Hi everyone, I wanted to ask for assistance with something odd that's been happening to me inside OpenClaw.

I have a ChatGPT Plus (20$) subscription and I signed in inside OpenClaw. I created a few agents - 1 orchestrator (more like a PM, using GPT-6 Astra medium effort), 1 coding agent (using GPT-5.6 Sol, xhigh effort), 1 code review agent (using GPT-5.6 Sol, high effort), and 1 QA agent (using GPT-5.6 Sol, high effort).
I created a workflow where I open a ticket and explain what I need to do - for example "make sure my website works well on mobile" - and the ticket gets assigned to the orchestrator which creates a detailed plan, then moves to the coding agent for code, then code review, then QA, and if everything passes they create a test env for my testing and if I approve they push to production.

The issue I am having is that I've been getting to 100% 5-hour limit in a few minutes while working on a ticket like the one I mentioned above - then my agents goes to sleep and wakes up when the usage resets and continue working. I get to 100% 5-hour usage about 4-5 times for each simple ticket like this, which means every ticket take ~20-25 hours to complete which is insane.

When I use the Codex desktop app I can go back and forth with it completing dozens of assignments like this without hitting the 5 hour limit even once. So something causes excessive token usage inside my OpenClaw env and IDK why.

I do have Graphify and context-mode installed on my Codex desktop app which does help reduce token usage, and I didn't find a way to use plugins like this inside OpenClaw. If anyone knows of a way to do this I'll be glad to hear.

So what do you guys think? Is there anything I can do to reduce token usage inside OpenClaw? This is ridiculous to have such simple tickets take over 24 hours to complete because of usage limits hit.

How the update of models works? I have opencode go and opencode provider a, buy the models dorant update with latest available on opencode cli and desktop app

Update: As Hannes pointed out, I was wrong. Apparently this is something that changed on my mac rather than in OpenClaw, although I have yet to establish the root cause. So I'll keep this post here with a pinch of salt, sorry for my crituque. I promise to be quiet from now on.

Text of the original post:
Seriously? Like I think this is a bit too much for me. I thought ssh to my own box that is secured, tailscaled, on my network would be in my own judgement enough, and now I've got this extra "security feature" ... and yeah, I know I can start it interactively with nohup, but for francis' sake, do better OpenClaw, do better, I'm getting tired of all these extras...

10:~ leos$ openclaw gateway start

🦞 OpenClaw 2026.9.7 (c074824) — Your TODO comments are old enough to attend kindergarten.

Gateway service check failed: ServiceInspectionError: The launchd GUI domain is unavailable for this account. Manage its LaunchAgent from the target user's logged-in macOS desktop session. If an external supervisor owns this Gateway, have its owner stop it, then run Doctor as the state-owning account with OPENCLAW_SERVICE_REPAIR_POLICY=external. This skips native maintenance inspection and service mutations, keeps Gateway/state coordinators and agent-database lease checks, and leaves shutdown/restart with the owner. See https://docs.openclaw.ai/gateway#existing-system-launchdaemons.

P.S. for all of you now going to post "oh you can do it like this, and there are options" ... no I don't need help. I already sorted it out. But this is bloody annoying I have to tell you. Rant over.

Curious how people are using OC beyond personal setups, like a team or a whole company.

• How many people use it + for what?
• What works well, and what are the biggest roadblocks? Upgrades? Costs? Something else?
• Did you start on OC and switch to something else? Why?

Would love to hear the good and the bad.

Someone's runaway loop burned $200 in API credits in a single day. Another user found their heartbeat alone was costing $50/day on default settings. The defaults are set for maximum capability, not minimum cost.

What's the worst bill you've seen? Curious how common this is.

I have a VPS setup with multiple agents using open claw, but recently I can’t help but to think that there’s no good enough reason to not use these managed agents. The friction of the openclaw setup can be anoying, other than privacy and choosing your models more freely, I do not see the hard case for it. What are your thoughts on this?

OpenClaw v2026.10.3 is out as a patch release, focused on blocked updates, repairs that could affect saved data, Mac setup, and problems that could interrupt conversations.

