QMD memory backend searches all collections in index, not just managed ones

[jdvmi00]

Summary

When memory.backend = "qmd" is configured, OpenClaw creates and manages its own QMD index at ~/.openclaw/agents/main/qmd/xdg-cache/qmd/index.sqlite with proper XDG isolation. However, if the standalone qmd CLI has previously added collections to the same index (or if collections leak in from a shared config), memory_search queries will search all collections — not just the ones OpenClaw manages.

Current Behavior

• OpenClaw's config (memory.qmd.paths: []) resolves to only memory-root, memory-alt, memory-dir, and sessions collections
• But the QMD index file can contain additional collections (e.g., meetings, obsidian, projects) that were added externally
• QmdMemoryManager.search() runs qmd query <text> --json -n <limit> with no collection filter (-c flag)
• This means memory_search returns results from all collections in the index, including ones OpenClaw didn't create
• With a large index (286+ files, 1900+ embeddings), the qmd query command frequently times out at the 4s default, falling back to the builtin SQLite backend

Expected Behavior

memory_search should only return results from collections that OpenClaw manages (default memory collections + configured paths + sessions).

Suggested Fix

Two complementary approaches:

1. Scope search queries to managed collections

In QmdMemoryManager.search(), pass -c flags for each managed collection, or use a combined collection filter if QMD supports it.

2. Clean up foreign collections on boot

In ensureCollections(), after ensuring managed collections exist, remove any collections from the index that are NOT in the resolved config. This prevents stale/foreign collections from accumulating.

Environment

• OpenClaw: 2026.2.3-1
• QMD: standalone CLI (bun-based, uses SQLite + sqlite-vec)
• OS: macOS (Darwin arm64)

Reproduction

1. Install standalone qmd and add collections: qmd collection add /path/to/docs --name extra-docs
2. Configure OpenClaw with memory.backend = "qmd" and memory.qmd.paths: []
3. Run memory_search for a topic that exists in the external collection
4. Results from extra-docs will appear even though OpenClaw didn't configure it

The issue occurs because both the standalone QMD and OpenClaw's QMD instance can share the same index file (or collections can be manually added to the OpenClaw-managed index).

[jdvmi00]

Update: The root cause of the cross-pollution has been identified and fixed at the QMD level.

QMD's getConfigDir() in collections.ts was hardcoded to ~/.config/qmd, ignoring XDG_CONFIG_HOME. Since OpenClaw already sets XDG_CONFIG_HOME when spawning QMD, the fix allows each environment to have its own collection config YAML — preventing the shared config from leaking external collections into OpenClaw's index.

PR submitted: tobi/qmd#122

With this fix, the pollution won't occur going forward. However, the suggestion to scope memory_search queries with -c collection flags (from the original issue) would still be good defense-in-depth — ensuring OpenClaw only searches its managed collections even if foreign docs somehow end up in the index.