Performance & Productivity
OpenClaw 2026.5.22 is a major efficiency update. We've eliminated bottlenecks in the Gateway's core handlers and introduced first-class support for managing meeting intelligence.
Performance: The 4,100x Speedup
We've performed a deep audit of the Gateway's hot paths, resulting in significant responsiveness improvements across the board.
- Auth Pre-warming: The provider auth-state map is now pre-warmed at startup, dropping /models call latency from seconds to milliseconds.
- Metadata Caching: Immutable plugin snapshots are reused across all metadata readers, avoiding thousands of redundant filesystem stats.
- Lazy Loading: Startup health checks no longer wait for unused handler trees or ACPX probes, leading to a much faster 'Ready' signal.
- Watchdog Profiling: Gateway CPU profiles are now automatically rotated to prevent benchmark artifacts from impacting long-term stability.
New: Meeting Notes Plugin
The new Meeting Notes plugin (available as an external source-only plugin) brings automated transcript management to OpenClaw.
- Discord Voice: Capture live transcripts directly from Discord voice channels with auto-start config.
- Dedicated CLI: Use
openclaw meeting-notesto access, import, and query your meeting history. - SDK Contract: A new source-provider contract allows developers to build integrations for Zoom, Meet, and other platforms.
Hardened Sub-agent Privacy
Delegating work to sub-agents is now safer by design.
- Context Limits: Default bootstrap context is restricted to
AGENTS.mdandTOOLS.md. - Privacy by Default: Persona (SOUL.md), User details (USER.md), and Memory files are excluded from workers unless explicitly requested.
- Lean Workers: Reduced context leads to faster sub-agent initialization and lower token costs.
UI & UX Improvements
The Control UI dashboard and CLI have received several quality-of-life updates.
- Chat Session Search: Quickly find specific conversations with the new search bar in the session picker.
- Load More Pagination: Browse your entire chat history without impacting initial dashboard performance.
- Grok Enhancements: Reuses xAI OAuth profiles for web search and adds first-class Grok model aliases.
- Signal & Telegram: Improved config support for Signal paths and Telegram wildcard topic defaults.
Notable Documentation Updates
- Cloud Onboarding: Clarified setup for Gemini CLI, Antigravity, and Voyage.
- Channel Recovery: Added troubleshooting for WhatsApp 408 errors and Slack ack reactions.
- macOS/Termux: Improved home fallback paths and accessibility grant guidance.
- Security: New guidance on secret-scanner-safe placeholder usage and config-preserving safety.
Upgrade Guide
Who should upgrade?
- Users with many plugins or models experiencing slow startup
- Teams using Discord voice for collaborative meetings
- Privacy-conscious users leveraging sub-agents for complex tasks
How to Upgrade
Update your installation via the terminal:
openclaw update
FAQ
How much faster is the new Gateway startup?
The 2026.5.22 release includes a pre-warmed model-auth map and lazy-loaded plugin handlers. Model listing calls that previously took ~20s now resolve in ~5ms, representing a 4,100x improvement in responsiveness for those hot paths.
What does the Meeting Notes plugin do?
It allows OpenClaw to capture and manage transcripts from meetings. It includes a dedicated CLI for meeting access and initial support for live Discord voice capture as a source.
How does Sub-agent Privacy work now?
By default, sub-agents now only receive AGENTS.md and TOOLS.md as bootstrap context. This keeps your personal notes, identity details, and memory files private from delegated workers unless you explicitly allow them.
What's new in the Control UI?
We've added a search bar and 'Load More' pagination to the chat session picker, making it much easier to find and resume older conversations without slowing down the initial dashboard load.
Need help from people who already use this stuff?
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