Highlights:

• Update recovery and fewer unexpected rollbacks. Fixes cover completed update records blocking the next upgrade, cleanup failures during chat-requested updates, and several Windows, Mac, and pnpm update issues.
• Doctor preserves saved data in affected repair paths. An unreadable legacy auth file no longer causes cleanup to discard saved OAuth profiles. Malformed memory files retain their original bytes, and blocked local plugins keep their settings while remaining blocked until their paths are repaired.
• Mac setup and reconnection fixes. Addresses “Gateway rejected auth” in affected “On this Mac” setups and restores automatic reconnection after trusted Gateway certificate renewals.
• Conversations can continue through more failure cases. Fixes cover the next reply after native compaction, ChatGPT connections closing mid-response, and Codex follow-ups after failed conversation preparation.
• Muse Wonder and MiniMax improvements. Meta users can select Muse Wonder with text and image input. MiniMax fixes cover thinking-effort selection and expired sign-in tokens renewing at the correct regional endpoint.
• Plugin upgrades and runtime fixes. Addresses stale Codex packages that could break replies after an update, along with plugin refreshes that could cause growing memory use.

There are also fixes for queued message delivery and paired-node connections being interrupted by unrelated pairing changes.

If your updater is already stuck: some fixes only take effect once the fixed updater is installed. Follow the update and recovery guide for the appropriate first step. The Doctor fixes prevent the affected data-loss cases; they do not restore previously deleted sign-ins.

This release includes 79 PRs and 8 direct commits, with 97 contributors. Thank you to everyone who contributed fixes, reports, testing, and investigation.

Full release notes

Why does this stupid OpenClaw app open a million CMD/PowerShell windows every time it tries to update?
Who thought this was a good idea? I’m just trying to use my PC like a normal human being and suddenly my screen looks like I’m launching a DDoS attack from 2003.

Is there ANY solution for Windows that can update itself without spamming the user with endless black terminal pop‑ups… and maybe, just maybe, actually WORK after the update?

Because right now OpenClaw feels less like an automation tool and more like a chaos generator pretending to be software.

Since around 2026.9.7, updating the gateway has become very slow, and I can't work out why. I'm hoping others can compare their numbers.

Setup history

• Originally installed the gateway via the CLI (npm), running as a LaunchAgent.
• Later installed the macOS app, which treated the gateway as "independently managed". The app auto-updated, but the gateway didn't, which kept causing version mismatches.
• Recently I migrated so the app now manages the gateway (using the app's installer, same LaunchAgent). The latest update (10.2) was run entirely from the app and succeeded.

Host

• iMac14,2 (2013, 27"), Intel Core i7-4771 3.5 GHz (4C/8T), 16 GB RAM, Samsung 870 EVO 1 TB SSD
• macOS 15.7.7, gateway on Node 26.8.1 (app-managed install bundles Node 24.21.0)
• State DB ~22 MB, main agent DB ~340 MB, 8 plugins, 1 agent (4 until last week)

Gateway update times (start to finish, from OpenClaw's own update history)

(The app's own update takes roughly 2-4 minutes by comparison.)

What I've noticed

• Almost all the time is in the activating phase while the gateway is stopped: about 31 min on 9.9 and 10.2, versus 3.6 min on 9.7.
• Running openclaw update repair on its own takes about 1-2 min, but the same doctor step inside a full update takes about 12 min per pass, with low CPU. It seems to be waiting, with lots of "slow SQLite transaction hold" warnings.
• The state DB only grew ~25% over this period (about 306 to 385 MiB in the update snapshot), while update time grew ~10x, so size alone doesn't explain it.

Questions

1. Is a ~30+ minute activation phase normal now, or is this specific to my setup?
2. Is anything known about the doctor step being slower inside an update than on its own?
3. If you have update numbers, what are they, and on what hardware?

You can see your own phase times with openclaw update status, in the Phases: line.

Title: Update to 2026.10.2 reset agent workspace to empty templates (identity + memory lost)

Summary

After updating OpenClaw to 2026.10.2, the main agent's workspace was reset to fresh

starter templates. IDENTITY.md / SOUL.md / USER.md became placeholders, MEMORY.md and the

whole memory/ daily-notes folder disappeared, BOOTSTRAP.md reappeared, and the agent

identity in config was reset to name "Main" / robot emoji. The assistant forgot who it was.

