openclaw-openclaw/docs/plugins/llama-cpp.md

summary, read_when, title, sidebarTitle

summary	read_when	title	sidebarTitle
Install the official llama.cpp provider for local GGUF memory embeddings	You want memory search embeddings from a local GGUF model You are configuring memorySearch.provider = "local" You need the OpenClaw plugin that owns the node-llama-cpp runtime	llama.cpp Provider	llama.cpp Provider

llama-cpp is the official external provider plugin for local GGUF embeddings. It registers embedding provider id local and owns the node-llama-cpp runtime dependency used by memorySearch.provider: "local".

Install it before using local memory embeddings:

openclaw plugins install @openclaw/llama-cpp-provider

The main openclaw npm package does not include node-llama-cpp. Keeping the native dependency in this plugin prevents normal OpenClaw npm updates from deleting a manually installed runtime inside the OpenClaw package directory.

Configuration

Set memorySearch.provider to local:

{
  agents: {
    defaults: {
      memorySearch: {
        provider: "local",
        local: {
          modelPath: "hf:ggml-org/embeddinggemma-300m-qat-q8_0-GGUF/embeddinggemma-300m-qat-Q8_0.gguf",
        },
      },
    },
  },
}

local.modelPath defaults to the hf: URI shown above (embeddinggemma-300m-qat-Q8_0.gguf). Point it at a different hf: URI or a local .gguf file to use another model. local.modelCacheDir overrides where downloaded models are cached (default: ~/.node-llama-cpp/models), and local.contextSize accepts an integer or "auto".

Native Runtime

Use Node 24 for the smoothest native install path. Source checkouts using pnpm may need to approve and rebuild the native dependency:

pnpm approve-builds
pnpm rebuild node-llama-cpp

Troubleshooting

If node-llama-cpp is missing or fails to load, OpenClaw reports the failure with:

1. Install the plugin: openclaw plugins install @openclaw/llama-cpp-provider.
2. Use Node 24 for native installs/updates.
3. From a pnpm source checkout: pnpm approve-builds, then pnpm rebuild node-llama-cpp.

For lower-friction local embeddings without the native build step, set memorySearch.provider to a remote embedding provider such as lmstudio, ollama, openai, or voyage instead.