OpenClaw v2026.7.1-beta.1: New models and providers, operator field notes

The source record for v2026.7.1-beta.1 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.

Pre-release status matters here: stage the tag beside the stable package and do not infer support for every account or platform. A release tag describes the project change. Your Gateway's provider, channel, platform, and account support should be recorded separately.

A small field test

01 / New models and providers

Source signal. add Featherless, Claude Sonnet 5 and Mythos 5, Meta Muse Spark 1.1, and ClawRouter; make GPT-5.6 the new-setup default with /think ultra for Sol and Terra plus max for Luna, honor Z.AI max, and refresh model availability after OAuth renewal.

Treat New models and providers as a boundary change. Exercise one permitted request and one refused request with a test identity, then keep both decisions in the log.

02 / Control UI and native macOS chat

Source signal. make sessions primary with a minimal searchable sidebar, compact context ring, reasoning-effort slider, cleaner dashboard chrome, and a native macOS session browser with model and thinking pickers, slash commands, transcript export, and context usage.

Check Control UI and native macOS chat 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.

03 / Conversational onboarding

Source signal. Crestodian now runs a real agent-loop setup across the CLI, web install, and macOS app, with AI-guided provider setup, model-judged approvals bound to exact operations, masked credential prompts, and deterministic fallback when no model is available.

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

04 / Offline and spoken mobile chat

Source signal. iOS and Android now pre-paint bounded per-gateway session and transcript caches offline; Apple Watch gains full voice turns, and iOS can speak replies through configured Gateway TTS with on-device fallback.

Offline and spoken mobile chat 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

Session organization and generated titles

generate concise session titles through utility-model routing and add Gateway-backed groups, unread state, rename, fork, archive, and delete controls, plus group management across web, iOS, and Android.

Use Session organization and generated titles as a routing test: capture the destination before the send, interrupt the transport, and verify that retry logic did not duplicate or redirect the response.

Meta provider

add bundled muse-spark-1.1 Responses API support with streaming, tool calls, encrypted reasoning replay, onboarding, exact-model live validation, and standalone npm/ClawHub distribution as @openclaw/meta-provider.

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

Android chat agent selector

switch the active agent directly from the live chat screen while keeping chat, Talk mode, and home canvas on the same canonical session.

Test Android chat agent selector at the edges of the interface: clean start, reload, reconnect, and a refused or unavailable action. Keep the final screen and error message with the release note.

Operator checklist before rollout

1. Before touching persistent state, capture the version, host, provider, and workspace for New models and providers.
2. Read the linked release record and verify a backup whenever the change can alter configuration or session data.
3. Exercise the named capability with a non-sensitive prompt, including the fallback or refusal result if it occurs.
4. Force a timeout or provider fallback in a disposable session and verify that no side effect is repeated.
5. 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

Codex runtime switching. accept the bundled Codex runtime for both codex/* and openai/* model routes while keeping unsupported provider/runtime pairs rejected. Treat the fix as a boundary condition and retain the source wording beside your local result.

LM Studio and xAI repaired tool calls. emit the terminal tool-call event before completion when promoting serialized plain-text tool calls, preserving the complete streaming lifecycle for consumers. Keep the reproduction and the post-fix result together in the acceptance record.

This page is a practical reading of the v2026.7.1-beta.1 source record; the release index and model provider reference remain the references to use for migrations and support boundaries.