OpenClaw 2026.3.22: ClawHub, Plugin Cleanup, Sandbox Backends, And Model Surface Expansion
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OpenClaw 2026.3.22: ClawHub, Plugin Cleanup, Sandbox Backends, And Model Surface Expansion

Author: Alex Xiang

Artificial Intelligence

OpenClaw 2026.3.22: ClawHub, Plugin Cleanup, Sandbox Backends, And Model Surface Expansion

2026.3.22 first shipped as v2026.3.22-beta.1, with npm v2026.3.22-beta.1, and later the same day received the stable tag v2026.3.22. The beta notes repeat a delivery pattern similar to the previous release: the beta did not attach a new macOS app bundle, stable macOS assets still map to app version 2026.3.22, and appcast.xml intentionally did not change.

The stable release adds a long Fixes section on top of the beta, covering gateway startup paths, plugin graph splitting, safety, and channel edges. This article reads beta and stable together and groups the changes by theme rather than translating every bullet.

Breaking Changes And Migration

Plugin install source. A bare openclaw plugins install <name> now prefers ClawHub first. It falls back to npm only when ClawHub does not have the package or version. Safe npm package names follow the same resolution order. The official documentation is under ClawHub. This release also adds openclaw skills search|install|update and openclaw plugins install clawhub:... with tracking metadata, tying skill marketplace and CLI installation into one story.

Chrome and browser automation. The old Chrome extension relay is removed. driver: "extension", browser.relayBindHost, and bundled extension assets are gone. Local browsers should migrate to existing-session / user profiles, and the release recommends running openclaw doctor --fix. Docker, headless, sandboxed, and remote CDP paths still use native CDP. For Brave, Edge, and other Chromium-family browsers, browser.profiles.*.userDataDir can explicitly point existing-session profiles at each browser’s user-data directory.

Image generation. Built-in image_generate becomes the standard entry point. Old nano-banana-pro examples and bundled skills are removed. If you copied old sample configuration, move to agents.defaults.imageGenerationModel or install a third-party skill yourself. Native Gemini image routes can use configuration such as google/gemini-3-pro-image-preview.

Plugin SDK. The public surface is now openclaw/plugin-sdk/*. openclaw/extension-api is removed without a compatibility shim. Channel-side shared message tool discovery now requires ChannelMessageActionAdapter.describeMessageTool(...); old listActions, getCapabilities, and getToolSchema paths are removed. Matrix moves to a new plugin based on the official matrix-js-sdk, and existing users should follow the migration guide.

Configuration cleanup. Old CLAWDBOT_* / MOLTBOT_* environment names and automatic detection of the ~/.moltbot state directory are cleaned up. The direction is unified OPENCLAW_* names plus explicit OPENCLAW_STATE_DIR / OPENCLAW_CONFIG_PATH. The execution sandbox also blocks JVM, glibc, and .NET-related environment injection. Discord native slash commands now default to Carbon reconcile, reducing slash-command churn during restarts.

Other breaking changes include tighter body budgets and concurrency for unauthenticated voice/webhook paths, Matrix thread binding and dedup semantics, media replies moving to details.media, and usage statistics including resets plus deleted archived sessions. Before upgrading, it is worth checking the official Breaking section item by item.

Ecosystem And Installability

Claude Marketplace, plugin@marketplace install/update paths, listing, and Docker E2E coverage all push third-party skills and plugins closer to discoverable installable units. Codex / Claude / Cursor bundles can be discovered and installed, and skills inside bundles map into OpenClaw skills. Claude bundle settings.json defaults enter embedded Pi, with shell override cleanup.

Chat commands such as /plugins and /plugin, together with commands.plugins configuration, make daily plugin toggling possible without relying only on CLI commands.

The update channel also becomes more flexible: openclaw update --tag main, installer --version main, and npm/pnpm install from GitHub main support self-hosted users who want to track HEAD. Hooks installation and update go through openclaw plugins; openclaw hooks becomes more of a display and per-hook control surface.

The default OpenAI setup model moves to openai/gpt-5.4. Codex remains openai-codex/gpt-5.4. Defaults for chat, image, TTS, transcription, and embeddings are consolidated into one module, making future default changes less scattered.

Anthropic Vertex enters core routing. Chutes, OpenRouter / GitHub Copilot / OpenAI Codex, and similar providers move further into bundled plugins, with dynamic fallback and auth exchange. Search and web tools such as Exa, Tavily, and Firecrawl are also bundled plugins, with configuration under plugins.entries.*.config.webSearch.*.

Model catalog and pricing metadata for MiniMax, xAI Grok, Z.AI GLM, Mistral, Xiaomi, and others follow upstream Pi SDK updates. Per-agent thinking, reasoning, and fast defaults are supported, and illegal overrides automatically fall back to agent-level defaults.

Sandbox, Browser, And Runtime

The sandbox story shifts from “almost Docker” to pluggable backends. Built-ins include OpenShell, with mirror and remote workspace modes, and a core SSH sandbox where keys, certificates, and known_hosts are handled through Secret. Commands such as list, recreate, and prune now route by backend instead of assuming containers.

On the browser side, besides userDataDir, launch no longer forces an extra blank tab. This small change matters for automation scripts that were confused by an unexpected about:blank.

Interaction, Control UI, And Mobile

/btw adds a side question inside the current session without polluting later context. It can be collapsed in TUI, and external channels get a clear BTW reply shape.

Control UI gains chat bubbles that expand into a canvas, direct jumps from Sessions/Cron into conversations, unified roundness, a Roundness slider, and another round of Usage-area responsive cleanup. Android gains system-level dark theme support, Talk synthesis moves to gateway talk.speak so keys remain in the gateway, and call-log / SMS search capabilities continue to grow.

Channels And Integrations

Telegram now threads custom Bot API apiRoot through send, probe, doctor, and media download paths. Forum topic first messages can be named by an LLM, and options such as topic-edit and silent error replies make operations more complete.

Feishu adds structured approval and shortcut-action cards, reasoning streams on streaming cards, and ACP/sub-session binding in certain conversation shapes. The general direction is to move enterprise IM channels from “can chat” to “can act.”

Gateway Reliability And Security Fixes

The Fixes section is worth reading separately. Gateway startup now prefers precompiled dist/extensions assets instead of loading extension TypeScript during compilation, pulling cold starts for some channels from tens of seconds back toward seconds. Channel and model catalog lazy loading, plus prewarming thread main models, avoid first-message Unknown model failures.

Security fixes cover structured local media paths triggering SMB handshakes on Windows, Bonjour/DNS-SD unresolved endpoints failing closed, pairing and device tokens, exec approval and jq safe-bin, webhook pre-auth and body limits, and more. These align with the same “trust less by default” direction seen in the breaking webhook changes.

Summary

OpenClaw 2026.3.22 pulls plugin and skill discovery, installation, and update into a ClawHub / marketplace / bundle chain. It also uses hard breaking changes to remove browser extension relay, old environment names, and old SDK surfaces. Models and search keep moving into plugins and synced catalogs. The sandbox layer gains pluggable backends. Compared with the beta, the stable release’s largest additions are around gateway startup path, plugin runtime graph splitting, and batches of security/channel fixes. Leave time for regression testing before upgrading.

References

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