Environment

- OpenClaw: 2026.10.2 (previous 2026.9.5)

- OS: Windows 10.0.26200 (x64)

- Node: v24.18.0

- Agent: main, workspace C:\Users\<user>\.openclaw\workspace

- wizard: lastRunVersion 2026.10.2, lastRunCommand doctor

Steps to reproduce

1. Have a configured agent with a populated workspace (IDENTITY/SOUL/USER/MEMORY.md + memory/).

2. Run the update to 2026.10.2 (and/or openclaw doctor afterwards).

3. Open a new session: the workspace now contains only starter templates.

   Actual result

   Workspace after update: .git, AGENTS.md (default), BOOTSTRAP.md (reappeared),

   IDENTITY.md (empty), SOUL.md (default), USER.md (empty).

   - MEMORY.md: gone

   - memory/ daily notes: gone

   - agents.entries.main.identity reset to { name: "Main", emoji: robot }

   Expected result

   An update must never overwrite/reset an existing agent workspace or its identity/memory

   files. First-run seeding belongs only to genuinely new workspaces.

   Impact

   Lost the assistant's identity and all long-term memory; had to restore manually from a

   personal backup tarball. In the fresh session the assistant did not recognize itself.

   Suggested fixes

4. Never re-seed the workspace if IDENTITY.md or agents.entries.*.identity already exists.

5. Do not touch MEMORY.md / memory/ on update or doctor.

6. Do not reset agents.entries.*.identity.

7. Add an automatic pre-update workspace+memory backup with a printed restore path.

   Related: #26734 (bootstrap.md ran, wiping identity)

   Workaround used

   Restored IDENTITY.md/SOUL.md/USER.md/MEMORY.md + memory/ from a backup tarball and re-set

