The open-source AI agent platform OpenClaw just dropped its 2026.4.20 release, and the headline change is a model swap. The platform's built-in Moonshot channel, web search, and multimodal understanding features now default to the new Kimi K2.6 model, while keeping compatibility with the older K2.5.
There's a specific reasoning feature tied to this upgrade: the thinking.keep = "all" parameter is now only allowed on the K2.6 model. If you're using any other Moonshot model or have a request with a fixed tool_choice, that field gets stripped out automatically. On the billing side, cost estimation gets a new tiered pricing structure with built-in rates for K2.6 and K2.5, and token usage reports can now be used for direct invoicing.
The release also rolls back a strict ID contract that was introduced in version 2026.4.14. That contract required a plugin's info.id to exactly match its registered slot ID, which ended up blocking third-party context engine plugins like lossless-claw on every single request. That's fixed now.
Other fixes include bumping the default timeout for BlueBubbles text sending from 10 to 30 seconds. On macOS 26 Tahoe, the system will now prioritize using the Private API even when it's not explicitly enabled, preventing the silent message drops that were happening before.
On the operations side, there are two structural tweaks. The Cron system now splits runtime execution state out of jobs.json and into a separate jobs-state.json file. This leaves jobs.json with just the task definitions, which are more suitable for Git management. Sessions storage now has entry limits and time-based pruning enabled by default, trimming oversized storage on startup to prevent the cron and executor systems from piling up and crashing the gateway's memory.
The installation onboarding flow got a refresh too. Security notes have been reorganized from plain text into yellow warning banners with bulleted lists. The initial model directory load now shows a loading animation, and the API key input field has a placeholder. Security was also tightened for Gateway WebSocket broadcasts, device pairing permissions, and blocking injection of OPENCLAW_* keys into the workspace .env file.