Agent Breaking Changes_

← OpenClaw

OpenClaw openclaw 2026.9.2

2026-09-05 · official notes

Summary

• Faster, more responsive chat: keep chat, dashboards, and session interactions responsive while long transcripts and disk usage are processed, with direct dashboard lookup, less cold-load work, and dur
• Reliable upgrades and recovery: keep active settings, enabled skills, and default-agent ownership in automatic updates, restore Gateway restarts after Git updates, and report outcomes with actionable
• GPT-6 Astra support: select openai/gpt-6-astra with an OpenAI API-key profile or an eligible ChatGPT/Codex account, with text and image input, Responses tool calls, and supported reasoning controls; s

Full notes

## 2026.9.2

### Highlights

- **Faster, more responsive chat:** keep chat, dashboards, and session interactions responsive while long transcripts and disk usage are processed, with direct dashboard lookup, less cold-load work, and durable history reads outside the Gateway event loop. (#136862, #138094, #138669, #138888, #138860, #138894)
- **Reliable upgrades and recovery:** keep active settings, enabled skills, and default-agent ownership in automatic updates, restore Gateway restarts after Git updates, and report outcomes with actionable recovery guidance. Related #138760. (#138837, #138730, #138781, #136588, #136995) Thanks @fuller-stack-dev and @jason-allen-oneal.
- **GPT-6 Astra support:** select `openai/gpt-6-astra` with an OpenAI API-key profile or an eligible ChatGPT/Codex account, with text and image input, Responses tool calls, and supported reasoning controls; subscription availability follows successful account discovery. Related #137549. (#137550, #137561)
- **Replies survive restarts:** recover active, queued, and delegated replies after Gateway restarts without letting one completed reply discard another’s recovery marker, and keep continuation instructions through compaction and retry attempts. Related #138518, #138564. (#138071, #137606, #136236, #138519, #138565) Thanks @vincentkoc.
- **Backups that preserve your data:** preserve complete text containing embedded NUL characters in Git backups, support Nix-managed config and credential links, and reject corrupt archive headers instead of accepting an incomplete backup. Related #138306, #136326. (#138327, #136343, #137718) Thanks @obviyus, @ced-cm, @vsumner, and @NianJiuZst.
- **Change settings without restarting:** apply more agent, model, tool, channel, browser, node, access, and terminal settings through their running owners; settings that still require a Gateway restart remain marked in the configuration reference. (#138112, #137790, #137412, #137160, #136832) Thanks @NianJiuZst and @ylcn91.

