🎉 OpenClaw 2026.1.29: A Major Milestone Release

The OpenClaw team is thrilled to announce the stable release of version 2026.1.29, packed with transformative updates that enhance security, streamline operations, and expand platform integrations. This release marks a significant evolution in the project's maturity and capabilities.

🎨 Strategic Rebranding Initiative

Unified Package Identity

OpenClaw undergoes a comprehensive rebranding effort with the npm package and CLI renamed to openclaw. A compatibility shim ensures smooth transitions for existing users, while all extensions now reside under the @openclaw/* scope for better organization and discoverability.

🔒 Security Enhancements

Strengthened Onboarding and Access Control

Security takes center stage with enhanced warning copy during beta onboarding and clearer communication about access control expectations. The Venice API key integration in non-interactive flows adds another layer of security automation.

Gateway Authentication Improvements

The gateway now warns users when hook tokens appear in query parameters, with documentation emphasizing header-based authentication as the preferred method. A new dangerous Control UI device auth bypass flag includes comprehensive audit warnings to prevent unauthorized access.

Proactive Security Monitoring

The Doctor tool now warns administrators about gateway exposure without proper authentication, helping teams identify and remediate potential vulnerabilities before they become issues.

⚙️ Configuration and Infrastructure

Smart Config Migration

Legacy state and config paths are now automatically migrated, with consistent config resolution across legacy filenames. This eliminates manual migration headaches and ensures smooth upgrades.

Browser Control Routing

Browser control has been refactored to route through the gateway and node infrastructure, removing standalone browser control commands. The browser.request now intelligently routes via node proxies when available, honoring proxy timeouts and deriving browser ports from gateway configuration.

📱 Telegram Integration: Feature-Rich Messaging

Media and Rich Content Support

Telegram users now enjoy enhanced media capabilities with caption parameters for media sends, sticker receive/send functionality with vision caching, and the ability to send sticker pixels directly to vision models for better AI understanding.

Advanced Message Editing

Messages can now be edited after sending via the message(action="edit") command, and quote replies are supported for both the message tool and inbound context, enabling more natural conversations.

Streaming and Notifications

The platform avoids blocking replies when streaming is disabled, supports optional silent send flags to disable notifications, and maintains topic IDs in restart sentinel notifications for better conversation continuity.

Plugin Integration

Plugin SDK enhancements include support for sendPayload channelData with media and buttons, along with comprehensive plugin command validation.

💬 Discord, Slack, and Matrix Enhancements

Discord Improvements

Discord integration now offers configurable privileged gateway intents for presences and members, giving administrators fine-grained control over bot permissions.

Slack Optimization

The acknowledgment reaction is now cleared after streamed replies, providing a cleaner user experience.

Matrix Migration

Matrix support has been upgraded to use the modern @vector-im/matrix-bot-sdk plugin SDK.

🛠️ Agent and Tool Improvements

Enhanced Tool Management

Per-sender group tool policies have been added with proper precedence handling, enabling more granular control over tool access. The exec tool now honors tools.exec.safeBins in allowlist checks, and the cron tool description has been expanded with full schema documentation.

Message Handling

Dropped messages are now summarized during compaction safeguard pruning, providing better visibility into message processing.

Memory and Skills

Memory search now supports extra paths for indexing while ignoring symlinks. The Nano Banana Pro skill gains multi-image input support, and missing dependency metadata has been added for GitHub, Notion, Slack, and Discord integrations.

🌐 Additional Platform Support

Tlon Integration

Thread reply IDs are now formatted as @ud for better compatibility with Tlon's messaging system.

✨ What's Next?

This stable release represents the culmination of extensive community contributions and rigorous testing. With rebranding complete, security hardened, and multi-platform capabilities expanded, OpenClaw is positioned for broader adoption and more sophisticated use cases.

Upgrade today to experience the enhanced security, improved integrations, and streamlined operations that OpenClaw 2026.1.29 delivers.