OpenClaw Development Digest: Plugin Discovery, Streaming Fixes, and Enhanced Stability

OpenClaw continues its rapid development pace, with a recent 6-hour window showcasing a flurry of merged Pull Requests focused on enhancing stability, refining user experience, and laying groundwork for future features. This digest delves into the key changes, from crucial bug fixes impacting plugin discoverability and streaming API responsiveness to improvements in agent memory management and CLI robustness. Understanding these updates is vital for developers and operators to leverage OpenClaw effectively and ensure smooth operations.

TheThe updates collectively address several user pain points, ranging from frustrating 'Unsupported channel' errors for npm-installed plugins to silent failures in streaming API interactions and opaque error messages in CLI operations. By tackling these issues, OpenClaw aims to provide a more reliable, transparent, and developer-friendly platform.

Merged PRs

• PR #77269 · fix(plugins): forward install records to channel catalog registry
• PR #77754 · fix: avoid duplicate media completion fallback
• PR #77794 · [codex] Flush initial OpenAI chat stream chunk
• PR #77938 · [codex] consolidate moved docs pages
• PR #77839 · fix(agents): persist embedded session JSONL transcripts (#77823)
• PR #77015 · fix(agent-reply): surface CLI subprocess timeout copy (fixes #77007)
• PR #76362 · fix(postinstall): skip EACCES/EPERM compile cache prune warnings
• PR #77840 · fix(embed): arm lastBlockReplyText only after block reply emission
• PR #76359 · fix(memory-core): dreaming daily ingestion across calendar days
• PR #77488 · Harden config backup restore permissions
• PR #73566 · fix(cli): handle closed plugin uninstall prompt
• PR #74867 · feat(gateway): add SDK environment discovery RPCs
• PR #77845 · fix(update): stop dev updates after fetch failure

Key Changes

The recent merges primarily focus on critical bug fixes, improving user experience, and enhancing the platform's reliability and security. A new feature also expands the SDK's capabilities for environment discovery.

Critical Bug Fixes and Stability Improvements

Several PRs address long-standing or recently introduced regressions that impacted core functionality and user workflows:

• Plugin Discovery for npm-installed Channels (#77269): This crucial fix resolves a regression where openclaw plugins install <npm-spec> channels were not discoverable by the CLI (openclaw channels add or login). The root cause was listChannelCatalogEntries failing to forward installRecords to the plugin discovery mechanism. This meant third-party npm-installed channels were effectively unreachable, leading to Unsupported channel: <id> errors. The fix ensures that the install ledger is consulted, making all installed plugins accessible.

• OpenAI Chat Stream Liveness (#77794): Addresses a bug where streaming POST /v1/chat/completions requests would return SSE headers but no body bytes until the first assistant delta or final result. This could cause OpenAI-compatible clients to hit idle timeouts. The fix ensures an immediate assistant role chunk is sent, improving client compatibility and perceived responsiveness, especially during cold agent setup.

• Embedded Session Transcript Persistence (#77839): Corrects a regression introduced in 2026.5.3+ where assistant replies for embedded-runtime sessions (e.g., webchat, Feishu) were not persisted to session JSONL transcripts. This led to models re-answering old prompts. The fix extends the persistCliTurnTranscript path to correctly handle `runner: