[Release] openclaw/openclaw v2026.4.12-beta.1: openclaw 2026.4.12-beta.1

OpenClaw v2026.4.12-beta.1 introduces significant improvements to plugin loading, memory recall, and dreaming functionality. Key changes include narrowing plugin activation to manifest-declared needs, improving QMD recall search telemetry, and fixing critical issues with memory retrieval, dreaming narrative cleanup, and gateway authentication. The release also expands documentation for providers and memory-wiki setups while addressing numerous edge cases in CLI updates, Unicode handling, and WebSocket keepalive mechanisms.

Key Points

• •Plugin loading now respects manifest-declared scope boundaries, centralizing policy to avoid loading unrelated plugin runtimes and improving startup performance
• •Default QMD recall improved with better search-path telemetry for more predictable memory-backed recall out of the box
• •Fixed CLI update failures by respawning plugin refresh from updated entrypoint after package self-updates
• •Memory recall now stays on resolved channel when wrappers are enabled, with improved lexical fallback ranking and hybrid search consistency
• •Dreaming system hardened with exact-once heartbeat consumption, improved narrative cleanup with retry logic, and prevention of self-ingestion of transcripts
• •Unicode support enhanced in wiki slugs and filenames with proper character preservation and safe byte-length capping
• •Gateway authentication security improved by blanking shipped example credentials and failing startup on placeholder tokens
• •WebSocket keepalive fixed to prevent slow clients from self-disconnecting during long-running work
• •Short-term recall now accepts nested daily notes while excluding generated dream reports to prevent self-promotion
• •Doctor command improved with warnings for orphaned agent directories and legacy config migration safety

Workflow Diagram

Concepts