OpenClaw v2026.2.17: Claude Sonnet 4.6 Support, 1M Context, Slack/Telegram Enhancements

OpenClaw released version 2026.2.17 on February 17, implementing over 100 changes including Claude Sonnet 4.6 support, 1M token context window beta, major Slack/Telegram improvements, iOS feature enhancements, and critical security fixes.

Claude Sonnet 4.6 and 1M Context Support

Sonnet 4.6 Integration

The release adds support for Claude Sonnet 4.6 via the anthropic/claude-sonnet-4-6 alias, with forward-compatible fallback when upstream catalogs still only expose Sonnet 4.5.

1M Token Context Window (Beta)

Opus/Sonnet models now support opt-in 1M token context window. Setting params.context1m: true in model parameters maps to the anthropic-beta: context-1m-2025-08-07 header.

This enables processing entire codebases, lengthy contracts, and dozens of research papers in a single request, significantly improving long-context reasoning performance.

Messaging Platform Enhancements

Slack Native Streaming

Implemented native single-message text streaming for Slack using chat.startStream/appendStream/stopStream. Reply threading aligns with replyToMode configuration, streaming is enabled by default, and falls back to normal delivery on failure.

Telegram Inline Button Styles

Added inline button style support (primary/success/danger) across message tool schema, Telegram action parsing, send pipeline, and runtime prompt guidance.

User message reactions are now surfaced as system events, with notification scope configurable via channels.telegram.reactionNotifications.

Subagent Functionality Expansion

/subagents spawn Command

Added /subagents spawn for deterministic subagent activation from chat commands, improving control over subagent initialization.

Enhanced Context Management

Subagents now preemptively guard accumulated tool-result context before model calls by truncating oversized outputs and compacting oldest tool-result messages to prevent context-window overflow crashes.

Explicit recovery guidance was added for [compacted: tool output removed to free context] and [truncated: output exceeded context limit] markers, instructing re-reading with smaller chunks instead of full-file cat.

Comprehensive iOS Improvements

Share Extension

Added iOS share extension that forwards shared URL/text/image content directly to gateway agent.request, with delivery-route fallback and optional receipt acknowledgements.

Talk Mode Enhancements

• Background Listening: Toggle keeps Talk Mode active while backgrounded (off by default for battery safety)
• Voice Directive Hint: Toggle for Talk Mode prompts to disable ElevenLabs voice-switching instructions, saving tokens when not needed
• Hardened Barge-in: Disables interrupt-on-speech when output route is built-in speaker/receiver, reducing false interruptions from local TTS bleed-through

Onboarding Improvements

Added QR-first onboarding wizard with setup-code deep link support, pairing/auth issue guidance, and device-pair QR generation improvements for Telegram/Web/TUI fallback flows.

Cron/Automation Feature Expansion

Webhook-Based Delivery

Separated per-job webhook delivery (delivery.mode = "webhook") from announce delivery. Enforces valid HTTP(S) webhook URLs with temporary legacy notify + cron.webhook fallback for stored jobs.

Schedule Stagger Control

Added deterministic default stagger for recurring top-of-hour cron schedules (including 6-field seconds cron). Auto-migrates existing jobs to persisted schedule.staggerMs and adds openclaw cron add/edit --stagger plus --exact overrides for per-job timing control.

Usage Telemetry

Logs per-run model/provider usage telemetry in cron run logs/webhooks, with a local usage report script for aggregating token usage by job.

Security Fixes

OC-09 Credential Theft Path

Fixed OC-09 credential-theft path via environment-variable injection.

Config $include Confinement

Confined $include resolution to the top-level config directory, hardened traversal/symlink checks with cross-platform-safe path containment, and added doctor hints for invalid escaped include paths.

Session Transcript File Permissions

New session transcript JSONL files are created with user-only (0o600) permissions. Extended openclaw security audit --fix to remediate existing transcript file permissions.

Tool Functionality Improvements

read Tool Auto-Paging

The read tool now auto-pages across chunks when no explicit limit is provided, scaling per-call output budget from model contextWindow so larger contexts can read more before context guards activate.

