### Breaking
- Providers/Qwen: remove the deprecated `qwen-portal-auth` OAuth integration for `portal.qwen.ai`; migrate to Model Studio with `openclaw onboard --auth-choice modelstudio-api-key`. (#52709) Thanks @pomelo-nwu.
- Config/Doctor: drop automatic config migrations older than two months; very old legacy keys now fail validation instead of being rewritten on load or by `openclaw doctor`.
### Changes
- xAI/tools: move the bundled xAI provider to the Responses API, add first-class `x_search`, and auto-enable the xAI plugin from owned web-search and tool config so bundled Grok auth/configured search flows work without manual plugin toggles. (#56048) Thanks @huntharo.
- xAI/onboarding: let the bundled Grok web-search plugin offer optional `x_search` setup during `openclaw onboard` and `openclaw configure --section web`, including an x_search model picker with the shared xAI key.
- MiniMax: add image generation provider for `image-01` model, supporting generate and image-to-image editing with aspect ratio control. (#54487) Thanks @liyuan97.
- Plugins/hooks: add async `requireApproval` to `before_tool_call` hooks, letting plugins pause tool execution and prompt the user for approval via the exec approval overlay, Telegram buttons, Discord interactions, or the `/approve` command on any channel. The `/approve` command now handles both exec and plugin approvals with automatic fallback. (#55339) Thanks @vaclavbelak and @joshavant.
- ACP/channels: add current-conversation ACP binds for Discord, BlueBubbles, and iMessage so `/acp spawn codex --bind here` can turn the current chat into a Codex-backed workspace without creating a child thread, and document the distinction between chat surface, ACP session, and runtime workspace.
- OpenAI/apply_patch: enable `apply_patch` by default for OpenAI and OpenAI Codex models, and align its sandbox policy access with `write` permissions.
- Plugins/CLI backends: move bundled Claude CLI, Codex CLI, and Gemini CLI inference defaults onto the plugin surface, add bundled Gemini CLI backend support, and replace `gateway run --claude-cli-logs` with generic `--cli-backend-logs` while keeping the old flag as a compatibility alias.
- Plugins/startup: auto-load bundled provider and CLI-backend plugins from explicit config refs, so bundled Claude CLI, Codex CLI, and Gemini CLI message-provider setups no longer need manual `plugins.allow` entries.
- Podman: simplify the container setup around the current rootless user, install the launch helper under `~/.local/bin`, and document the host-CLI `openclaw --container <name> ...` workflow instead of a dedicated `openclaw` service user.
- Slack/tool actions: add an explicit `upload-file` Slack action that routes file uploads through the existing Slack upload transport, with optional filename/title/comment overrides for channels and DMs.
- Message actions/files: start unifying file-first sends on the canonical `upload-file` action by adding explicit support for Microsoft Teams and Google Chat, and by exposing BlueBubbles file sends through `upload-file` while keeping the legacy `sendAttachment` alias.
- Plugins/Matrix TTS: send auto-TTS replies as native Matrix voice bubbles instead of generic audio attachments. (#37080) thanks @Matthew19990919.
- CLI: add `openclaw config schema` to print the generated JSON schema for `openclaw.json`. (#54523) Thanks @kvokka.
- Config/TTS: auto-migrate legacy speech config on normal reads and secret resolution, keep legacy diagnostics for Doctor, and remove regular-mode runtime fallback for old bundled `tts.<provider>` API-key shapes.
- Memory/plugins: move the pre-compaction memory flush plan behind the active memory plugin contract so `memory-core` owns flush prompts and target-path policy instead of hardcoded core logic.
- MiniMax: trim model catalog to M2.7 only, removing legacy M2, M2.1, M2.5, and VL-01 models. (#54487) Thanks @liyuan97.
- Plugins/runtime: expose `runHeartbeatOnce` in the plugin runtime `system` namespace so plugins can trigger a single heartbeat cycle with an explicit delivery target override (e.g. `heartbeat: { target: "last" }`). (#40299) Thanks @loveyana.
- Agents/compaction: preserve the post-compaction AGENTS refresh on stale-usage preflight compaction for both immediate replies and queued followups. (#49479) Thanks @jared596.
