2026 OpenClaw Frontend in Practice:
Aggregate Vite & Webpack Build Timings on Remote Mac — PR Regression Summaries You Can Replay

Wall-clock noise hides real regressions when caches, CPU governors, and background sync differ between laptops and CI.

1. Incomparable formats: webpack prints different fields than Vite’s plugin hooks unless you standardize.
2. Missing baseline: without main reference JSON, every branch looks “slow.”
3. No alert budget: teams merge when red feels subjective; you need percent thresholds and exit codes.

Treat timing capture as a deterministic artifact: same Node version, same NODE_ENV, same cache policy flag recorded beside every sample.

Use this matrix when you wire exporters; exact hooks follow your bundler wrapper.

Emit build_metrics/v1 JSON so OpenClaw and humans share one schema. Required keys include gitSha, bundler, mode (production or analyze), totalMs, phases (array of { "name": "transform", "ms": 4200 }), cache (cold, warm, or disabled), and generatedAt in ISO-8601 UTC.

Optional but valuable: cpuModel, node semver, pnpm or npm version, and ciJobUrl for traceability. Store raw upstream blobs under .openclaw/reports/$SHA/raw/ and only feed the normalized file to the agent.

A minimal shell plus Node pattern: export BUILD_METRICS_OUT=.openclaw/reports/$SHA/build_metrics.json; run your production build inside time or capture plugin timers; pipe bundler output through node scripts/merge-build-metrics.mjs to merge phases; load baseline.json from artifacts or main.

Alert when totalMs exceeds baseline by more than fifteen percent for cold builds or ten percent for warm builds, unless ALLOW_PERF_BUDGET_OVERRIDE is set for emergency merges. Emit alertLevel of warn or fail; map fail to exit code two so CI surfaces a red check without killing unrelated jobs.

node scripts/merge-build-metrics.mjs \
  --raw .openclaw/reports/$SHA/raw/vite.json \
  --baseline baseline.json \
  --out "$BUILD_METRICS_OUT" \
  --fail-on-regression 0.15

After OpenClaw renders Markdown, POST to your orchestrator or call gh pr comment. Include a marker such as <!-- openclaw-build-metrics:$SHA --> so repeat runs update the same comment. For inbound hooks from CI, verify HMAC signatures, reject replayed payloads with stale SHAs, and back off on HTTP 429.

If the summary must pass through the OpenClaw gateway, send JSON with summaryMarkdown, repository, prNumber, and gitSha; keep bodies under provider limits by attaching the full JSON as a workflow artifact.

Store OPENCLAW_GATEWAY_TOKEN in CI secrets or the remote Mac keychain; never commit it. Scope the token to ingest build metrics and request PR summary rendering only—no org-wide admin, no package registry, no unrelated REST routes.

Rotate tokens when teammates leave; pair gateway auth with mTLS or IP allow lists if your provider supports them. Git-side tokens remain separate: use fine-grained PATs or GITHUB_TOKEN with pull-requests: write for comments.

1. Provision the remote Mac with the same Node and package manager major versions as CI.
2. Check out the pull request SHA and export deterministic environment flags for cold versus warm runs.
3. Run production builds with timing capture enabled; archive raw JSON before normalization.
4. Merge into build_metrics.json, compare to baseline, and evaluate threshold alerts.
5. Let OpenClaw fill pr_build_metrics_summary.md; upload artifacts for large tables.
6. Deliver through webhook or PR comment with idempotent markers; audit gateway and Git tokens quarterly.