How to Read the OpenClaw Changelog and Track Every Update

OpenClaw's GitHub releases page shows at least six distinct versions tagged in April 2026, with a similar pace through May and June. At that cadence, skipping a single week can put you two or three versions behind, each potentially carrying security patches, database migrations, or plugin API changes that compound when applied out of order.

The latest stable release is v2026.6.1, tagged June 3, 2026. The v2026.6.5 beta train is actively shipping, with beta.6 tagged June 9.

What shipped in v2026.6.1:

• Tokenjuice separated into its own official plugin, distributed independently through npm and ClawHub
• GitHub Copilot agent runtime externalized as a standalone official plugin
• Skill Workshop launched with proposal management, versioned revisions, and a Control UI dashboard for apply/reject/quarantine workflows
• iMessage monitor state, inbound queues, and plugin install ledgers migrated from JSON files to SQLite storage
• Agent and CLI-backed runtimes recover more cleanly from interrupted tool calls, stale session bindings, and media delivery retries
• MiniMax M3 model support added alongside Google/Vertex catalog updates
• Channel delivery improved across Telegram, WhatsApp, iMessage, Slack, Discord, Microsoft Teams, and Google Chat

What the v2026.6.5 beta adds on top:

• QQBot strips model reasoning scaffolding before delivery, preventing raw <thinking> content from reaching channel replies
• MCP tool results coerce non-text/image blocks (resource links, audio, malformed images) at the materialize boundary, preventing Anthropic 400 errors
• Anthropic extended-thinking sessions recover after prompt-cache expiry or Gateway restart
• Parallel bundled as a web search provider with API key discovery and guarded endpoint handling
• Google Vertex ADC users restored with static catalog rows and improved runtime model resolution
• Auth profiles moved to SQLite for improved durability
• Matrix voice message preflight and thread-aware read/reply behavior added

OpenClaw uses calendar versioning in the format YYYY.M.PATCH. Starting June 2026, the third component represents a monthly patch counter rather than a calendar day. Beta prereleases append -beta.N to the version string. Git tags use a v prefix, so v2026.6.1 corresponds to npm package openclaw@2026.6.1.

Here is the verified release history from the official GitHub releases page, organized by month.

March 2026 v2026.3.8 introduced openclaw backup create and openclaw backup verify for local state archives, including a configuration-only mode that skips session data. Talk Mode gained a configurable silence timeout via talk.silenceTimeoutMs, giving users control over how long Talk waits before auto-sending the current transcript. Other additions included ACP provenance tracking with session trace IDs for agent coordination, Brave search integration with the LLM Context endpoint for grounding snippets, and the short git commit hash appended to openclaw --version output. Security hardening in this release added SSRF protection that blocks private-network intermediate redirects, and approved script operands are now bound to on-disk file snapshots.

April 2026 v2026.4.2 restored Task Flow infrastructure, bringing managed-versus-mirrored synchronization modes, durable flow state tracking, and new openclaw flows inspection commands for background orchestration. Android gained Google Assistant integration through assistant-role entrypoints and App Actions metadata. Feishu received Drive comment-event flows with in-thread replies. The xAI plugin configuration migrated from legacy core paths to plugin-owned settings, requiring openclaw doctor --fix to update existing installations.

v2026.4.26 shipped the openclaw migrate command. This is a full migration framework with plan mode (preview what will change), dry-run execution (test without writing), JSON output for automation, and automatic pre-migration backups. It bundled two importers out of the box: a Claude Desktop importer that transfers MCP server configurations, skills, command prompts, and instructions, and a Hermes importer that moves configuration files, memory hints, model provider settings, and credential profiles. The release also added Cerebras as a bundled provider plugin and expanded OpenAI-compatible memory search with asymmetric embedding support.

Intermediate April releases (v2026.4.9, v2026.4.20, v2026.4.23, v2026.4.29) covered plugin security scanning improvements, centralized provider transport policies, hardened exec approval workflows, and channel-specific fixes across Slack, WhatsApp, Telegram, and Matrix.

May 2026 v2026.5.6 fixed a regression from v2026.5.5 that incorrectly converted OpenAI Codex OAuth routes, potentially breaking GPT-5.5 configurations. It also corrected plugin runtime fetch failures caused by third-party header metadata leaking into native fetch operations, and fixed gateway tool lane cleanup after request timeouts so timed-out operations return proper tool errors.

v2026.5.18 introduced defineToolPlugin, a typed API for building tool plugins with scaffolding, validation, and compilation steps that generate manifest metadata and tool declarations. Android Talk Mode launched in this release, routing realtime voice through the Gateway relay to bring mobile voice to Android at parity with iOS and desktop. Gateway restart performance improved by overlapping logging and plugin-service initialization with channel sidecar loading. Telegram and Discord channels received isolated polling lanes, preventing slowdowns in one channel from blocking others.

June 2026 v2026.6.1 externalized Tokenjuice and the Copilot agent runtime as official plugins, launched Skill Workshop, and migrated iMessage, queue, and plugin state to SQLite. Full details are in the section above.

v2026.6.5 (beta) added MCP tool result coercion, QQBot reasoning stripping, Parallel web search, and auth profile SQLite migration.

