v2026.5.16-beta.5

Published: 2026-05-17

GitHub release

Changes

Mac app: redesign Settings pages with consistent card layouts, cached navigation, cleaner permissions/voice/skills/cron/exec/debug panes, and steadier spacing around the native sidebar.
Skills: rename the repo-local Codex closeout review skill and helper to `autoreview` while preserving the Codex-first fallback behavior.
Skills: add a meme-maker skill for curated template search, local SVG/PNG rendering, Imgflip hosted rendering, and Know Your Meme provenance links.
Agents/tools: shorten built-in tool descriptions and schema hints across media, messaging, sessions, cron, Gateway, web, image/PDF, TTS, nodes, and plan tools while preserving routing guardrails.
Skills: add node inspector debugging, fused diagram generation, and throwaway spike workflow skills.
CLI/plugins: add `defineToolPlugin` plus `openclaw plugins build`, `validate`, and `init` for typed simple tool plugins with generated manifest metadata, optional tool declarations, and context factories.
Agents/skills: tighten bundled skill prompts and metadata, quote skill descriptions, refresh current CLI/API guidance, and update embedded sherpa-onnx runtime downloads.
Skills: update the Obsidian skill to target the official `obsidian` CLI and require its registered binary instead of the third-party `obsidian-cli`.
Skills: add a Python debugging skill for pdb, breakpoint(), post-mortem inspection, and debugpy remote attach.
Plugins/messages: add presentation capability limits for channel renderers, adapt rich message controls before native rendering, and mark legacy `interactive`/Slack directive producer APIs as deprecated.
Proxy: support HTTPS managed forward-proxy endpoints and scoped `proxy.tls.caFile` CA trust for proxy endpoint TLS. (#79171) Thanks @jesse-merhi.
QA-Lab: add first-hour 20-turn and optional 100-turn runtime parity scenarios, with tier metadata for standard and soak QA gates. Fixes #80338; refs #80337. Thanks @100yenadmin.
QA-Lab: add `openclaw qa suite --runtime-parity-tier` and wire the standard Codex-vs-Pi tier into release checks separately from optional/live-only/soak lanes. Fixes #80337. Thanks @100yenadmin.
QA-Lab: add a live-only Codex Pi-shaped Read vocabulary canary so runtime parity catches native workspace-read prompt compatibility drift. (#80323) Thanks @100yenadmin.
QA-Lab: add live-only harness self-health scenarios for plugin hook crashes, manifest contract errors, and WebChat direct-reply self-message routing. (#80323) Thanks @100yenadmin.
QA-Lab: add runtime tool fixture scenarios and coverage reporting for Codex-native workspace tools, OpenClaw dynamic tools, and optional plugin-backed tools. Fixes #80173. Thanks @100yenadmin.
QA-Lab: expose runtime tool fixture coverage through `openclaw qa coverage --tools`, with optional suite-summary evaluation for parity gate artifacts. Thanks @100yenadmin.
QA-Lab: add the personal-agent approval-denial scenario so the benchmark pack verifies denied local reads stop cleanly without tool progress or fixture leaks. (#83150) Thanks @iFiras-Max1.
CLI/update: tailor post-update Gateway recovery hints by platform, showing systemd, LaunchAgent, Scheduled Task, or generic service-manager guidance instead of macOS-only recovery text. (#83096) Thanks @rubencu.
Plugins: apply a default 15-second timeout to legacy `before_agent_start` hooks so hung plugin handlers no longer block agent startup. Fixes #48534. (#83136) Thanks @therahul-yo.
Feishu: refresh inbound session delivery context for DM, group, and broadcast turns so later replies do not inherit stale WebChat routing. Fixes #78274.
QA-Lab/qa-channel: attach redacted agent tool-start traces to outbound `QaBusMessage` records so scenarios can assert actual tool use instead of relying only on reply text. Fixes #67637. Thanks @100yenadmin.
