[Release] openclaw/openclaw v2026.5.22-beta.1: openclaw 2026.5.22-beta.1

OpenClaw v2026.5.22-beta.1 is a comprehensive release focused on documentation improvements, performance optimizations, and QA enhancements. Key updates include reducing package size by excluding documentation assets, improving model listing performance by ~4,100x through auth-state pre-warming, adding session pagination to the chat UI, and expanding QA-Lab test coverage with new runtime parity scenarios. The release also refines plugin SDK capabilities, updates dependencies including protobufjs to 8.4.0, and clarifies configuration guidance across multiple integrations (WhatsApp, Telegram, Discord, xAI/Grok, etc.).

Key Points

• •Performance boost: Pre-warm provider auth-state map at gateway startup, reducing model-listing call cost from ~20s to ~5ms (~4,100x improvement)
• •Package optimization: Exclude documentation images and assets from npm tarball to reduce published package size without affecting runtime functionality
• •UI/UX enhancement: Add search and Load More pagination to chat session picker for bounded initial loads while keeping older conversations accessible
• •Sub-agent context limiting: Restrict default sub-agent bootstrap context to AGENTS.md and TOOLS.md only, excluding persona/identity/memory files by default
• •Plugin SDK improvements: Add generic channel-message poll sender, row-level session workflow helpers, and embeddingProviders capability contract for reusable provider surfaces
• •Media handling refinement: Stop auto-probing Gemini CLI and use Antigravity CLI only as lower-priority fallback after configured provider APIs
• •QA-Lab expansion: Add curated mock JSONL replay fixtures, live-only runtime parity lanes, personal-agent failure recovery scenarios, and 100-turn runtime parity soak
• •Security hardening: Ship root npm package and OpenClaw plugins with generated shrinkwrap, support bundled plugin runtime dependencies, and require review for lockfile changes
• •Extensive documentation updates: Clarify onboarding paths, gateway troubleshooting, CLI markers, browser CDP diagnostics, and multi-platform setup (Android, macOS, Zalo, Chinese navigation)
• •Dependency updates: Refresh provider/plugin/UI packages, update protobufjs to 8.4.0, and carry Claude ACP completion patch forward to v0.36.1

Workflow Diagram

Concepts