release aidev BREAKING PRERELEASE SIG 4/5

OpenClaw 2026.7.1-beta.1: new providers, GPT-5.6 default, Control UI rework

First beta of 2026.7.1. Adds Featherless, Claude Sonnet 5, Mythos 5, Meta Muse Spark 1.1 and ClawRouter, makes GPT-5.6 the default for new setups, reworks the Control UI around sessions, adds a native macOS chat app and agent-loop onboarding, and hardens startup with control-plane-safe mode after repeated unclean boots. Slack lifecycle reaction updates now require messages.statusReactions.enabled: true — existing installs relying on them must opt in. The upstream note is truncated mid-entry.

PUBLISHED2026-07-02
OBSERVED2026-08-11
AGE1mo
SOURCES1
  • New providers/models: Featherless, Claude Sonnet 5, Mythos 5, Meta Muse Spark 1.1, ClawRouter; muse-spark-1.1 ships as a bundled Responses API provider with streaming, tool calls and encrypted reasoning replay, distributed standalone as @openclaw/meta-provider
  • GPT-5.6 is the new-setup default; /think ultra for Sol and Terra, max for Luna; Z.AI max honoured; model availability refreshed after OAuth renewal
  • Control UI: sessions primary with searchable sidebar, compact context ring, reasoning-effort slider, customizable pinned destinations with Settings in the footer, GitHub issue/PR previews, Gateway host status (OS, runtime, uptime, CPU, memory, disk), cron model selection in Quick Create
  • Native macOS session browser: model and thinking pickers, slash commands, transcript export, context usage
  • Conversational onboarding (Crestodian) as a real agent loop across CLI, web install and macOS app; AI-guided provider setup, model-judged approvals bound to exact operations, masked credential prompts, deterministic fallback with no model
  • Mobile: bounded per-gateway offline session and transcript caches on iOS/Android (sending stays disabled offline, cached text purged on pairing reset), Apple Watch voice turns, iOS TTS playback via Gateway with on-device fallback, Android in-chat agent selector and fenced-code syntax highlighting
  • Sessions: generated titles via utility-model routing, Gateway-backed groups, unread state, rename, fork, archive, delete across web, iOS and Android
  • Telegram/Codex: private /login pairing, /steer and /tell on active runs, message preservation when transcript ack is missing, recovery across formatting and flood-wait failures
  • Startup: container migrations run before Gateway readiness, recoverable legacy state no longer blocks boot, control-plane-safe mode after repeated unclean starts, EX_CONFIG exit for fatal config errors so systemd/launchd stop restart flapping
  • Slack: native assistant thread status and rotating loading messages by default; lifecycle reaction updates now gated behind messages.statusReactions.enabled: true
  • Logbook plugin (disabled by default): paired-node screen snapshots into a private timeline, daily standup and grounded Q&A
  • Operator-scoped tts.speak RPC (upstream note truncated here)

COMMUNITY

No curated reactions recorded for this event. Facts and takes are kept in separate layers — community context is added by hand, never blended into the record above.