QA-Lab: fail live runtime parity reports when assistant-message usage is missing, preventing `0 vs 0` live token rows from being reported as passing proof. Fixes #80411. Thanks @100yenadmin.
QA-Lab: fail Codex-backed OpenAI live runtime-pair runs before launching isolated workers when no portable Codex auth is available, while staging API-key fallbacks and configured Codex keys for isolated QA agents. Fixes #80412. Thanks @100yenadmin.
QA-Lab: refresh parity gates, mock frontier fixtures, model scenarios, and workflow artifact lanes to compare GPT-5.5 against Claude Opus 4.7. Fixes #74262. Thanks @100yenadmin.
QA-Lab: make mock parity dispatch provider-aware for source discovery and subagent scenarios so OpenAI and Anthropic lanes no longer share identical canned plans. Fixes #64879. Thanks @100yenadmin.
QA-Lab: stop returning Control UI bearer tokens from unauthenticated bootstrap payloads and bind Docker harness ports to loopback-only host addresses. (#66355) Thanks @pgondhi987.
Mac app: avoid a SwiftUI metadata crash when rendering the Cron Jobs settings pane.
Agents/OpenAI streams: yield via `setTimeout(0)` instead of `setImmediate` between bursty Responses chunks so abort timers can fire during the yield, keeping cancel-on-timeout responsive on hot streams. Refs #82462.
CLI/config: send SecretRef diagnostics to stderr so JSON command stdout remains parseable.
CLI/plugins: ship the bundled memory CLI as a package entry so package-installed `openclaw memory` commands register correctly.
CLI/update: defer doctor-time plugin package installs during package swaps and seed post-core repair from the updated install registry, preventing duplicate reinstall failures.
Feishu: detect SecretRef top-level credentials as a configured default account instead of treating object-backed app secrets as missing.
CLI/completion: resolve concrete PowerShell profile paths and reload commands during setup and doctor completion installation. Fixes #44296. (#83059) Thanks @yu-xin-c.
Providers/Google: preserve and recover Gemini 3 tool-call thought signatures during native replay so function-calling turns no longer fail with missing `thought_signature` 400s. Fixes #72879. (#80358) Thanks @abnershang.
Memory-core: distinguish sqlite-vec load failures from missing semantic vector embeddings in degraded `memory index` warnings, so vector recall diagnostics point at unresolved dimensions instead of blaming sqlite-vec when the store is ready. Fixes #75624. (#83056) Thanks @xuruiray and @Noah3521.
Agents/subagents: preserve sandbox-peer controller ownership while routing completion announcements back to the originating run session, keeping subagent control and completion delivery scoped correctly. Fixes #80201. (#80242) Thanks @Jerry-Xin.
Gateway: continue restarting remaining channels when one hot-reload channel restart fails, while still reporting aggregate reload failure and rolling back plugin pre-replace stops. Fixes #83054. Thanks @zqchris.
Gateway/secrets: split the lightweight secrets runtime state and auth-store cache from the full secrets runtime and take a startup fast path when the gateway startup config has no SecretRef values, speeding up secrets startup while preserving cleanup and refresh semantics.
Codex app-server: rotate oversized native Codex threads before resume and cap dynamic tool-result text entering native Codex sessions, preventing stale oversized context from surviving OpenClaw compaction. (#82981) Thanks @hansolo949.
Gateway/restart: drain pending replies and active chat runs during restart shutdown before sockets and channels close, aborting timed-out chat runs through the normal cleanup path. (#69121) Thanks @alexlomt.
Agents/Codex: use the Codex runtime context window for OpenAI-model preflight compaction and memory flush checks, so GPT-5.5 Codex sessions compact before hitting the smaller native context limit. Fixes #82982. Thanks @vliuyt.
QA-Lab: clean orphaned gateway temp roots when a suite parent exits and wait on gateway plus transport readiness after config restarts, reducing stale `qa-channel` noise from interrupted runs. Fixes #65506. Thanks @100yenadmin.
QA-Lab: wake qa-bus long polls that arrive with stale future cursors after a bus restart, preserving reconnect readiness for harness clients. (#67142) Thanks @hxy91819.