Web Search/Fetch URL Allowlists

Added URL allowlists for web_search and web_fetch to address security and compliance requirements.

Browser Launch Customization

Added extraArgs config for custom Chrome launch arguments, enabling advanced browser control including headless mode and sandbox disabling.

Discord/Mattermost/Feishu Improvements

Discord

• Exposed native /exec command options (host/security/ask/node) for autocomplete and structured inputs
• Added support for reusable interactive components with components.reusable=true
• Implemented per-button allowedUsers allowlist to restrict button clicks

Mattermost

Added emoji reaction actions plus reaction event notifications, including explicit boolean remove flag to avoid accidental removals.

Feishu

Added Bitable create-app/create-field tools for automation workflows.

Memory Search Enhancement

Added FTS (full-text search) fallback plus query expansion for memory search, improving semantic search accuracy and providing alternative search paths for low-relevance hits.

Provider Support Expansion

Z.AI

Enabled tool_stream by default for real-time tool call streaming, with opt-out via params.tool_stream: false.

OpenAI Codex CLI

Added OpenAI Codex CLI auth provider integration.

Ollama/Qwen

Handles Qwen 3 reasoning field format in Ollama responses.

Docker/Infrastructure Improvements

Added optional OPENCLAW_INSTALL_BROWSER build arg to preinstall Chromium + Xvfb in the Docker image, avoiding runtime Playwright installs.

Key Bug Fixes (Selected)

Reply Threading Consistency

Maintains reply context sticky across streamed/split chunks and preserves replyToId on all chunk sends across shared and channel-specific delivery paths (including iMessage, BlueBubbles, Telegram, Discord, and Matrix), ensuring follow-up bubbles stay attached to the same referenced message.

Telegram Streaming Stability

• Keeps draft-stream preview replies attached to the user message for replyToMode: "all" in groups and DMs
• Prevents streaming final replies from being overwritten by later final/error payloads
• Debounces first draft-stream preview update with 30-char threshold

Cron Job Loop Fix

Prevents spin loops when cron jobs complete within the scheduled second by advancing the next run and enforcing a minimum refire gap.

Gateway Auto-Update Improvements

Prevents restart crash loops after failed self-updates by restarting only on successful updates, stopping early on failed install/build steps, and running openclaw doctor --fix during updates to sanitize config.

Migration and Compatibility

This release contains no breaking changes, but note the following:

1. Session Transcript Files: New files are created with 0o600 permissions
2. Cron Schedules: Existing jobs are automatically migrated to stagger settings
3. Discord Commands: Numeric IDs are converted to string IDs (doctor auto-repairs)

Contributors

This release includes 100+ PRs from 60+ contributors. Key contributors:

• @tyler6204 - Subagent, BlueBubbles, Reply Threading improvements
• @mbelinky - iOS (Share Extension, Talk Mode, Onboarding)
• @obviyus - Telegram (streaming, button styles, threading)
• @thewilloftheshadow - Discord improvements
• @natedenh - Slack streaming
• @aether-ai-agent - Security fixes (OC-09, Config $include)

Availability

OpenClaw v2026.2.17 is available from the official GitHub releases page:

• GitHub: https://github.com/openclaw/openclaw/releases/tag/v2026.2.17
• Update Command: openclaw update

Recommendations for Existing Users:

1. Back up configuration before updating
2. Run openclaw doctor --fix to validate configuration
3. Update promptly due to included security fixes (OC-09)

Assessment

This release demonstrates OpenClaw’s maturity with a comprehensive update. Claude Sonnet 4.6 support and 1M context window directly improve long-context reasoning performance. Slack/Telegram enhancements facilitate enterprise adoption, while iOS improvements significantly enhance mobile user experience.

The inclusion of security fixes (OC-09) is particularly important, warranting prompt updates for existing users. Despite containing 100+ changes, the release avoids breaking changes, demonstrating careful attention to backward compatibility.

Source: OpenClaw GitHub Releases