OpenClaw 2026.9.4: Skills, Plugins, and Safer Updates

v2026.9.4, published on September 11, is the latest stable release covered by this notebook. It puts bundled and ClawHub plugins in one Control UI workspace, makes skill learning from past work visible, prepares eligible cloud sessions, adds terminal questions, and introduces GPT Image 2.5 variants.

Plugins and skills become easier to inspect

The unified Plugins workspace can discover, install, configure, and manage bundled and ClawHub plugins. Skill learning opens in a normal session that you can inspect and continue. That is a better review surface than a background process that quietly edits instructions.

Keep the permission question separate from the discovery question. Finding a plugin is not approval to give it file, network, or messaging access.

Prepared cloud work has a cost

Eligible local Git projects and public GitHub repositories can use prepared workers and reusable snapshots. Ready workers consume provider machine time until deleted, and private repository-only sessions or paired devices remain outside this preparation flow. Check the profile and the billing boundary before leaving a worker warm.

Updates can roll back, within limits

Compatible schema-neutral update failures can restore the retained package, configuration, and service after checks prove rollback is safe. Database migrations and incompatible changes still require a verified backup; a rollback path is not a substitute for one.

openclaw doctor
openclaw gateway status
openclaw security audit

The release also supports interactive terminal questions and GPT Image 2.5 Flare and Sunburst variants through supported providers. Read the complete release notes, especially the sections on rollback, cloud workers, and plugin SDK migrations.