Guide

OpenClaw v2026.4.23-beta.6: OpenAI, upgrade notes

April 24, 20264 min readUpdated September 11, 2026By OpenClawBlog Team

v2026.4.23-beta.6 arrived on 2026-04-24 with a change that matters during maintenance: openai. 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.

Channel
Pre-Release

Primary signals
Providers/OpenAI; Providers/OpenRouter; Image generation

Publication date
2026-04-24

Before the package changes

Providers/OpenAI

Evidence from the release. add image generation and reference-image editing through Codex OAuth, so openai/gpt-image-2 works without an OPENAI_API_KEY. Fixes #70703.

Operator reading. Treat Providers/OpenAI as a boundary change. Exercise one permitted request and one refused request with a test identity, then keep both decisions in the log.

Providers/OpenRouter

Evidence from the release. add image generation and reference-image editing through image_generate, so OpenRouter image models work with OPENROUTER_API_KEY. Fixes #55066 via #67668.

Operator reading. Check Providers/OpenRouter 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.

Image generation

Evidence from the release. let agents request provider-supported quality and output format hints, and pass OpenAI-specific background, moderation, compression, and user hints through the image_generate tool.

Operator reading. The safe reading of Image generation is operational: prove the model can answer the intended task, then force a bounded failure and verify that no side effect is repeated.

Codex harness

Evidence from the release. route native request_user_input prompts back to the originating chat, preserve queued follow-up answers, and honor newer app-server command approval amendment decisions.

Operator reading. Before widening access for Codex harness, replay a narrow allow and deny case. A readable denial and a revoked test credential are part of the acceptance record.

Details behind the headline

Codex harness/context-engine

redact context-engine assembly failures before logging, so fallback warnings do not serialize raw error objects.

Check Codex harness/context-engine 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.

Test this release without widening the boundary

Note the current version, host, provider, and workspace before exercising Providers/OpenAI.
Keep a tested backup beside the release record if the update can touch configuration, sessions, or a database.
Run a read-only prompt with a known answer and save provider, model, reasoning, and latency details.
Change only the candidate route, then confirm that a failed request returns a readable error and leaves the session intact.
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 security audit

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

Codex harness. route native request_user_input prompts back to the originating chat, preserve queued follow-up answers, and honor newer app-server command approval amendment decisions. Keep the reproduction and the post-fix result together in the acceptance record.

Codex harness/context-engine. redact context-engine assembly failures before logging, so fallback warnings do not serialize raw error objects. Record the failure that this correction addresses before declaring the upgrade complete.

Use the complete OpenClaw v2026.4.23-beta.6 release notes for the exact change list, then cross-check the official release index and the model provider reference before acting.