QA-Lab: stage Multipass transfer scripts under OpenClaw's preferred temp root instead of raw OS temp paths, keeping the VM runner inside temp-path guardrails. (#64098) Thanks @ImLukeF.
Agents/replies: keep surviving reply media and append a warning when other media references fail, so partial media normalization no longer drops failures silently. Thanks @Jerry-Xin.
Config/models: accept `thinkingFormat: "together"` in model compat config so Together routes can opt into the Together-specific thinking response shape.
Plugins/tokenjuice: bump the bundled tokenjuice runtime to 0.7.1, bringing Codex hook approval compatibility, pre-tool command wrapping fixes, and Rolldown/Vitest output compaction improvements into the OpenClaw plugin.
Agents/OpenAI: stop post-processing GPT-5 final replies with hardcoded brevity caps, preserving full channel responses instead of appending synthetic ellipses, and log when strict-agentic GPT-5 execution activates. Fixes #82910.
Mac app: refine the Settings General and Connection panes with cleaner status panels, card rows, and a single native titlebar sidebar toggle.
Agents/media: deliver failed async image, music, and video generation completions directly when requester-session completion handoff fails, so channel users see provider errors instead of silent fallback stalls.
Agents/music: steer song, jingle, beat, anthem, and instrumental requests toward `music_generate` audio creation instead of lyric-only replies, and reserve `lyrics` for exact sung words.
Codex app-server: record native Codex tool calls and results into trajectory artifacts so debug/trajectory exports capture the full Codex-native tool history, not just OpenClaw-bridged turns. Thanks @vyctorbrzezowski.
Codex/app-server: keep bound conversation sessions on the owning agent runtime so native Codex control and follow-up turns do not fall back to the default agent client. Fixes #82954. (#82993)
CLI/infer: run gateway model probes in fresh explicit sessions so one-shot provider checks do not inherit default agent transcript state. (#82861) Thanks @Kaspre.
Providers/Together: send video-generation requests to Together's v2 video API even when shared text-model config still points at the v1 base URL. (#82992)
Browser CLI: preserve browser-level options on nested commands, skip option values during lazy command registration, and keep long-running wait/download/dialog hooks open for their advertised wait window.
CLI/sessions: accept `openclaw sessions list` as an alias for `openclaw sessions`, matching other list-style commands. Fixes #81139. (#81163) Thanks @YB0y.
Channels/stream previews: widen compact progress draft lines and cut prose at word boundaries while preserving command/path suffixes, with `streaming.progress.maxLineChars` for channel-specific tuning.
CLI/plugins: have `openclaw plugins doctor` warn when a configured runtime needs a missing owner plugin, sharing the same install mapping as `openclaw doctor --fix`. Fixes #81326. (#81674) Thanks @Zavianx.
Agents/Codex: route OpenAI runs that resolve to `openai-codex` through the Codex provider and bootstrap OpenClaw's stored OAuth profile into the Codex harness when the harness owns transport, so `openai/*` model refs no longer fail with `No API key found for openai-codex` despite an existing Codex OAuth profile. (#82864) Thanks @ragesaq.
Agents/ACP: distinguish prompt-submitted and runtime-active child stalls from true interactive waits, including redacted proxy-env diagnostics for Codex ACP no-output runs. Fixes #44810.
Agents/memory: explain that memory-triggered compaction exposes only `read` and append-only `write` when configured core tools are unavailable in `tools.allow` warnings. Fixes #82941. Thanks @galiniliev.
Agents/OpenAI: preserve deterministic tool payload ordering for prompt-cache reuse across OpenAI Responses and chat completions calls. (#82940) Thanks @galiniliev.
ACP/Codex: honor terminal ACP turn results so failed Codex/acpx runs are not recorded as successful after only progress text. Fixes #79522. Thanks @dudaefj.
Telegram: warn when a media group drops photos that fail to download, including albums where every photo is skipped. Fixes #55216. (#82987) Thanks @eldar702.