- Agents/compaction: surface safeguard-specific cancel reasons and relabel benign manual `/compact` no-op cases as skipped instead of failed. (#51072) Thanks @afurm.
- Docs: add `pnpm docs:check-links:anchors` for Mintlify anchor validation while keeping `scripts/docs-link-audit.mjs` as the stable link-audit entrypoint. (#55912) Thanks @velvet-shark.
- Tavily: mark outbound API requests with `X-Client-Source: openclaw` so Tavily can attribute OpenClaw-originated traffic. (#55335) Thanks @lakshyaag-tavily.
### Fixes
- Agents/Anthropic: recover unhandled provider stop reasons (e.g. `sensitive`) as structured assistant errors instead of crashing the agent run. (#56639)
- Google/models: resolve Gemini 3.1 pro, flash, and flash-lite for all Google provider aliases by passing the actual runtime provider ID and adding a template-provider fallback; fix flash-lite prefix ordering. (#56567)
- OpenAI Codex/image tools: register Codex for media understanding and route image prompts through Codex instructions so image analysis no longer fails on missing provider registration or missing `instructions`. (#54829) Thanks @neeravmakwana.
- Agents/image tool: restore the generic image-runtime fallback when no provider-specific media-understanding provider is registered, so image analysis works again for providers like `openrouter` and `minimax-portal`. (#54858) Thanks @MonkeyLeeT.
- WhatsApp: fix infinite echo loop in self-chat DM mode where the bot's own outbound replies were re-processed as new inbound user messages. (#54570) Thanks @joelnishanth
- Telegram/splitting: replace proportional text estimate with verified HTML-length search so long messages split at word boundaries instead of mid-word; gracefully degrade when tag overhead exceeds the limit. (#56595)
- Telegram/delivery: skip whitespace-only and hook-blanked text replies in bot delivery to prevent GrammyError 400 empty-text crashes. (#56620)
- Telegram/send: validate `replyToMessageId` at all four API sinks with a shared normalizer that rejects non-numeric, NaN, and mixed-content strings. (#56587)
- Mistral: normalize OpenAI-compatible request flags so official Mistral API runs no longer fail with remaining `422 status code (no body)` chat errors.
- Control UI/config: keep sensitive raw config hidden by default, replace the blank blocked editor with an explicit reveal-to-edit state, and restore raw JSON editing without auto-exposing secrets. Fixes #55322.
- CLI/zsh: defer `compdef` registration until `compinit` is available so zsh completion loads cleanly with plugin managers and manual setups. (#56555)
- BlueBubbles/debounce: guard debounce flush against null message text by sanitizing at the enqueue boundary and adding an independent combiner guard. (#56573)
- Auto-reply: suppress JSON-wrapped `{"action":"NO_REPLY"}` control envelopes before channel delivery with a strict single-key detector; preserves media when text is only a silent envelope. (#56612)
- ACP/ACPX agent registry: align OpenClaw's ACPX built-in agent mirror with the latest `openclaw/acpx` command defaults and built-in aliases, pin versioned `npx` built-ins to exact versions, and stop unknown ACP agent ids from falling through to raw `--agent` command execution on the MCP-proxy path. (#28321) Thanks @m0nkmaster and @vincentkoc.
- Security/audit: extend web search key audit to recognize Gemini, Grok/xAI, Kimi, Moonshot, and OpenRouter credentials via a boundary-safe bundled-web-search registry shim. (#56540)
- Docs/FAQ: remove broken Xfinity SSL troubleshooting cross-links from English and zh-CN FAQ entries — both sections already contain the full workaround inline. (#56500)
- Telegram: deliver verbose tool summaries inside forum topic sessions again, so threaded topic chats now match DM verbose behavior. (#43236) Thanks @frankbuild.
- BlueBubbles/CLI agents: restore inbound prompt image refs for CLI routed turns, reapply embedded runner image size guardrails, and cover both CLI image transport paths with regression tests. (#51373)
- BlueBubbles/groups: optionally enrich unnamed participant lists with local macOS Contacts names after group gating passes, so group member context can show names instead of only raw phone numbers.
