What causes "Unknown provider: ${name}. Registered: ${known}" in nanocoai/nanoclaw?

Verify the path exists: ls the printed directory

Unknown provider: . Registered

Error message

Unknown provider: ${name}. Registered: ${known}

What it means

parseTemplate throws when the directory passed to it does not exist on disk. This is the first check before any plugin content is read.

Solutions

Verify the path exists: ls the printed directory
Re-fetch/install the template from the template library
If relative, ensure you're running from the expected cwd or use an absolute path

Defensive patterns

Strategy: validation

Validate before calling

if (!fs.existsSync(dir)) {
  // fetch/install the template or fail with a friendly message before parseTemplate
}

Type guard

function dirExists(p: string): boolean { try { return fs.statSync(p).isDirectory(); } catch { return false; } }

Try / catch

try { parseTemplate(dir); } catch (e) { if (e instanceof Error && e.message.startsWith('Template folder not found')) { /* trigger install flow */ } else throw e; }

Prevention

Resolve template paths to absolute form at config-load time and assert existence early
Keep template installation idempotent so a missing dir self-heals

When it happens

Trigger: Calling parseTemplate with a typo'd path, a template that was never fetched, or a path from stale config after the template was deleted/moved.

Common situations: Template library not cloned; path stored in DB/config points at a removed directory; relative path resolved from the wrong cwd.

Understand the failure class

Background: 'Could not be found', 'does not exist', 'not found in database': the resource-not-found family when an ID, slug, key, or URI lookup comes back empty — this error's family across 20 libraries.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of nanocoai/nanoclaw@294ef2aee8 (2026-08-28). Data as JSON: /api/errors/da17db7dd737b065. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at container/agent-runner/src/providers/provider-registry.ts:26

 */
import type { AgentProvider, ProviderOptions } from './types.js';

export type ProviderFactory = (options: ProviderOptions) => AgentProvider;

const registry = new Map<string, ProviderFactory>();

export function registerProvider(name: string, factory: ProviderFactory): void {
  if (registry.has(name)) {
    throw new Error(`Provider already registered: ${name}`);
  }
  registry.set(name, factory);
}

export function getProviderFactory(name: string): ProviderFactory {
  const factory = registry.get(name);
  if (!factory) {
    const known = [...registry.keys()].join(', ') || '(none)';
    throw new Error(`Unknown provider: ${name}. Registered: ${known}`);
  }
  return factory;
}

export function listProviderNames(): string[] {
  return [...registry.keys()];
}

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