OpenClaw v2026.5.28 was published on May 30, 2026. This article is a plain-English guide to the published GitHub release notes, not a separate changelog.

Highlights from the GitHub notes

• Agent and Codex runtime recovery is steadier: subagents keep cwd/workspace separation, hook context stays prompt-local, session locks release on timeout abort while live OpenClaw locks survive cleanup, stale restart continuations are avoided, and Codex app-server/helper failures no longer tear down shared runtime state.
• Channel delivery and session identity got safer across outbound plugin hooks, Matrix room ids, iMessage reactions/approvals, Slack final replies, Discord recovered tool warnings, runtime-config message actions, WhatsApp profile auth roots, Telegram polling, and Microsoft Teams service URL trust checks.
• Mobile and chat surfaces got a broader refresh: the iOS Pro UI, hosted push relay default, realtime Talk tab playback, Gateway chat transport, onboarding, Talk permissions, WebChat reconnect delivery, and session picker behavior now preserve more state across reconnects and empty searches.
• Browser, channel, and automation inputs are stricter: Browser tool timeouts, viewport/tab indices, Gateway ports, cron retry handling, Discord component ids, schema array refs, Telegram callback pages, and channel progress callbacks now reject malformed values earlier and preserve the intended delivery context.
• Provider, media, and document coverage expands with Claude Opus 4.8, Fal Krea image schemas, NVIDIA featured models, MiniMax streaming music responses, encrypted PDF extraction, voice model catalogs, GitHub Copilot agent runtime support, and a Codex Supervisor plugin path for delegated Codex workflows.
• CLI, auth, doctor, and provider paths fail faster and recover more clearly: malformed numeric/version options are rejected, workspace dotenv provider credentials are ignored, heartbeat defaults, OAuth/token lifetimes, and local service startup requests are bounded, agent auth health labels are clearer, legacy api_key auth profiles migrate to canonical form, and restart guidance is actionable.
• Plugin and Gateway hot paths do less repeated work while preserving cache correctness for install records, config JSON parsing, tool search catalogs, session stores, manifest model rows, auto-enabled plugin config, browser tokens, viewer assets, and release-split external plugin packages.
• Release, QA, and E2E validation now bound more log, artifact, harness, and cross-OS waits so failing lanes produce proof instead of hanging or false-greening.

Notable changes

• Status: show active subagent details in status output.
• Diffs: split the default language pack and expand default Diffs language coverage while keeping the host floor aligned.
• ClawHub: add plugin display names plus skill verification and trust surfaces.
• iOS: refresh the dev app with Pro Command, Chat, Agents, Settings, hosted push relay defaults, and realtime Talk playback wired to gateway sessions, diagnostics, chat, and realtime Talk.
• Docs: clarify Codex computer-use setup, paste-token stdin auth setup, macOS gateway sleep troubleshooting, native Codex hook relay recovery, container model auth, install deployment cards, device-token admin gating, CLI setup flow compatibility, Notte cloud browser CDP setup, and backport targets.
• PDF/tools: use ClawPDF for PDF extraction, support encrypted PDF extraction, and surface MCP structured content in agent tool results.
• Providers: add Claude Opus 4.8 support, Fal Krea image model schemas, NVIDIA featured model catalogs, MiniMax streaming music responses, and provider-backed voice model catalogs.
• Codex/GitHub: add the GitHub Copilot agent runtime and the Codex Supervisor plugin package.

Fixes worth noticing

• Agents: fall back to local config pruning when the optional agents delete Gateway probe cannot authenticate, so offline installs can still delete agents without removing shared workspaces.
• Tighten phone-control mutation authorization [AI].
• Clarify directive persistence authorization policy [AI].
• Agents/Codex: keep spawned agent cwd/workspace state separated, forward ACP spawn attachments, keep hook context prompt-local, release session locks on timeout abort and runtime teardown without deleting live OpenClaw-owned locks during cleanup, avoid session event queue self-wait, clean up exec abort listeners, stream assistant deltas incrementally, recover raw missing-thread compaction failures, preserve rotated compaction session identity, keep compaction-timeout snapshots continuable, preserve shared app-server state across startup or helper failures, keep native hook relay alive across restarts and prune stale bridge files, close native hook relay replacement races, keep Claude live tool progress visible for watchdog recovery, suppress abandoned requester completion handoff, route workspace memory through tools, resolve Codex runtime models first, report quarantined dynamic tools, format skills command output, bind node auto-review to prepared plans, retry Claude CLI transcript probes, and bound compaction/steering retries.
• Codex Supervisor: keep real-home app-server MCP session listing on the loaded state path, bound stored history scans, and close WebSocket probes cleanly.
• Channels: thread canonical session keys into outbound hooks, preserve Matrix room-id case, keep fallback tool warnings mention-inert, retain delivered Slack final replies during late cleanup, continue iMessage polling after denied reactions, suppress duplicate native exec approvals, resolve Gateway message actions against the active runtime config, preserve Telegram SecretRef prompt config and polling keepalives, preserve WhatsApp profile auth roots, QR display, document filenames, and plugin hook config, suppress Discord recovered tool warnings, preserve the Discord voice outbound helper, cap Discord/Signal/Zalo channel request and container timeouts, and block untrusted Teams service URLs while keeping TeamsSDK patterns aligned.
• CLI/auth/doctor/providers: reject malformed numeric/timeout/subcommand-version inputs, ignore workspace dotenv provider credentials, wait for respawn child shutdown, bound heartbeat defaults plus Codex, GitHub Copilot, OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Feishu, LM Studio, MiniMax, Xiaomi TTS, and local-provider OAuth/token/model requests, harden Codex auth probes, label auth health by agent, preserve explicit agentRuntime pins during Codex model migration, warm provider auth off the main thread, honor Codex response timeouts, stop migrating current Claude Haiku 4.5 profiles to Sonnet, bound local service startup, resolve GPT-5.5 without cached catalog, migrate legacy memory auto-provider config, rewrite non-canonical api_key auth profiles, and make doctor restart follow-ups actionable.
• Gateway/security/session state: expire browser tokens after auth rotation, scope assistant idempotency dedupe, drain probe client closes, avoid stale restart continuation reuse, preserve retry-after fallbacks and stale rate-limit cooldown probes, bound webchat image and artifact transcript scans, include seconds in inbound metadata timestamps, clear completed session active runs, clear stale chat stream buffers, and evict current plugin-state namespaces at row caps.

Should you update?

If one of the highlighted areas matches how you use OpenClaw, this release is worth reviewing. For production systems, read the full upstream notes first, especially when the tag is marked as stable.

---

Full changelog: View v2026.5.28 on GitHub

Generated release page: Read the structured release notes

- Fred