- Discord/reconnect: drain stale gateway sockets, clear cached resume state before forced fresh reconnects, and fail closed when old sockets refuse to die so Discord recovery stops looping on poisoned resume state. (#54697) Thanks @ngutman.
- iMessage: stop leaking inline `[[reply_to:...]]` tags into delivered text by sending `reply_to` as RPC metadata and stripping stray directive tags from outbound messages. (#39512) Thanks @mvanhorn.
- CLI/plugins: make routed commands use the same auto-enabled bundled-channel snapshot as gateway startup, so configured bundled channels like Slack load without requiring a prior config rewrite. (#54809) Thanks @neeravmakwana.
- CLI/message send: write manual `openclaw message send` deliveries into the resolved agent session transcript again by always threading the default CLI agent through outbound mirroring. (#54187) Thanks @KevInTheCloud5617.
- CLI/onboarding: show the Kimi Code API key option again in the Moonshot setup menu so the interactive picker includes all Kimi setup paths together. Fixes #54412 Thanks @sparkyrider
- Agents/status: use provider-aware context window lookup for fresh Anthropic 4.6 model overrides so `/status` shows the correct 1.0m window instead of an underreported shared-cache minimum. (#54796) Thanks @neeravmakwana.
- OpenAI/WebSocket: preserve reasoning replay metadata and tool-call item ids on WebSocket tool turns, and start a fresh response chain when full-context resend is required. (#53856) Thanks @xujingchen1996.
- OpenAI/WS: restore reasoning blocks for Responses WebSocket runs and keep reasoning/tool-call replay metadata intact so resumed sessions do not lose or break follow-up reasoning-capable turns. (#53856) Thanks @xujingchen1996.
- Agents/errors: surface provider quota/reset details when available, but keep HTML/Cloudflare rate-limit pages on the generic fallback so raw error pages are not shown to users. (#54512) Thanks @bugkill3r.
- Claude CLI: switch the bundled Claude CLI backend to `stream-json` output so watchdogs see progress on long runs, and keep session/usage metadata even when Claude finishes with an empty result line. (#49698) Thanks @felear2022.
- Claude CLI/MCP: always pass a strict generated `--mcp-config` overlay for background Claude CLI runs, including the empty-server case, so Claude does not inherit ambient user/global MCP servers. (#54961) Thanks @markojak.
- Agents/embedded replies: surface mid-turn 429 and overload failures when embedded runs end without a user-visible reply, while preserving successful media-only replies that still use legacy `mediaUrl`. (#50930) Thanks @infichen.
- Chat/UI: move the chat send button onto the shared ghost-button theme styling, while keeping the stop button icon readable on the danger state. (#55075) Thanks @bottenbenny.
- WhatsApp/allowFrom: show a specific allowFrom policy error for valid blocked targets instead of the misleading `<E.164|group JID>` format hint. Thanks @mcaxtr.
- Agents/cooldowns: scope rate-limit cooldowns per model so one 429 no longer blocks every model on the same auth profile, replace the exponential 1 min -> 1 h escalation with a stepped 30 s / 1 min / 5 min ladder, and surface a user-facing countdown message when all models are rate-limited. (#49834) Thanks @kiranvk-2011.
- Agents/embedded transport errors: distinguish common network failures like connection refused, DNS lookup failure, and interrupted sockets from true timeouts in embedded-run user messaging and lifecycle diagnostics. (#51419) Thanks @scoootscooob.
- Telegram/pairing: ignore self-authored DM `message` updates so bot-pinned status cards and similar service updates do not trigger bogus pairing requests or re-enter inbound dispatch. (#54530) thanks @huntharo
- Mattermost/replies: keep pairing replies, slash-command fallback replies, and model-picker messages on the resolved config path so `exec:` SecretRef bot tokens work across all outbound reply branches. (#48347) thanks @mathiasnagler.
- Microsoft Teams/config: accept the existing `welcomeCard`, `groupWelcomeCard`, `promptStarters`, and feedback/reflection keys in strict config validation so already-supported Teams runtime settings stop failing schema checks. (#54679) Thanks @gumclaw.
