This beta release focuses on runtime stability, security hardening for channel delivery, and a significant refresh of the iOS Pro UI and WebChat reconnect logic.
OpenClaw v2026.5.28-beta.1 introduces critical improvements to runtime recovery, session management, and user interface surfaces. This release prioritizes the stability of Agent and Codex runtimes, ensuring that sub-agents maintain strict workspace separation and that session locks are handled more reliably to prevent gateway hangs.
Beyond stability, this update brings a comprehensive refresh to the iOS Pro UI and enhances the reliability of WebChat and various channel integrations, including Matrix and Microsoft Teams, with a focus on security and case-sensitivity in session identity.
Key Changes
Runtime Stability & Agent Recovery
Sub-agent Isolation: Fixed a critical issue where sub-agents could bleed into the main agent's workspace. The system now threads cwd separately from workspaceDir, allowing sub-agents to execute tasks in a specific directory while loading bootstrap files from the configured agent workspace (#87218).
Session Lock Optimization: Resolved a catastrophic deadlock in the Pi embedded runner where tool-call processing could self-wait on its own session event queue, effectively hanging the Gateway (#86123, #87409).
Codex Runtime Resilience: Codex helper/spawned runs that fail due to logical errors (such as authentication) no longer tear down the shared app-server client used by the main session, preventing unnecessary gateway disconnects (#87375, #87399).
Channel & Security Hardening
Matrix Case Preservation: Matrix room IDs and thread event IDs are now treated as case-sensitive in session keys. This prevents the creation of duplicate sessions and resolves 403 M_FORBIDDEN errors during delivery and recovery (#87366).
Microsoft Teams Security: Implemented a serviceUrl allowlist and SSRF policy to block outbound activity requests to untrusted hosts, preventing potential credential leakage (#87334).
Outbound Hook Reliability: Canonical session keys are now correctly threaded into message_sending and message_sent hook contexts, ensuring plugins can reliably correlate signals across different hooks (#73706).
UI & Surface Refreshes
iOS Pro UI: The iOS app has been completely refreshed with a new pro tab system for Command, Chat, Agents, and Settings, all wired directly to gateway-backed sessions and realtime Talk state (#87367).
WebChat Reconnects: WebChat now preserves pending sends during socket reconnects, using idempotency keys to retry messages and providing clear UI states for Sending, Waiting for reconnect, and Failed (#87531).
ClawHub Integration: Added skill verification and trust surfaces. Users can now verify installed ClawHub skills via the CLI (openclaw skills verify <slug>) and view security verdicts and skill cards directly in the Control UI (#86699).
Performance & CLI Improvements
Non-blocking Auth Pre-warm: Moved provider-auth pre-warming to a worker thread. This eliminates a major regression where gateway startup would block the main event loop for up to 60-90 seconds, which previously caused channel handshakes to time out (#86281).
CLI Robustness: The CLI now correctly handles subcommand-scoped --version options and provides more actionable guidance in openclaw doctor restart hints (#87398, #87361).
Codex Enhancements: Native Codex now routes MEMORY.md through tools when memory_search is exposed to save prompt budget, and the /codex skills command now uses a skill-aware renderer for better readability (#87383, #87400).
Impact
Fixed Issues
Gateway Availability: Fixed the event-loop starvation during startup (#85999, #86506) and the Pi runner deadlock (#86093).
Session Integrity: Resolved the Matrix session forking and delivery failures (#75670).
Codex Stability: Fixed the btw spawn authentication failure that previously triggered full gateway disconnects (#72574).
UI Usability: Fixed a race condition in the Control UI session picker that rendered buttons unresponsive during search blur (#87554).
Behavioral Changes
Authorization: Tightened authorization for /phone arm and /phone disarm commands, now requiring operator.admin scope for non-owner callers (#87150).
Prompting:before_prompt_build hook context is now kept in the model prompt rather than being stripped into the system prompt, ensuring models better associate injected context with user messages (#86875).
PDF Extraction: The bundled PDF extraction runtime has been replaced with clawpdf for improved performance and reliability (#87670).
Upgrade Guide
Breaking Changes
Authorization Policy: Users who previously relied on generic command authorization to run /phone arm or /phone disarm will now find these commands blocked unless they have operator.admin privileges or are the account owner.
Migration Steps
Matrix Users: No manual migration is required. Legacy lowercased session keys will be treated as aliases and will collapse toward the exact mixed-case key upon the next write operation.
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