Guide

OpenClaw v2026.4.22: Model pricing, operator field notes

April 23, 20265 min readUpdated September 11, 2026By OpenClawBlog Team

The source record for v2026.4.22 names a provider, model, voice, or context change. This is an operator's reading of that record, with the exact source facts kept next to a bounded experiment rather than a generic feature list.

Treat this as a stable maintenance checkpoint and keep the release record beside the backup and rollback evidence. A release tag describes the project change. Your Gateway's provider, channel, platform, and account support should be recorded separately.

Channel
Stable

Primary signals
Providers/xAI; Providers/STT; TUI

Publication date
2026-04-23

A small field test

Providers/xAI

Evidence from the release. add image generation, text-to-speech, and speech-to-text support, including grok-imagine-image / grok-imagine-image-pro, reference-image edits, six live xAI voices, MP3/WAV/PCM/G.711 TTS formats, grok-stt audio transcription, and xAI realtime transcription for Voice Call streaming.

Operator reading. A catalog label for Providers/xAI is only the first signal. Confirm the account, endpoint, context limit, and tool policy that the running Gateway actually selected.

Providers/STT

Evidence from the release. add Voice Call streaming transcription for Deepgram, ElevenLabs, and Mistral, alongside the existing OpenAI and xAI realtime STT paths; ElevenLabs also gains Scribe v2 batch audio transcription for inbound media.

Operator reading. Providers/STT changes a capability choice, not automatically a billing or privacy agreement. Record provider, model id, context setting, and fallback behavior before changing a default.

TUI

Evidence from the release. add local embedded mode for running terminal chats without a Gateway while keeping plugin approval gates enforced.

Operator reading. Read TUI as an authorization checkpoint: prove who may act, what the action can reach, and how the rejected attempt is surfaced to the operator.

Thinking defaults/status

Evidence from the release. raise the implicit default thinking level for reasoning-capable models from legacy off/low fallback behavior to a safe provider-supported medium equivalent when no explicit config default is set, preserve configured-model reasoning metadata when runtime catalog loading is empty, and make /status report the same resolved default as runtime.

Operator reading. Thinking defaults/status changes a capability choice, not automatically a billing or privacy agreement. Record provider, model id, context setting, and fallback behavior before changing a default.

The details that affect a runbook

Gateway/model pricing

fetch OpenRouter and LiteLLM pricing asynchronously at startup and extend catalog fetch timeouts to 30 seconds, reducing noisy timeout warnings during slow upstream responses.

A catalog label for Gateway/model pricing is only the first signal. Confirm the account, endpoint, context limit, and tool policy that the running Gateway actually selected.

Operator checklist before rollout

Before touching persistent state, capture the version, host, provider, and workspace for Providers/xAI.
Read the linked release record and verify a backup whenever the change can alter configuration or session data.
Exercise the named capability with a non-sensitive prompt, including the fallback or refusal result if it occurs.
Force a timeout or provider fallback in a disposable session and verify that no side effect is repeated.
Close the test with the evidence attached, and do not widen the rollout while a behavior remains unexplained.

openclaw --version
openclaw gateway status
openclaw security audit

Keep the source trail attached

Close the loop with an explicit next action: keep the candidate isolated, proceed with the staged upgrade, or stop and investigate. Do not treat a green install as proof that the runtime path is correct.

Regression cases from the source

Thinking defaults/status. raise the implicit default thinking level for reasoning-capable models from legacy off/low fallback behavior to a safe provider-supported medium equivalent when no explicit config default is set, preserve configured-model reasoning metadata when runtime catalog loading is empty, and make /status report the same resolved default as runtime. Treat the fix as a boundary condition and retain the source wording beside your local result.

Gateway/model pricing. fetch OpenRouter and LiteLLM pricing asynchronously at startup and extend catalog fetch timeouts to 30 seconds, reducing noisy timeout warnings during slow upstream responses. Keep the reproduction and the post-fix result together in the acceptance record.

This page is a practical reading of the v2026.4.22 source record; the release index and model provider reference remain the references to use for migrations and support boundaries.