- MCP/channels: add a Gateway-backed channel MCP bridge with Codex/Claude-facing conversation tools, Claude channel notifications, and safer stdio bridge lifecycle handling for reconnects and routed session discovery.
- Plugins/SDK: thread `moduleUrl` through plugin-sdk alias resolution so user-installed plugins outside the openclaw directory (e.g. `~/.openclaw/extensions/`) correctly resolve `openclaw/plugin-sdk/*` subpath imports, and gate `plugin-sdk:check-exports` in `release:check`. (#54283) Thanks @xieyongliang.
- Config/web fetch: allow the documented `tools.web.fetch.maxResponseBytes` setting in runtime schema validation so valid configs no longer fail with unrecognized-key errors. (#53401) Thanks @erhhung.
- Message tool/buttons: keep the shared `buttons` schema optional in merged tool definitions so plain `action=send` calls stop failing validation when no buttons are provided. (#54418) Thanks @adzendo.
- Agents/openai-compatible tool calls: deduplicate repeated tool call ids across live assistant messages and replayed history so OpenAI-compatible backends no longer reject duplicate `tool_call_id` values with HTTP 400. (#40996) Thanks @xaeon2026.
- Models/openai-completions: default non-native OpenAI-compatible providers to omit tool-definition `strict` fields unless users explicitly opt back in, so tool calling keeps working on providers that reject that option. (#45497) Thanks @sahancava.
- Plugins/context engines: retry strict legacy `assemble()` calls without the new `prompt` field when older engines reject it, preserving prompt-aware retrieval compatibility for pre-prompt plugins. (#50848) thanks @danhdoan.
- CLI/update status: explicitly say `up to date` when the local version already matches npm latest, while keeping the availability logic unchanged. (#51409) Thanks @dongzhenye.
- Daemon/Linux: stop flagging non-gateway systemd services as duplicate gateways just because their unit files mention OpenClaw, reducing false-positive doctor/log noise. (#45328) Thanks @gregretkowski.
- Feishu: close WebSocket connections on monitor stop/abort so ghost connections no longer persist, preventing duplicate event processing and resource leaks across restart cycles. (#52844) Thanks @schumilin.
- Feishu: use the original message `create_time` instead of `Date.now()` for inbound timestamps so offline-retried messages carry the correct authoring time, preventing mis-targeted agent actions on stale instructions. (#52809) Thanks @schumilin.
- Control UI/Skills: open skill detail dialogs with the browser modal lifecycle so clicking a skill row keeps the panel centered instead of rendering it off-screen at the bottom of the page.
- Matrix/replies: include quoted poll question/options in inbound reply context so the agent sees the original poll content when users reply to Matrix poll messages. (#55056) Thanks @alberthild.
- Matrix/plugins: keep plugin bootstrap from crashing when built runtime mixes bare and deep `matrix-js-sdk` entrypoints, so unrelated channels do not get taken down during plugin load. (#56273) Thanks @aquaright1.
- Agents/sandbox: honor `tools.sandbox.tools.alsoAllow`, let explicit sandbox re-allows remove matching built-in default-deny tools, and keep sandbox explain/error guidance aligned with the effective sandbox tool policy. (#54492) Thanks @ngutman.
- Agents/sandbox: make blocked-tool guidance glob-aware again, redact/sanitize session-specific explain hints for safer copy-paste, and avoid leaking control-character session keys in those hints. (#54684) Thanks @ngutman.
- Agents/compaction: trigger timeout recovery compaction before retrying high-context LLM timeouts so embedded runs stop repeating oversized requests. (#46417) thanks @joeykrug.
- Agents/compaction: reconcile `sessions.json.compactionCount` after a late embedded auto-compaction success so persisted session counts catch up once the handler reports completion. (#45493) Thanks @jackal092927.
- Agents/failover: classify Codex accountId token extraction failures as auth errors so model fallback continues to the next configured candidate. (#55206) Thanks @cosmicnet.
- Plugins/runtime: reuse only compatible active plugin registries across tools, providers, web search, and channel bootstrap, align `/tools/invoke` plugin loading with the session workspace, and retry outbound channel recovery when the pinned channel surface changes so plugin tools and channels stop disappearing or re-registering from mismatched runtime loads. Thanks @gumadeiras.