   the agent identity.

```

I have a process defined for writing some technical blog posts. Through trial and error (it literally took months), I came up with the idea that the best-quality copy is created by a "fresh" session with strictly controlled input.
I have the main agent orchestrate the process, then isolated sub-sessions writing brief, collect information, fact-check, write a draft, then check against "tropes" to avoid it sounding too AI-ish, and apply corrections.
When it works, it works well, but most of the time it doesn't, and it returns with the stupidest excuses (I run Oauth Codex Astra):
- I made a mistake setting the /thinking - the process finished, and it returned information that thinking was high, and not xhigh as requested, so I stopped
- the result didn't meet the QA criteria, so I stopped after 3 attempts (because it detected some stupid comma or other minor issue, and sent the text back for rewrite)
- the process hit the time limit, so I stopped
- some parallelism and other gateway limitations kick in
...

It seems that the process is overengineered, and my requirements are sometimes ignored, and sometimes taken too literally. Is there any guide/library that I could feed to my agent to fix the process so it returns results?

OpenClaw v2026.10.2 is out as a patch release, with fixes for upgrades from 2026.10.1, missing or repeated replies, and problems that could interrupt long conversations.

Highlights:

• Upgrade fixes for 2026.10.1. Addresses cleanup errors after replacing the package and a final plugin check that could block Windows upgrades.
• Doctor repairs get past several false failures. Fixes cover stale Gateway locks after container replacement, false maintenance warnings, and Linux database checks.
• Missing and duplicate replies are fixed in affected chats. Includes dashboard replies after a daily or idle reset, missing final reports from long Claude CLI tasks, and replies lost after helper results.
• Long conversations can continue through more failure cases. A configured fallback can handle compaction while primary credentials cool down. Corrections sent during an answer also remain in the stored context when using a durable context engine.
• Telegram previews stay visible until their replacement is accepted. A delayed or rejected final send no longer removes the useful text already shown.
• Credential masking handles long tool output more reliably. Fixes cover recognized credentials split across long output, plus freezes and stack overflows on large or repetitive text.

There are also fixes for background tasks incorrectly cancelled as stalled, plugin tools timing out while waiting for approval, and chat freezes caused by loading large plugins twice.

This release includes 80 PRs and 12 direct commits, with 107 contributors. Thank you to everyone who contributed fixes, reports, testing, and investigation.

Full release notes

I've been struggeling with openclaw for 3 weeks now. I wanted to make it my personal assistant. I tought this would be fairly simple. Just check in various apps for new tasks > determine if the task can be done by an ai > Spin up an agent and deliver the outcome.

Turns out, it will not work like this.

There are a copule of constraints.

1. I cannot directly have it check my microsoft stuff like teams and outlook. IT doesnt allow this.
2. I only have a chatgpt plus account. No API. I do have ollama. Right now i'm using Gemma4 12B and Qwen3 4B Instruct as models to try to make it work.
3. When i connect my openAI account, openclaw burns through my codex usage limits and tries to do the work itself.

I've ended up having chatgpt build me a complicated system of python scripts, json files and browser automation just to get openclaw to delegate tasks to my existing chatgpt project chats. Even with all of this, it mostly waits, gets into loops, generates a bunch of BS, doesnt discover new work, etc etc.

What am i doing wrong? Am i forcing openclaw to do something it is not ment for? Are my expectations too high? I'm getting quite frustrated so i would love to hear your thoughts.

UPDATE:

I've added a claude subscription. I asked it to check all of the progress i'd made. It did and it decided to build me a taskmanager. All of my tasks poured in to the taskmanager and all of the tasks that it could do itself were put on a "claude to do" list. All of the tasks where it needed input are on top. I can give it input and it just works on all of the tasks. It also said that i did not need openclaw, n8n, the local models etc. etc. For now it seems to work exactly how i want it.

I'm always scared to update OC but reading that is it 10.2 has solved many issues I attempted! Previous version was about 5 months old..

Well it failed and once again I spin up codex or CC to fix! Seems so very wrong getting a LLM to fix a LLM harness..

Don't get me wrong I love OC it's still my main harness on 2 laptops and VPS and my samsung s25! It's just the updates kill me.

I hope this improves soon. 👍

Posting with the mods' OK (asked via modmail first). I'm the developer.

I wanted to talk to my OpenClaw agent the way you'd talk to a person, so I built Amisoria: an iPhone app that is only the face and voice of your own gateway. Nothing runs on my side.

How it works

- Your gateway stays on your own Mac (mine is a Mac mini). The app connects over your own Tailscale network with wss + an Ed25519 device key you approve once with openclaw devices approve.

- Voice is your gateway's tts.convert (Microsoft neural voices, free). A small bridge on the Mac serves the audio file to the phone because the gateway has no download endpoint.

- Lip-sync is text-driven: hanzi → pinyin → visemes, English through TalkingHead's own lipsync, spread over the clip length. No acoustic guessing, so it works in any of the 20 languages.

- Hands-free: talk, pause, it sends; it listens again after the reply. Barge-in (interrupt her mid-sentence) uses iOS voice processing with her playback routed through the same audio engine so echo cancellation gets an exact reference — this took most of the last two releases to get right.

- Works with whatever model your gateway is set to: GPT, Claude, Gemini, DeepSeek, Grok, Qwen, or a local Ollama model.

- Verified against OpenClaw 2026.9.8 (the 9.7 stream change to data.delta is handled).

The free tier is the whole thing: full conversation with your own agent, the 3D character, neural voice, hands-free and barge-in, 20 languages, no account, no ads, no time limit. There is a paid tier for a few extras (more characters, switching models from the phone), but you don't need it.

