OpenClaw v2026.4.12-beta.1: Plugins/loading, upgrade notes

v2026.4.12-beta.1 arrived on 2026-04-12 with a change that matters during maintenance: plugins/loading. The page is a researched reading note from the official release record, with a test path for a real Gateway.

The tag is pre-release: keep it isolated from a production Gateway and compare it with the stable line before making it a default. Support still depends on the provider, channel, platform, and account behind the installation, so check those boundaries before extrapolating from the tag.

Before the package changes

Plugins/loading

What changed. narrow CLI, provider, and channel activation to manifest-declared needs, preserve explicit scope and trust boundaries, and centralize manifest-owner policy so startup, command discovery, and runtime activation avoid loading unrelated plugin runtime.

Check it with. The useful evidence for Plugins/loading is the refusal path as well as the success path. Use synthetic credentials and record the policy that made each decision.

Memory/active-memory

What changed. default QMD recall to search and surface better search-path telemetry so memory-backed recall works more predictably out of the box.

Check it with. A successful click does not establish Memory/active-memory. Compare the state before and after a reload, then verify that a user can tell what happened without reading internal logs.

Docs/providers

What changed. expand bundled provider docs with richer capability, env-var, and setup guidance across provider pages.

Check it with. Check Docs/providers with a known prompt and a disposable account. Save the selected route, reasoning setting, latency, and refusal or fallback result so another operator can reproduce it.

CLI/update

What changed. respawn tracked plugin refresh from the updated entrypoint after package self-updates so openclaw update stops failing on stale hashed dist/install.runtime-*.js chunk imports.

Check it with. A visible plugin card is not approval for CLI/update. Inspect the source and run one allowed and one refused operation before changing a shared Gateway.

Details behind the headline

Memory/active-memory

keep recall runs on the resolved channel when wrappers like mx-claw are enabled, improve lexical fallback ranking, and keep lexical boosts out of hybrid search so recall finds the right memories more consistently.

Memory/active-memory lives at the handoff between the Gateway and a conversation. Send one harmless message, reconnect once, and compare the account, thread, sender, and final transcript.

Test this release without widening the boundary

1. Note the current version, host, provider, and workspace before exercising Plugins/loading.
2. Keep a tested backup beside the release record if the update can touch configuration, sessions, or a database.
3. Send one harmless message through the named account and save the account, thread, and sender identifiers.
4. Compare the transcript before and after reconnect, including delivery state and any visible error.
5. Stop if the observed behavior falls outside the official note, and link the log or screenshot to the version record.

openclaw --version
openclaw gateway status
openclaw models

Record what the release actually changed

Keep the version, source URL, test identity, and rollback decision together. If this tag is pre-release, leave it isolated; if it is stable, record the migration and rollback result before reconnecting every channel.

Corrections worth replaying

CLI/update. respawn tracked plugin refresh from the updated entrypoint after package self-updates so openclaw update stops failing on stale hashed dist/install.runtime-*.js chunk imports. Keep the reproduction and the post-fix result together in the acceptance record.

Memory/active-memory. keep recall runs on the resolved channel when wrappers like mx-claw are enabled, improve lexical fallback ranking, and keep lexical boosts out of hybrid search so recall finds the right memories more consistently. Record the failure that this correction addresses before declaring the upgrade complete.

Use the complete OpenClaw v2026.4.12-beta.1 release notes for the exact change list, then cross-check the official release index and the session concepts before acting.