- Talk/macOS: stop direct system-voice failures from replaying system speech, use app-locale fallback for shared watchdog timing, and add regression coverage for the macOS fallback route and language-aware timeout policy. (#53511) thanks @hongsw.
- Discord/gateway cleanup: keep late Carbon reconnect-exhausted errors suppressed through startup/dispose cleanup so Discord monitor shutdown no longer crashes on late gateway close events. (#55373) Thanks @Takhoffman.
- Discord/gateway shutdown: treat expected reconnect-exhausted events during intentional lifecycle stop as clean shutdowns so startup-abort cleanup no longer surfaces false gateway failures. (#55324) Thanks @joelnishanth.
- Discord/gateway shutdown: suppress reconnect-exhausted events that were already buffered before teardown flips `lifecycleStopping`, so stale-socket Discord restarts no longer crash the whole gateway. Fixes #55403 and #55421. Thanks @lml2468 and @vincentkoc.
- GitHub Copilot/auth refresh: treat large `expires_at` values as seconds epochs and clamp far-future runtime auth refresh timers so Copilot token refresh cannot fall into a `setTimeout` overflow hot loop. (#55360) Thanks @michael-abdo.
- Agents/status: use the persisted runtime session model in `session_status` when no explicit override exists, and honor per-agent `thinkingDefault` in both `session_status` and `/status`. (#55425) Thanks @scoootscooob, @xaeon2026, and @ysfbsf.
- Heartbeat/runner: guarantee the interval timer is re-armed after heartbeat runs and unexpected runner errors so scheduled heartbeats do not silently stop after an interrupted cycle. (#52270) Thanks @MiloStack.
- Config/Doctor: rewrite stale bundled plugin load paths from legacy `extensions/*` locations to the packaged bundled path, including directory-name mismatches and slash-suffixed config entries. (#55054) Thanks @SnowSky1.
- WhatsApp/mentions: stop treating mentions embedded in quoted messages as direct mentions so replying to a message that @mentioned the bot no longer falsely triggers mention gating. (#52711) Thanks @lurebat.
- Matrix: keep separate 2-person rooms out of DM routing after `m.direct` seeds successfully, while still honoring explicit `is_direct` state and startup fallback recovery. (#54890) thanks @private-peter
- Agents/ollama fallback: surface non-2xx Ollama HTTP errors with a leading status code so HTTP 503 responses trigger model fallback again. (#55214) Thanks @bugkill3r.
- Feishu/tools: stop synthetic agent ids like `agent-spawner` from being treated as Feishu account ids during tool execution, so tools fall back to the configured/default Feishu account unless the contextual id is a real enabled Feishu account. (#55627) Thanks @MonkeyLeeT.
- Google/tools: strip empty `required: []` arrays from Gemini tool schemas so optional-only tool parameters no longer trigger Google validator 400s. (#52106) Thanks @oliviareid-svg.
- Onboarding/TUI/local gateways: show the resolved gateway port in setup output, clarify no-daemon local health/dashboard messaging, and preserve loopback Control UI auth on reruns and explicit local gateway URLs so local quickstart flows recover cleanly. (#55730) Thanks @shakkernerd.
- TUI/chat log: keep system messages as single logical entries and prune overflow at whole-message boundaries so wrapped system spacing stays intact. (#55732) Thanks @shakkernerd.
- TUI/activation: validate `/activation` arguments in the TUI and reject invalid values instead of silently coercing them to `mention`. (#55733) Thanks @shakkernerd.
- Agents/model switching: apply `/model` changes to active embedded runs at the next safe retry boundary, so overloaded or retrying turns switch to the newly selected model instead of staying pinned to the old provider.
- Agents/Codex fallback: classify Codex `server_error` payloads as failoverable, sanitize `Codex error:` payloads before they reach chat, preserve context-overflow guidance for prefixed `invalid_request_error` payloads, and omit provider `request_id` values from user-facing UI copy. (#42892) Thanks @xaeon2026.