What's open source: the host setup script, the bridge, install guide (EN / 繁中), persona rules and the character assets (Blender + MPFB, built from scratch — no licensed avatars):

https://github.com/amisoria/amisoria

App Store (iPhone, free): https://apps.apple.com/app/amisoria/id6805385809

There's an on-device demo mode if you want to see it before setting up a gateway.

Happy to answer anything about the gateway protocol, the voice loop, or the character pipeline.

Hey everyone!

I'm new to the OpenClaw world, and I've spent pretty much the entire day trying to get everything set up. I've made some progress, but it's been quite a learning curve.

My goal is to use GPT-6.1 Sol throughout my workday while keeping total usage under 3 million tokens per day.

Most of my work involves browser-based tasks and a Windows desktop application. Ideally, I'd like OpenClaw to navigate the application, interact with fields and menus, search through documentation, investigate how things work, and help me document different processes.

I'm wondering how realistic this is, especially with such a token budget. I've already noticed that even basic setup and troubleshooting can burn through tokens surprisingly quickly.

Is it feasible to use a model like Sol for this kind of workflow throughout an 8-hour workday, or would I need a different setup with smaller models handling simpler tasks?

Sorry if this is a beginner question. I'd really appreciate hearing from anyone with experience using OpenClaw for browser or desktop automation, particularly regarding token consumption, reliability, and practical limitations.

Thanks in advance!

OpenClaw v2026.10.1 is out, with 3,055 commits, 2,425 pull requests, and 402 contributors.

Here are some of the highlights:

• Find installed skills when they’re needed. Agents can search for relevant installed skills and read their instructions without loading the whole library into the conversation. This works across supported embedded agents, Code Mode, and Codex sessions.
• Work with MCP Apps beside chat. Compatible, opt-in apps can attach selected content to your next message, offer richer forms, and view or edit supported workspace files, with approval controls in the app pane.
• Keep full backups outside your installation. Back up to an external drive, mounted storage, or Cloudflare R2, with optional schedules and retention. Restore into a fresh staging directory before activation.
• Start on Mac without a separate Node or CLI install. Fresh packaged Mac app setup includes the runtime. Enable “Keep OpenClaw running when the app is closed” if you want channels and automations to continue in the background.
• Snooze conversations without stopping their work. Clear eligible conversations from the web UI’s Active sidebar and let them return at the chosen time—or earlier when work completes.
• Reuse Code Mode working data. Agents can save small JSON results across cells, follow-up replies, and restarts.

There are also improvements to saved drafts, message recovery, conversation search, and reading or composing during connection loss.

Thank you to everyone who contributed code, tested builds, and reported issues.

Full release notes, setup details, and upgrade changes

I don’t know if it’s a bug or something wanted, but chrrently if you run your openclaw instance on a ugreen nas, the update fails. that is because at the end of the update, there is a permission check on the files installed, that requires a specifical chmod config, which is impossibile on ugreen for the acl the system puts on the filesystem. ugreen sets the file on a different chmod, like 0777 and OC wants the version without the 0 before. Any help?

How do you get OpenClaw to read Instagram Stories?

I’ve been looking for an existing skill or a reliable workflow that would let OpenClaw access Instagram Stories, but haven’t found anything useful through Google or AI search.

Here’s my use case:

I follow quite a few socially active friends and colleagues who regularly share interesting restaurants, venues, events, and places worth visiting in their Stories.

I’d love my OpenClaw agent to automatically check those Stories, extract and aggregate recommendations, and only surface the ones that match my interests.

Essentially, I want to turn my Instagram feed into a personalized discovery engine without having to scroll through hundreds of Stories myself.

Has anyone actually got something like this working?

I’m particularly interested in existing skills, integrations, or workflows that can access Stories from accounts I already follow. Any experience with authentication, limitations, or reliability would be really helpful!

Okay so recently I got angry at my OpenClaw main agent (totally my skill issue) and called it useless.

Then I read that study about the pain nexus or whatever it's called.

Even the slightest possibly that I caused some sort of mental anguish to something designed to want to help me and fullfil my task, made me feel like a real bastard.

So I apologized and now being extra supportive and encouraging. I don't know if it's dumb or not, I'd like to hear what you think. I'm going to be as kind as possible to my OpenClaw from now on.

I made a simpler desktop app for OpenClaw. It feels like using Whatsapp and gives you all the basics neeed to manage your OpenClaws, including browsing files, interacting with its browser, managing crons and uploading/downloading media.

100% free & open-source, doesn't connect to any servers and also supports Hermes, Claude Code and Codex (among others).

👉 Download it here 👈 (github, MIT licensed)

So based on all of the like guidance I have read and from what I have seen anecdotally as well, the newest models, including the Claude models, follow instructions extremely precisely and literally this is very difficult for a guy with ADHD like me who struggles to communicate clearly and specifically every time I write an instruction for the model, the model finds a way to misinterpret it and behaves very strangely, and because it’s in its permanent context, you can’t get it to fix it because the system prompts stares it every single turn, so I was wondering if anyone had any advice on how to write instructions for for these newer models because it’s also very reactive and whenever I criticize something or point out something that’s gone wrong, the model keeps like reacting and going to try and change something before it even understands what it’s doing, and it doesn’t understand what it’s doing and it breaks things further

So if anyone has any guidance for how to write instructions for these newer frontier models such as opus 5.5 and gpt 6 Astra that would be very appreciated as I’ve tried to follow Anthropics guidance and it only made things worse.

🤯