OpenClaw v2026.5.28-beta.2 Release Summary

Key Changes

Runtime Stability & Performance

OpenClaw v2026.5.28-beta.2 introduces critical improvements to the Agent and Codex runtimes to ensure steadier recovery and better resource management. Key updates include:

• Improved Isolation: Sub-agents now maintain strict separation between their current working directory (cwd) and the agent workspace, preventing configuration leaks during delegated tasks.
• Session Lock Management: Session locks are now released immediately upon timeout aborts or runtime teardowns, preventing the "pinned lock" issue that previously blocked subsequent runs.
• Codex Runtime Hardening: Shared app-server state is now preserved across helper failures, meaning a logical error in a spawned helper no longer tears down the primary session's runtime state.
• Event Loop Optimization: Provider authentication pre-warming has been moved to a worker thread. This prevents the main Node.js event loop from stalling for up to 60 seconds during gateway startup, which previously caused channel handshakes (Discord, Feishu, Telegram) to time out.
• Memory Routing: Native Codex workspace MEMORY.md is now routed through tools when available, reducing the prompt budget for tool-enabled turns.

Expanded Model & Provider Support

Coverage has been significantly expanded across several leading AI providers:

• Anthropic: Full support for Claude Opus 4.8 across Anthropic API, Vertex, and Amazon Bedrock. Additionally, a fix ensures that claude-haiku-4-5 is no longer incorrectly migrated to Sonnet during doctor --fix passes.
• NVIDIA: The provider now loads NVIDIA's public featured-model catalog, falling back to bundled manifests if the feed is unavailable.
• Fal: Added support for Krea 2 image model schemas, enabling native aspect ratio and style reference controls.
• MiniMax: Music generation now uses async-task polling instead of blocking HTTP requests, eliminating timeouts for full-length tracks.
• DeepSeek: Improved reasoning content replay for tier-suffixed models (e.g., -free, -paid), preventing 400 errors on follow-up API calls.

Channel & UI Enhancements

• Microsoft Teams: A major migration to the @microsoft/teams.apps SDK replaces legacy Bot Framework patterns. This fixes several critical bugs, including streaming cards that never closed and unresponsive Adaptive Card buttons.
• Discord: Added support for assistant commentary in progress drafts, allowing users to see natural-language status notes while the agent is working.
• WhatsApp: Added support for encrypted PDF extraction via the clawpdf fallback and restored compact terminal QR codes for easier login.
• iOS Pro UI: The iOS app has been refreshed with a new tab system (Command, Chat, Agents, Settings) wired directly to gateway sessions and realtime Talk state.
• WebChat: Implemented a send-queue that preserves messages through socket reconnects, providing a smoother experience during network instability.

Security & Policy Hardening

• Plugin Isolation: npm plugin installs are now isolated per package in their own managed projects. This prevents dependency conflicts where one plugin's graph could evict another's.
• API Compatibility: Introduced openclaw.compat.pluginApi to guard plugin installations. The system now rejects plugins that require a newer runtime than the current host version.
• Sandbox Policy: Added conformance checks for sandbox posture, including requirements for read-only mounts and the denial of host network access.
• Ingress Policy: New checks ensure ingress channel conformance, such as requiring mention gates in groups.
• Credential Protection: Registered provider credential environment variables are now blocked from workspace .env files to prevent local project files from overriding trusted global credentials.

Impact

For Developers & Plugin Authors

• New Plugin Hook: The reply_payload_sending hook allows plugins to mutate or cancel normalized ReplyPayload objects before delivery (e.g., adding inline buttons to Telegram replies).
• SDK Refactor: Plugin SDK declarations are now flattened in the dist folder, reducing the unpacked package size by several megabytes and simplifying imports.
• Policy Comparison: The new openclaw policy compare command allows operators to validate a workspace policy against an organization-authored baseline.

For End Users

• Reliability: Users will experience fewer "stuck" sessions and faster gateway restarts.
• UI/UX: iOS users get a professional tabbed interface, and Discord users get better visibility into agent thinking via commentary.
• Model Choice: Access to the latest Claude and NVIDIA models is now available out-of-the-box.

Upgrade Guide

Breaking Changes & Migration

1. Provider Credentials Workspace-local .env files can no longer provide registered provider credentials. If you previously relied on a .env file in your project folder for API keys, you must move them to your shell environment or the trusted global OpenClaw runtime .env file.

2. Voice Configuration Voice model selection has been refactored. Configuration for speaker selection has been renamed from voice/voiceName/voiceId to speakerVoice and speakerVoiceId. While the system includes migration coverage, users with complex custom voice setups should verify their configurations.

3. Plugin Compatibility Due to the new openclaw.compat.pluginApi guard, some older plugins may be skipped if they are incompatible with the current host. Ensure all plugins are updated to their latest versions to avoid load failures.