### Changes

- **Plugin branding:** package your plugin icon at `assets/icon.png` instead of a top-level manifest URL; OpenClaw loads the packaged image without a network request, and missing or invalid icons do not prevent the plugin from loading. (#131510) Thanks @Patrick-Erichsen.
- **GPT-6 Astra async tools and steering:** on OpenAI Platform API-key routes using the built-in OpenClaw runtime and official Responses endpoint, run direct function tools asynchronously, steer active responses over cached WebSockets, and retain request prefixes when changing reasoning effort under the documented configuration; keep steering history and encrypted reasoning through continuations. (#138046, #138434)
- **GPT-6 Astra reasoning:** keep supported reasoning and sampling settings correct when catalog metadata is absent, add `/think ultra` orchestration for OpenClaw and native Codex runtimes, and retain configured Azure deployment capabilities. (#138626, #138739)
- **macOS browser sign-in:** connect saved Gateways through personal Cloudflare Access browser sign-in, open the Mac app from the Gateway website, and restore the selected Gateway after app restart while keeping accounts and queued messages separate. Related #138698, #137916. (#138745, #137933)
- **Experimental plugin UI:** enable Settings → Labs → Custom plugin UI to let plugins contribute Control UI pages, panels, and session actions or customize the composer and workspace. (#134943)
- **Experimental Apple Watch Talk:** opt into standalone Talk on Watch with Gateway-owned tools and transcripts while retaining the existing iPhone-mediated Talk to Claw flow; standalone realtime audio requires UDP connectivity. (#135808) Thanks @obviyus.
- **Slack rich replies:** guide agents to use supported Block Kit layouts for proactive Slack replies. (#138896) Thanks @Patrick-Erichsen.
- **Personal connected accounts:** add provider accounts from Settings → Profile → Connected accounts or the CLI, choose an account for new chats or one existing chat, and keep existing session selections when your default changes. (#134970) Thanks @scoootscooob.
- **Swarm is enabled by default:** orchestrate concurrent sub-agents with structured results and live progress, while preserving explicit opt-outs, tool restrictions, and the separate Code Mode opt-in. Related #136472. (#136514, #138056)
- **Dashboards fit your task:** browse saved dashboards in a gallery, swap chat and dashboard views, place panels left, right, or below, and keep loaded widget input when hiding and reopening a panel. (#137069, #137068, #138077) Thanks @Patrick-Erichsen.
- **Discord meeting notes:** opt into occupancy-driven, listen-only meeting capture with automatic notes and a Control UI Meetings page. (#136679)
- **Bring teammates into the conversation:** mention authorized people from the composer and receive temporary Inbox entries, with optional browser notifications. Related #135645. (#135853) Thanks @ruel225.
- **Cross-agent session access:** session tools now default to all-session visibility and ordinary agent-to-agent access is enabled; set `tools.sessions.visibility` to `agent` or `self` for narrower session access, and retain existing tool and sandbox restrictions. (#136755)
- **Devices at a glance:** show device types, resource meters, capability chips, and Desktop availability in the Devices page, with native iOS CPU/memory and Android memory/disk reporting. (#136858, #137082, #137083)
- **Slack session controls:** add a native Stop button, session processing and approval status, and synchronized session titles; enable the documented Slack session-event subscriptions to receive Stop and title changes. (#136706)
- **macOS approvals:** simplify command, node, and device approval panels so requested access and administrator warnings are easier to review. (#138049, #138137)
- **Native text copying:** select message text on iOS and copy code blocks directly on iOS and macOS. (#136729)
- **Realtime Talk:** support native realtime sessions for thin audio clients while retaining the selected model and account, transcripts, spoken controls, and scoped agent consultations. (#134003) Thanks @edenfunf and @obviyus.
- **Cloud worker checkouts:** fast-forward replacement cloud workers to the pushed session branch while preserving local modifications, deliberate deletions, and divergent branches. Related #137011. (#137392)
- **Owner profiles:** give single-user Gateway connections a durable Owner profile for identity and personal preferences without granting additional permissions. (#136819)
- **Provider account priority:** expose configured provider account priority through the Gateway. (#132450) Thanks @jesse-merhi.
- **Gateway latency diagnostics:** break RPC latency into phases in OpenTelemetry and Prometheus diagnostics so slow dispatch and execution are easier to distinguish. (#138015)

