misses Windows absolute forms such as C:\\logs\\rejections.jsonl and \\\\server\\share\\rejections.jsonl. In those cases this branch still calls api.resolvePath(rawPath) on an already-absolute path; under the same strict OpenClaw behavior this patch is addressing, that can return undefined, and the writer will fail at runtime when it reaches dirname(filePath)/appendFile(...), silently dropping rejection-audit writes on Windows setups. Use a platform-aware absolute check (for example path.isAbsolute) before deciding to call api.resolvePath.

Useful? React with 👍 / 👎.