- Memory/search: share memory embedding provider registrations across split plugin runtimes so memory search no longer fails with unknown provider errors after memory-core registers built-in adapters. (#55945) Thanks @glitch418x.
- Discord/Carbon beta: update `@buape/carbon` to the latest beta and pass the new `RateLimitError` request argument so Discord stays compatible with the upstream beta constructor change. (#55980) Thanks @ngutman.
- Plugins/inbound claims: pass full inbound attachment arrays through `inbound_claim` hook metadata while keeping the legacy singular media attachment fields for compatibility. (#55452) Thanks @huntharo.
- Plugins/Matrix: preserve sender filenames for inbound media by forwarding `originalFilename` to `saveMediaBuffer`. (#55692) thanks @esrehmki.
- Matrix/mentions: recognize `matrix.to` mentions whose visible label uses the bot's room display name, so `requireMention: true` rooms respond correctly in modern Matrix clients. (#55393) thanks @nickludlam.
- Ollama/thinking off: route `thinkingLevel=off` through the live Ollama extension request path so thinking-capable Ollama models now receive top-level `think: false` instead of silently generating hidden reasoning tokens. (#53200) Thanks @BruceMacD.
- Plugins/diffs: stage bundled `@pierre/diffs` runtime dependencies during packaged updates so the bundled diff viewer keeps loading after global installs and updates. (#56077) Thanks @gumadeiras.
- Plugins/diffs: load bundled Pierre themes without JSON module imports so diff rendering keeps working on newer Node builds. (#45869) thanks @NickHood1984.
- Plugins/uninstall: remove owned `channels.<id>` config when uninstalling channel plugins, and keep the uninstall preview aligned with explicit channel ownership so built-in channels and shared keys stay intact. (#35915) Thanks @wbxl2000.
- Plugins/Matrix: prefer explicit DM signals when choosing outbound direct rooms and routing unmapped verification summaries, so strict 2-person fallback rooms do not outrank the real DM. (#56076) thanks @gumadeiras
- Plugins/Matrix: resolve env-backed `accessToken` and `password` SecretRefs against the active Matrix config env path during startup, and officially accept SecretRef `accessToken` config values. (#54980) thanks @kakahu2015.
- Microsoft Teams/proactive DMs: prefer the freshest personal conversation reference for `user:<aadObjectId>` sends when multiple stored references exist, so replies stop targeting stale DM threads. (#54702) Thanks @gumclaw.
- Gateway/plugins: reuse the session workspace when building HTTP `/tools/invoke` tool lists and harden tool construction to infer the session agent workspace by default, so workspace plugins do not re-register on repeated HTTP tool calls. (#56101) thanks @neeravmakwana
- Brave/web search: normalize unsupported Brave `country` filters to `ALL` before request and cache-key generation so locale-derived values like `VN` stop failing with upstream 422 validation errors. (#55695) Thanks @chen-zhang-cs-code.
- Discord/replies: preserve leading indentation when stripping inline reply tags so reply-tagged plain text and fenced code blocks keep their formatting. (#55960) Thanks @Nanako0129.
- Daemon/status: surface immediate gateway close reasons from lightweight probes and prefer those concrete auth or pairing failures over generic timeouts in `openclaw daemon status`. (#56282) Thanks @mbelinky.
- Agents/failover: classify HTTP 410 errors as retryable timeouts by default while still preserving explicit session-expired, billing, and auth signals from the payload. (#55201) thanks @nikus-pan.
- Agents/subagents: restore completion announce delivery for extension channels like BlueBubbles. (#56348)
- Plugins/Matrix: load bundled `@matrix-org/matrix-sdk-crypto-nodejs` through `createRequire(...)` so E2EE media send and receive keep the package-local native binding lookup working in packaged ESM builds. (#54566) thanks @joelnishanth.
- Plugins/Matrix: encrypt E2EE image thumbnails with `thumbnail_file` while keeping unencrypted-room previews on `thumbnail_url`, so encrypted Matrix image events keep thumbnail metadata without leaking plaintext previews. (#54711) thanks @frischeDaten.
- Telegram/forum topics: keep native `/new` and `/reset` routed to the active topic by preserving the topic target on forum-thread command context. (#35963)