### Fixes

- **Question answers:** recover lost answer confirmations without sending the same input through ordinary steering again, and report uncertainty visibly while preserving independently accepted work. (#134003) Thanks @edenfunf and @obviyus.
- **Doctor database diagnostics:** report the concrete SQLite error for a stable malformed database instead of incorrectly blaming concurrent changes, while preserving the source database and its sidecars. (#139136) Thanks @vincentkoc.
- **Plugin SDK code ranges:** accept positional `CodeRegion` inputs containing only `start` and `end` again; consumers needing parser metadata should retain the inferred `findCodeRegions` result. Related #137509. (#137510)
- **HTTP proxy safety:** update HTTP dependencies and keep destination DNS checks in effect when requests bypass a configured proxy. (#139056)
- **Transcript rewrites:** leave live history intact when a durable tail rewrite fails and retain the admitted user input through repeated branch rewrites. (#138412, #138967) Thanks @fuller-stack-dev.
- **Session cleanup:** preserve other agents’ plugin state on session deletion, keep case-sensitive peer identifiers distinct, and prevent canceled queued cleanup from erasing newly restored plugin state. Related #121984. (#138925, #122006, #138957) Thanks @RamiNoodle733, @obviyus, and @yunligou711-commits.
- **Skill Workshop backups:** refuse incomplete directory snapshots and verify retained originals before restore so deep user edits are not overwritten by an incomplete view. (#138082)
- **Pending child launches:** stop pending native and ACP child launches when their originating parent authority closes, while preserving ownership already transferred to accepted children. Related #139001. (#139020)
- **Provider sign-in:** keep the active plugin registry intact while discovering provider sign-in methods. (#138838)
- **Automation replies:** keep automation and heartbeat completions attached to their originating conversation and topic while retaining the isolated execution session and its policy. (#133323) Thanks @Marvinthebored, @Peetiegonzalez, and @obviyus.
- **Configured agent hooks:** retain configured hooks when a turn selects a non-default model. Related #138368. (#138979) Thanks @xialonglee, @obviyus, and @syncword.
- **Channel reloads:** keep channel start attempts and shutdown bound to the correct Gateway after plugin reloads, and isolate reloads of named IRC accounts. (#126547, #138699) Thanks @NianJiuZst and @ylcn91.
- **Telegram proxy media:** restore media through explicitly configured SOCKS proxies and HTTPS-proxy requests, including deployments where local DNS cannot resolve the destination. Related #131354. (#131436) Thanks @scoootscooob.
- **Telegram details formatting:** preserve headings, code, quotes, and tables inside authored details containers on sends and edits, including nested containers and literal code, when rich mode is enabled. Related #132624. (#132688) Thanks @sunlit-deng, @obviyus, and @YangManBOBO.
- **Discord messages and voice:** retain action-message bodies, intentional empty edits, and inline code across message chunks, and keep voice playback moving through pauses with a partial audio frame buffered. Related #138532. (#138347, #138413, #138536)
- **Mattermost commands and recovery:** recognize mention-prefixed commands such as `@bot /new` when `commands.text` is enabled, and recover reactions, button actions, and username matching after transient lookup failures. (#137902, #137968) Thanks @goffern.
- **Plugin setup and diagnostics:** repair retired plugin install configuration before service startup, avoid install warnings for intentionally disabled plugins, and attribute invalid-configuration errors to their actual source. Related #138652, #138791, #137694. (#138914, #138813, #137738) Thanks @obviyus, @worldtrading520, @NianJiuZst, @miguelarios, @SunnyShu0925, @altaywtf, and @anyech.
- **Tlon summaries:** refresh channel history after a monitor restart so explicit summaries use current messages, with independent caches for concurrent accounts. (#114580) Thanks @sunlit-deng and @obviyus.
- **Doctor upgrade settings:** retain active settings and the original default agent when automatically migrating a legacy multi-agent roster, preventing an older last-known-good snapshot from replacing the migratable configuration during an update. (#138837)
