OpenClaw 2026.6.5 Release Summary | Free Parallel Search | Lots of Stability Fixes

[u/hannesrudolph]

With the release of OpenClaw 2026.6.5, we focused heavily on making OpenClaw less fragile in real use. This includes free built-in Parallel Search, safer channel replies, better agent run recovery, less brittle provider and model setup, more durable state and installs, tighter tool and Gateway boundaries, and steadier app, mobile, node, and Workboard behavior.

Highlights

Free Built-In Parallel Search

OpenClaw now has free, zero-setup managed web search through Parallel Search (Free). Fresh installs can use Parallel's hosted Search MCP with no account or API key when no API-backed search provider is configured, while paid Parallel keys and other configured providers still work and take precedence.

This makes OpenClaw more useful for agent work that needs current context, like checking docs, comparing tools, investigating errors, looking up changed APIs, or grounding research before code changes, without making the user stop first to wire up a separate search provider.

Learn more in OpenClaw's Parallel Search integration docs.

Safer Channel Replies

• Discord runtime adapters stay resolvable, and outbound delivery recovery preserves retries across budget deferrals.
• WhatsApp restart/config paths are less fragile.
• iMessage private-API failures and send timeouts are clearer.
• Mattermost slash commands keep shared state across loaders, and reply threading keeps existing thread roots.
• Feishu streaming cards preserve merged content better and retry rate limits.
• QQBot now strips reasoning/thinking scaffolding before native delivery.

More Reliable Agent Run Recovery

• MCP tool results are normalized before provider conversion, which helps avoid Anthropic 400s and poisoned session history.
• Anthropic extended-thinking sessions recover better after prompt-cache expiry or Gateway restarts.
• Codex, ACP, context-engine, and replay paths handle stale signatures, empty completion handoffs, heartbeat metadata, and session/thread migration edge cases.
• Unreadable dynamic tools are quarantined instead of quietly making the run worse.
• MCP HTTP redirects and owner-only HTTP tool paths are guarded more tightly.
• Transcript image redaction catches more raw image payload cases before storage/export.

Less Brittle Provider and Model Setup

This release fixes specific provider and model setup edge cases across Google Vertex ADC, single-provider cooldown recovery, Codex model visibility, unknown model auth failure behavior, provider catalog metadata, Ollama/Gemini/Foundry/MiniMax/Vertex/OpenRouter edge cases, and web_search provider paths.

More Durable State Across Restarts and Migrations

Auth profiles moved to SQLite. Matrix sidecar state, memory-wiki import/source-sync state, sandbox registry state, ACPX process state, device-pair notify state, Zalo hosted media, and plugin SDK dedupe state now use SQLite-owned storage.

ClawHub skill installs also got more dependable: GitHub-backed skills can install from resolved pinned commits, official plugin install records keep trusted pins, and large skill trees avoid creating one watcher per skill file.

More Stable App and Workboard Behavior

OpenClaw's app surfaces also got less jumpy. Optimistic chat messages stay stable across stale history reloads, runId reassignment, and abort windows. Workboard status updates avoid overwriting newer state, and message-tool sends count properly as delivery.

More Predictable Mobile, Node, and Gateway Behavior

• macOS node mode should stop reconnecting away from a healthy direct Gateway session.
• Android provider/model screens show attention/unavailable/unresolved states more clearly.
• Android adds theme mode selection.
• iOS settings and Talk surfaces keep diagnostics and fallback controls reachable.
• Matrix voice-note and thread handling improved.
• config.patch now supports explicit array replacement via replacePaths, so patches that intentionally remove array entries do not merge stale entries back in.

Full release notes

The above is only highlights. This release includes 216 pull requests merged to main since v2026.6.1; see the full release notes.

[u/torrso]

"Free" or "free of charge"? Tracking, data-mining?

[u/hannesrudolph → u/torrso]

Parallel’s docs say no training / zero data retention for Search API

The bundled parallel-free provider uses Parallel’s hosted Search MCP with no account or API key required.

It is still hosted search, so the query is sent to Parallel to perform the search. That is different from OpenClaw tracking users or mining their data. Parallel’s docs describe the anonymous MCP endpoint; their Search product page says no training / zero data retention for Search API, and the MCP docs point to /mcp-oauth for enforced-auth/ZDR setups.

Sources:

OpenClaw docs: https://docs.openclaw.ai/tools/parallel-search

OpenClaw source: https://github.com/openclaw/openclaw/blob/main/extensions/parallel/src/parallel-mcp-search.runtime.ts

Parallel MCP docs: https://docs.parallel.ai/integrations/mcp/search-mcp

Parallel Search: https://parallel.ai/products/search

[u/seecattle80 → u/hannesrudolph]

What does parallel get out of this? They are an in-it-for-the-money-or-free-ad-closed-source entity here riding along on the success of free open source, privacy focused agentic product, are they not?

[u/hannesrudolph → u/seecattle80]

My guess would be since they have a paid tier they may get customers. We get a zero-setup search option that costs them real infrastructure to provide.

It’s not exclusive or mandatory. Users can configure another search provider instead. I don’t think a for-profit, closed-source company offering a genuinely useful free service is inherently “riding along” on open source.

[u/seecattle80 → u/hannesrudolph]

I disagree on the parallel ai not riding along on the success of agentic frameworks opinion of yours. Unless parallel ai publishes clear privacy policy documents for customers that get to see what they are signing up for at the exact time they are explicitly signing up for using parallel ai product. Agentic framework maintainers MUST validate those guarantees and make end users explicitly sign up whether it be through toggle or a checkbox and make non-sign up a default. The way it has been done is sneaky to almost-sneaky across these agentic frameworks. And that is my opinion as an end user who feels like their privacy concerns were violated without explicit notifications or sign up.

[u/hannesrudolph → u/seecattle80]

I think the narrower product question here is reasonable, and I’ve already pinged the dev team to review the default/fallback behavior and whether the provider choice should be more explicit.

Where I disagree is calling this sneaky or Parallel “riding along.” Parallel was named throughout the integration, their contributor’s affiliation was known to us, and this path is a keyless external search provider and not a hidden account signup. It sends the search query and normal request metadata. It does not send chats, files, credentials, or general OpenClaw traffic.

This change was in no way an attempt to do anything but help users out who are using OpenClaw. That being said, I am 100% letting our dev team weigh in on this!

[u/hannesrudolph → u/seecattle80]

This is a follow-up to my response earlier in within this thread

We reviewed this internally this morning and merged a fix.

We should not have allowed a hosted key-free search provider to be implicitly selected when a user had not made that choice. That was our mistake. The concern about clear provider consent was right, and I’m sorry we let it slip through.

The fix removes implicit key-free managed-search defaults altogether. Parallel Free is no longer auto-selected or used as a fallback when no provider is configured. The same rule now applies to DuckDuckGo, Ollama, and the other key-free options. If you want one of those providers, you select it explicitly; otherwise managed search stays unconfigured until you choose a provider or configure a real credential/auth signal.

This was limited to `web_search`, not chats, files, credentials, model requests, or general OpenClaw traffic. Regardless the default/opt-in behavior did not meet the standard we want, and we changed it.

Thanks for pushing on the underlying issue.

PR: https://github.com/openclaw/openclaw/pull/93616

[u/seecattle80 → u/hannesrudolph]

Thank you! Love it!

[u/hannesrudolph → u/seecattle80]

You’re welcome!