# OpenClaw beta 2026.8.1: secret egress binding, GPT-5.6 Ultra support, SQLite snapshots, macOS app profiles, plugin provenance warnings

> A feature-dense beta release. Secrets are now bound to explicit HTTPS destinations so unbound substitution fails closed. Adds GPT-5.6 Ultra (Sol/Terra/Luna) with atomic runtime switching across OpenClaw and Codex engines. Introduces SQLite backup snapshots with verify/restore, macOS app profiles for instance isolation, plugin install provenance warnings requiring --force for untrusted sources, CDP relay for external Puppeteer clients, Fish Audio speech synthesis, and multiple Control UI improvements including update recovery, sender identity, and who's-online roster.

| | |
|---|---|
| **Tool** | OpenClaw |
| **Version** | v2026.8.1-beta.2 |
| **Kind** | release |
| **Published** | 2026-08-15 |
| **Observed** | 2026-08-21 |
| **Significance** | 4/5 |
| **Breaking** | no |
| **Categories** | feature, security, model-support, capability |

## What changed


- **Security:** shared-store secrets now bound to exact HTTPS destination hosts; unbound use fails closed.
- **Models:** GPT-5.6 Ultra support across Sol/Terra/Luna runtimes, atomic model/runtime/thinking switching via `/model`.
- **Channel plugins:** shared plugin SDK lifecycle monitor for ingress admission, polling, pruning, claim validation, and shutdown; IRC, Synology Chat, Google Chat migrated.
- **Backup:** `openclaw backup sqlite create|list|verify|restore` for compact, verified snapshots.
- **macOS profiles:** named app instances isolated across state, preferences, Keychain, and Gateway services; host-global services unaffected.
- **Plugin install:** arbitrary executable sources require explicit `--force`; trusted ClawHub/bundled/official/tracked flows unchanged.
- **Control UI:** update Reload button now waits for gateway restart before refreshing; sender identity shows real avatars and drops opaque UUID suffixes; clickable who's-online roster in sidebar footer.
- **Browser relay:** CDP relay answers `Target.getBrowserContexts` and serves `/json/list` descriptors for Puppeteer-based clients; `openclaw browser extension cdp` prints endpoint and auth header.
- **Local models:** provider-owned Ollama/llama.cpp/LM Studio setup advertised to Control UI; model verified before success shown.
- **Speech:** hosted Fish S2.1 streaming synthesis and voice discovery, plus local S2 Pro reference-voice streaming in macOS Talk.
- **Developer workflow:** obsolete scoped-commit helper removed; plugin uninstall cleans exact recorded install paths without touching parent/child/unrelated paths.
- **Crabbox:** falls back to user-writable pnpm store when shared cache unavailable; Docker made explicit routed capability.


## Sources

- [github_release](https://github.com/openclaw/openclaw/releases/tag/v2026.8.1-beta.2) — retrieved 2026-08-21


## Community

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Canonical: https://changelogs.info/openclaw/v2026-8-1-beta-2
Entity: https://changelogs.info/openclaw
Event ID: `evt_2026-08-15_openclaw_v2026-8-1-beta-2`
Licence: event synthesis © changelogs.info, CC BY 4.0. Linked sources belong to their vendors.