Agents/skills: apply the full effective tool policy pipeline to inline `command-dispatch: tool` skill dispatch before owner-only filtering, preserving configured allow, deny, sandbox, sender, group, and subagent restrictions. (#78525)
Codex: avoid spawning native hook relay subprocesses for post-tool/finalize events with no registered hook handlers while preserving pre-tool safety and approval relays. Fixes #76552. (#78004) Thanks @evgyur.
Channel accounts: keep top-level default channel accounts visible when named accounts are added alongside default credential material, so mixed legacy/new account configs keep resolving `default` instead of silently dropping it.
Codex/Telegram: synthesize native Codex tool progress from final turn snapshots so Telegram `/verbose` stays visible when command events arrive only at completion.
Mac app: make Channels settings open faster by deferring config-schema work, avoiding startup channel probes, caching decoded channel status rows, and showing only compact quick settings instead of the full generated channel schema.
Control UI: include the Control UI and Gateway protocol versions in protocol-mismatch errors so stale app/dashboard pairings identify which side needs rebuilding or restarting.
Gateway/protocol: restore Gateway WS protocol v4 and keep `message.action` room-event metadata on the existing `inboundTurnKind` wire field while preserving internal inbound-event classification.
Agents/tools: prefer non-webchat session-key routes when the message tool has stale webchat context, so message-tool-only replies keep delivering to the originating channel. Fixes #82911. (#83004) Thanks @joshavant.
Channels: keep direct-message last-route writes on isolated `per-channel-peer` sessions instead of contaminating the agent main session with channel delivery context. Fixes #36614. Thanks @aspenas.
Mac app: move the Settings sidebar toggle into the native titlebar and tighten the General pane width.
Mac app: keep visited Settings panes mounted so switching tabs no longer blanks and reloads their content.
Mac app: make Config settings open from shallow schema lookups and load selected paths on demand instead of fetching and rendering the full generated config schema up front.
Codex: sanitize inline image payloads before Codex app-server and OpenAI Responses replay, and clear poisoned Codex thread bindings after invalid image errors. Fixes #82878.
Providers/GitHub Copilot: request identity-encoded Copilot API responses across token exchange, catalog, model calls, usage, and embeddings so compressed Business-account error payloads no longer reach JSON parsers as gzip bytes. Fixes #82871. Thanks @tonyfe01.
Telegram: preserve replied-to bot messages, captions, and media metadata in group reply chains so follow-up replies understand what the user is reacting to. (#82863)
Providers/Together: update PI runtime packages to 0.74.1 and emit Together-style `reasoning.enabled`/`max_tokens` controls for reasoning-capable OpenAI-completions models.
Agents/diagnostics: split slow embedded-run `attempt-dispatch` startup summaries into workspace, prompt, runtime-plan, and final dispatch subspans so traces identify the delayed setup phase. Fixes #82782. (#82783) Thanks @galiniliev.
Agents/Codex: flatten nested tool-result middleware blocks into bounded text so successful message sends are no longer replaced with `Tool output unavailable due to post-processing error`. Fixes #82912. Thanks @joeykrug.
CLI/media: accept HTTP(S) URLs in `openclaw infer image describe --file`, fetching remote images through the guarded media path instead of treating URLs as local files. Fixes #82837. (#82854) Thanks @neeravmakwana.
Agents/subagents: keep session-backed parent runs active when the child wait call times out before the child session has actually settled, so late subagent completions are reconciled instead of being lost. Fixes #82787. Thanks @ramitrkar-hash.
Control UI: advertise shared Gateway protocol constants in browser connect frames, fixing protocol mismatch handshakes after protocol constant drift. Fixes #82882. Thanks @galiniliev.
Gateway: add rollback protocol-mismatch diagnostics, including client protocol ranges in Gateway logs and deep status/doctor hints for stale client processes. Fixes #82841. (#82908)
Agents/subagents: keep successful keep-mode completion payloads pending after final-delivery retry exhaustion, so requester recovery no longer loses final subagent results. Fixes #82583. (#82999) Thanks @joshavant.