- **Worker transcript safety:** revalidate the live turn owner before committing queued transcript updates, preventing stale workers from publishing after their turn closes. (#138538)
- **Video authentication and redaction:** honor explicit no-auth and API-key modes for compatible video providers and redact reflected request credentials from provider failures. (#138205)
- **Per-turn settings:** keep inline thinking, verbosity, and authorized tracing scoped to the current turn through queueing, model changes, and fallbacks; model selection retains its existing persistence behavior. (#138695)
- **Long conversations:** keep the Gateway responsive while preparing long transcripts and keep cancellation effective throughout history preparation. (#138094)
- **Compaction accounting:** include orphaned, duplicate, and displaced tool results removed during history repair in dropped-message summaries and token totals. (#134987) Thanks @qingminglong, @Dengshanzhi, and @obviyus.
- **Delegated approvals:** wait for the actual approval outcome, retain cancellation and expiry behavior, and prevent late approval responses from applying closed work. (#137017)
- **Code Mode recovery:** return failed cells to the normal agent loop so the agent can inspect partial effects and continue the task with its configured tools. (#138044)
- **OAuth tools and accounts:** keep OAuth-authenticated MCP tools available to CLI agents through token refresh and preserve stored identity metadata when providers return only rotated token fields. Related #136238. (#136331, #127988) Thanks @NianJiuZst, @obviyus, @Volevanius, and @yetval.
- **Slack delivery:** avoid duplicate replies after lost streaming acknowledgments, keep progress temporary, send completion as a new reply, and retry explicit rate-limit rejections during delivery and uploads. Related #138479. (#138221, #137952, #138487) Thanks @pash-openai.
- **WhatsApp terminal outcomes:** deliver the reason a turn failed, timed out, or was refused instead of leaving the conversation silent. Related #136560. (#136864) Thanks @vyctorbrzezowski.
- **Telegram upgrades:** retain account names and sender-policy keys that happen to match retired tuning-setting names in Doctor migration. (#137860)
- **Cron jobs:** preserve the final reply when an automation removes itself, cancel removed conditions before main-session handoff, retain native creator tools in scheduled jobs, and preserve failure-alert policies when editing or cloning. Related #130753. (#138231, #138313, #137832, #129302) Thanks @Peetiegonzalez and @jalehman.
- **Memory recall and recovery:** keep rotated recall, allow memories to promote after an earlier daily claim, and show database, WAL, and embedding-cache usage with guidance for safe offline disk recovery. Related #136963, #135347. (#137967, #136965, #137876) Thanks @cleebailey75, @obviyus, and @AlexisBallo2.
- **Update outcomes:** make chat-triggered updates report success, failure, or an intentional skip, with actionable owner-setup and restart-recovery guidance. (#136588, #136995)
- **Install cleanup:** preserve runtime dependencies used by other installations and protect active update staging directories from concurrent cleanup. Related #137996. (#134099, #137998)
- **Plugin recovery:** repair missing installed plugin payloads so reinstall can recover a usable plugin. (#136806)
- **Session search:** find older matching sessions beyond the currently loaded window and load their matching rows. Related #138154. (#138167)
- **macOS Gateway switching:** keep windows, approvals, drafts, queued actions, and settings tied to the selected Gateway, clearing stale settings when switching. Related #136940. (#137089, #137502)
- **Chat startup:** load deep-linked conversations sooner by compressing large WebSocket payloads and deferring background transcript warming while the visible chat loads. (#136862)
- **Realtime voice interruptions:** prevent missed interruptions and stalled replies across Discord, OpenAI, and xAI voice paths, discarding queued audio for interrupted output. Related #137417. (#138072)
- **Literal chat content:** keep TTS directives literal inside Markdown code and keep attachment hints out of command input. (#138319, #138193)

