OpenClaw v2026.5.19-beta.2 Release Summary

OpenClaw v2026.5.19-beta.2 focuses on improving the developer experience for containerized deployments and providing deeper observability into the Gateway's startup sequence. By refining how system packages are handled during image builds and instrumenting the ACPX startup probe, this release provides maintainers and users with better tools for optimization and deployment flexibility.

Key Changes

Container Infrastructure Improvements

To better support a variety of container runtimes, OpenClaw has introduced a more generic approach to handling additional system packages during image builds.

• New Build Argument: OPENCLAW_IMAGE_APT_PACKAGES is now the preferred environment variable for specifying extra apt packages. This replaces the Docker-specific naming convention to ensure the build process is runtime-neutral, benefiting users of both Docker and Podman.
• Backward Compatibility: The legacy OPENCLAW_DOCKER_APT_PACKAGES variable remains supported as a fallback. If both are provided, OPENCLAW_IMAGE_APT_PACKAGES takes precedence.

Enhanced ACPX Observability

This release introduces detailed instrumentation for the ACPX startup probe within Gateway restart traces. Previously, the time spent on the ACPX startup probe was aggregated under a broad "plugin-service" cost, making it difficult to pinpoint the exact cause of startup delays.

• Precise Attribution: The startup probe cost is now attributed to ACPX-owned subspans. This includes specific instrumentation for configuration loading, filesystem access, runtime creation, and backend registration.
• Resource Metrics: Restart traces now include resource-count metrics, providing a clearer picture of the overhead associated with the ACPX startup sequence.
• No Behavioral Change: These changes are strictly for observability; the ACPX startup probe remains enabled by default and is still awaited before the Gateway is marked as ready.

Dependency and Core Updates

• Node.js Requirement: The minimum supported Node.js 22 line has been raised to 22.19.
• Package Updates:
  • @openclaw/proxyline updated to 0.3.3.
  • Pi packages updated to 0.75.1.
• Agent Guidelines: Updated internal guidance to emphasize that fixes should prioritize clean bounded refactors, lean internals, and explicit deprecation paths for the plugin SDK/API.

Impact

For most users, this is a transparent update. However, developers and platform engineers will see the following impacts:

• Infrastructure: Users deploying via Podman or other non-Docker runtimes will find the new OPENCLAW_IMAGE_APT_PACKAGES variable more intuitive and consistent with the project's runtime-agnostic goals.
• Debugging: Maintainers diagnosing Gateway startup performance can now use detailed trace keys (e.g., sidecars.plugin-services.acpx.acpx-runtime.probe.availability) to identify exactly where time is being spent during the ACPX initialization phase.