[Release] openclaw/openclaw v2026.5.22: openclaw 2026.5.22

OpenClaw v2026.5.22 is a performance and stability release focused on optimizing Gateway startup, improving plugin metadata caching, and lazy-loading unused components. The release includes extensive documentation updates across channels, configuration, and troubleshooting; new features like meeting-notes plugin support and enhanced session management; and QA improvements including observability enhancements and runtime parity audits. Dependencies are refreshed and several SDK contracts are added for embeddings and session workflows.

Key Points

• •Gateway performance: Reuse process-stable channel catalogs, immutable plugin metadata snapshots, and lazy-load startup-idle plugin work to reduce startup time and CPU overhead
• •Plugin SDK enhancements: Add generic channel-message poll sender, row-level session workflow helpers, and embeddingProviders capability contract for reusable provider surfaces
• •Meeting-notes plugin: New source-only external plugin with auto-start capture, manual transcript imports, Discord voice support, and read-only CLI access
• •Documentation expansion: Comprehensive updates to Signal, Telegram, Termux, Gemini, macOS, WhatsApp, cron, Slack, Feishu, and Chinese language guidance across 10+ documentation commits
• •Sub-agent context limiting: Restrict default bootstrap context to AGENTS.md and TOOLS.md only, excluding persona and identity files from delegated workers
• •QA-Lab improvements: Extend OpenTelemetry smoke harness, add Prometheus observability aliases, curated JSONL replay fixtures, and 100-turn runtime parity soak testing
• •Control UI enhancements: Add search and pagination to chat session picker for bounded initial loads while maintaining access to older conversations
• •xAI/Grok integration: Reuse OAuth profiles for web_search, thread active-agent auth, add model aliases, and support provider-declared operation timeouts
• •Package optimization: Exclude documentation images from npm tarball, run integrity checks before package acceptance, and reduce published package size
• •CLI onboarding: Start classic onboarding when bare `openclaw` runs before config exists, improving first-time user experience

Workflow Diagram

Concepts