### Upcoming deprecations

- **Plugin SDK context aliases:** deprecated untrusted-named prompt-context aliases become eligible for removal on or after September 8, 2026. Migrate to the channel-named context fields and `buildChannelMetadata`; see [plugin compatibility](https://docs.openclaw.ai/plugins/compatibility).

### Complete contribution record

This audited record covers the complete 999239d745d9cf73b0bf5c8791944565ecd3fcf2..001e5d6b75c7de0c071f687590a063ac6d2b6b10 history: 1,247 in-range PRs + 0 retained seed-only PRs = 1,247 unique PRs. The generation manifest also supplies direct commits as editorial input; the grouped notes above prioritize user impact.

Shipped baseline exclusions: v2026.9.1 (1223 PRs: #64490, #70002, #93842, #98236, #99864, #102180, #109622, #111194, #111527, #112678, #112967, #114678, #115405, #117561, #118045, #118197, #119051, #119501, #120105, #120161, #120645, #120660, #120913, #121394, #121569, #121598, #121618, #122078, #122586, #122628, #122726, #122730, #123220, #123243, #123893, #124568, #124672, #125378, #125791, #126419, #126473, #126818, #126887, #127284, #127959, #127999, #128453, #128548, #129035, #129174, #129345, #129402, #129475, #129825, #129918, #129930, #130030, #130856, #130894, #131017, #131220, #131228, #131329, #131400, #131408, #131456, #131567, #131619, #131691, #131717, #131735, #131767, #131786, #131811, #132186, #132199, #132266, #132370, #132379, #132477, #132490, #132492, #132571, #132582, #132623, #132627, #132697, #132723, #132727, #132753, #132756, #132868, #132883, #132917, #132951, #132983, #133091, #133105, #133151, #133220, #133224, #133268, #133297, #133321, #133354, #133379, #133381, #133414, #133445, #133660, #133716, #133724, #133747, #133773, #133778, #133799, #133806, #133814, #133829, #133847, #133871, #133888, #133897, #133963, #133978, #134010, #134068, #134083, #134103, #134111, #134172, #134207, #134208, #134218, #134219, #134221, #134272, #134281, #134299, #134302, #134333, #134351, #134361, #134362, #134365, #134368, #134385, #134403, #134412, #134413, #134423, #134428, #134443, #134457, #134466, #134473, #134478, #134483, #134490, #134517, #134519, #134525, #134532, #134536, #134537, #134548, #134549, #134568, #134572, #134581, #134585, #134590, #134593, #134598, #134601, #134603, #134607, #134613, #134614, #134615, #134622, #134626, #134627, #134630, #134631, #134632, #134634, #134636, #134637, #134639, #134641, #134642, #134643, #134645, #134646, #134648, #134650, #134651, #134652, #134653, #134654, #134655, #134656, #134659, #134660, #134661, #134663, #134664, #134668, #134669, #134670, #134671, #134672, #134673, #134674, #134675, #134676, #134677, #134680, #134684, #134686, #134688, #134689, #134691, #134693, #134694, #134695, #134696, #134698, #134699, #134702, #134704, #134706, #134707, #134708, #134711, #134712, #134714, #134716, #134717, #134719, #134720, #134722, #134724, #134725, #134728, #134732, #134733, #134734, #134737, #134738, #134739, #134740, #134742, #134744, #134745, #134746, #134747, #134751, #134752, #134754, #134755, #134756, #134758, #134759, #134760, #134762, #134763, #134764, #134765, #134775, #134776, #134778, #134779, #134780, #134781, #134782, #134791, #134792, #134793, #134794, #134795, #134797, #134799, #134802, #134804, #134805, #134807, #134808, #134809, #134811, #134812, #134813, #134814, #134819, #134820, #134821, #134822, #134824, #134825, #134827, #134828, #134831, #134832, #134833, #134835, #134836, #134837, #134838, #134839, #134840, #134842, #134844, #134845, #134847, #134850, #134852, #134853, #134854, #134856, #134857, #134858, #134860, #134861, #134862, #134863, #134865, #134870, #134872, #134874, #134875, #134876, #134877, #134879, #134880, #134881, #134882, #134884, #134885, #134888, #134889, #134890, #134891, #134892, #134893, #134894, #134902, #134903, #134904, #134905, #134907, #134908, #134909, #134910, #134911, #134912, #134913, #134915, #134917, #134921, #134923, #134924, #134926, #134927, #134928, #134929, #134930, #134932, #134933, #134934, #134935, #134936, #134937, #134939, #134940, #134941, #134942, #134944, #134945, #134946, #134947, #134948, #134949, #134950, #134952, #134954, #134957, #134958, #134961, #134962, #134964, #134965, #134966, #134969, #134973, #134974, #134976, #134977, #134978, #134979, #134980, #134981, #134983, #134984, #134986, #134988, #134991, #134992, #134998, #135001, #135003, #135004, #135005, #135006, #135007, #135008, #135011, #135012, #135014,