Gateway/auth: allow same-host trusted-proxy callers to use the documented local direct `gateway.auth.password` fallback after revisiting the #78684 fail-closed policy, while keeping token fallback rejected and forwarded-header requests on the trusted-proxy path. Fixes #82607. (#82953) Thanks @joshavant.
Agents/subagents: wait for queued completion handoffs to reach the parent transcript before marking them announced, preventing busy parent runs from cleaning up before observing child results. Fixes #82913. (#83039) Thanks @joshavant.
Agents/subagents: route group/channel subagent completions through message-tool-only handoffs when required and keep active-requester wake failures from dropping completion delivery. Fixes #82803. Thanks @galiniliev, @yozakura-ava, and @moeedahmed.
Memory-core: scan persisted memory source sessions on startup, comparing on-disk transcripts against the index and marking only missing/newer/resized files dirty for incremental sync. Fixes #82341. (#82341) Thanks @giodl73-repo.
Telegram: keep the top-level default account in the account list when named accounts or bindings are added alongside top-level credentials, preserving default polling while still letting named-only configs resolve to a single account. Fixes #82794. (#82794) Thanks @giodl73-repo.
CLI/models: reuse command-scoped plugin metadata across model listing, provider catalog, auth, and synthetic-auth checks, restoring fast `openclaw models` runs for plugin-heavy installs. Fixes #82881. (#83033) Thanks @joshavant.
CLI/channels: show configured official external channels such as Discord in `openclaw channels list` when their plugin package is missing, including the install and doctor repair command instead of reporting no configured channels. Fixes #82813.
Signal: preserve mixed-case group IDs through routing and session persistence so group auto-replies keep delivering after updates. Fixes #82827.
Agents/tools: keep the `message` tool available in embedded runs when it is explicitly allowed through `tools.alsoAllow` or runtime tool allowlists, so channel plugins with custom reply delivery can still use configured message sends. Fixes #82833. Thanks @cn1313113.
WhatsApp: honor forced document delivery for outbound image, GIF, and video media so `forceDocument`/`asDocument` sends preserve original media bytes instead of using compressed media payloads. (#79272) Thanks @itsuzef.
WhatsApp: name outbound document attachments from their MIME type when no filename is provided, so PDF and CSV sends arrive as `file.pdf` and `file.csv` instead of an extensionless `file`. Thanks @mcaxtr.
Process/diagnostics: report active lane blockers in lane wait warnings so `queueAhead=0` no longer hides commands waiting behind active work. Fixes #82791. (#82792) Thanks @galiniliev.
Process/diagnostics: stop counting the active processing turn as queued backlog in liveness warnings so transient max-only event-loop spikes do not surface as gateway warnings.
Agents/replies: classify provider conversation-state rejections and return a clear message-channel error instead of auto-resetting or falling back to a generic runner failure. (#82616) Thanks @dutifulbob.
Browser plugin: trust managed Chrome CDP diagnostics when launch HTTP probes race cold-start readiness, avoiding false startup failures. Fixes #82904. (#82986) Thanks @kmanan and @hclsys.
Android: prompt before replacing a changed Gateway TLS thumbprint, showing the old and new SHA-256 fingerprints so users can accept expected certificate rotations instead of hard failing on pin mismatch. (#83077) Thanks @sliekens.
CLI/status: render extra gateway-like service diagnostics as warning/info output instead of error output. Fixes #46930. (#82922) thanks @giodl73-repo.
Agents/failover: classify Moonshot/Kimi exhausted-balance HTTP 429 payloads as billing instead of generic rate limits, preserving billing guidance and fallback behavior. Fixes #43447. (#83079) Thanks @leno23.
Plugin SDK: bundle `openclaw/plugin-sdk/zod` into the published package artifact and verify the packed zod subpath stays self-contained, so pnpm global installs can register plugins without a package-local `zod` symlink. Fixes #78398. (#78515) Thanks @ggzeng.