Most OpenClaw releases are non-breaking, but the ones that are not can leave your installation in a partially migrated state if you skip the fix. Here are the confirmed breaking changes from 2026, with the specific remediation for each.

v2026.4.2: xAI plugin configuration relocated. The x_search settings moved from tools.web.x_search.* to plugin-owned configuration paths. Run openclaw doctor --fix after upgrading. If you skip this step, web search via xAI fails silently because the runtime reads from the new path while your configuration file still uses the old one.

v2026.4.26: Plugin config helpers deprecated. Older ad-hoc plugin configuration helpers were replaced by transactional mutation methods with explicit restart policies. Plugins using the deprecated helpers log warnings but continue to work during a transition period. Update your custom plugins when convenient, but this is not an emergency.

v2026.5.5: OpenAI Codex OAuth route regression. This version incorrectly converted openai-codex/* OAuth routes to openai/* paths, which broke GPT-5.5 configurations relying on OAuth-only authentication. Version 2026.5.6 reverted the change. If you upgraded to 2026.5.5 and noticed auth failures, run openclaw models set openai-codex/gpt-5.5 followed by openclaw config validate to restore proper routing.

v2026.6.1: Storage schema migration to SQLite. iMessage monitor state, inbound queues, and plugin install ledgers moved from JSON files to SQLite. This migration runs automatically on first startup after upgrading. It preserves existing data, but rolling back to a pre-6.1 version after running the migration means the old JSON stores will be out of sync with any changes made under SQLite.

The general pattern: run the diagnostics tool after every upgrade. It detects pending migrations, validates configuration schemas, and auto-fixes most issues. For major version jumps where you are skipping three or more releases, use the updater's dry-run mode first to preview what changes. If something goes wrong, the backup verification command checks whether your most recent backup is restorable.

For agents that persist files in external storage like Fast.io workspaces, breaking changes in OpenClaw do not affect stored data. Files, shares, and AI-indexed documents remain accessible through the Fast.io MCP server regardless of which OpenClaw version is running. This separation is valuable when you need to roll back an OpenClaw upgrade without losing agent output from the period between versions.

Keep agent files intact across OpenClaw upgrades

Fast.io workspaces persist independently of the OpenClaw process. Files, shares, and Intelligence Mode indexes survive every update and Gateway restart. Free 50 GB storage, no credit card, MCP-ready endpoint.

Sign Up Free

The recommended upgrade path starts with creating a backup of your local state, then running the built-in updater. The backup feature, available since v2026.3.8, archives your configuration, session data, and plugin manifests. The updater auto-detects your install type (npm global, git checkout, or platform package), fetches the target version, runs configuration migrations, and restarts the Gateway. Installation is staged: the new version is verified before swapping into the active prefix, so a failed verification leaves the previous version in place.

Choosing a channel. OpenClaw maintains three release channels:

• Stable (default): tagged releases published to npm, suitable for production
• Beta: prerelease tags for testing upcoming features before they hit stable
• Dev: tracks the main branch head, best for contributors

You can target a specific channel when upgrading. The updater also supports a dry-run mode that previews actions without applying them, and a JSON output mode for CI pipelines.

Migrating from another platform. Since v2026.4.26, the migration framework bundles importers for Claude Desktop and Hermes Agent configurations. It supports plan mode to preview what will transfer, dry-run mode to test without writing changes, and automatic backups before any modification.

Production upgrade checklist:

1. Create a backup to snapshot current state
2. Run the updater in dry-run mode to preview the target version and any pending migrations
3. Apply the upgrade
4. Run the diagnostics tool if the updater flags any issues
5. Verify the Gateway restarted successfully

For teams running agents that create files during operation, the Gateway restart introduces a brief window where agent tools are unavailable. Agents using external workspace storage continue to have access to their files once the Gateway comes back. Agents relying on local file storage in the runtime directory are not affected by the upgrade itself, but mid-operation tool calls will return errors during the restart.

The canonical changelog source is the OpenClaw GitHub releases page. Every tagged version includes a detailed changelog generated from merged pull requests, organized by category (features, fixes, platform-specific changes, provider updates).

The CHANGELOG.md file in the repository root mirrors the releases page as a single scrollable document. Both are maintained by the core team and updated at tag time.

For automated monitoring, the GitHub releases page supports RSS and Atom feeds. Subscribe to the releases Atom feed in any feed reader to get notified when a new version is tagged. This works well for teams that want a daily digest rather than real-time notifications.

Third-party tracking services like Releasebot aggregate release notes with summaries and version comparisons. These are useful for scanning multiple releases quickly when you have fallen behind, though the official GitHub page remains the authoritative source for any discrepancies.

The OpenClaw release policy documents how versioning works internally. It explains the beta-first release model, why the beta npm dist-tag sometimes points to a newer version than latest, and how correction releases (the -N suffix) differ from regular patches. Reading this page once gives you the mental model to interpret version numbers and channel states accurately.

A practical approach for production deployments: pin the stable channel, subscribe to the Atom feed for awareness, and review the changelog diff before each upgrade. Combine the updater's dry-run mode with a pre-upgrade backup so you always know what is changing and can roll back if needed. Pair this with workspace-level file persistence through the Fast.io free agent plan, which provides 50 GB of storage and MCP access, so agent files, shares, and Intelligence Mode indexes remain available regardless of which OpenClaw version is running or whether the Gateway is mid-restart.