Introduction

OpenClaw 3.7 has finally been released! To summarize the core themes of this version in three lines:

  1. Context Engine Pluginification — Total freedom to customize your bot’s memory management.
  2. Persistent ACP Bindings & Telegram Routing — Ultimate survival for subagents and advanced channel management.
  3. Lightweight & Optimized — Docker Multi-stage builds and massive prompt token diets.

There are plenty of exciting changes under the hood. Let’s break them down.

1. 🧠 Context Engine Plugin Slot (Infinite Freedom)

(Thanks @jalehman)

This is a foundational patch. A new ContextEngine plugin slot has been added along with full lifecycle hooks (bootstrap, ingest, assemble, compact, etc.).

  • External plugins like lossless-claw can now completely replace the core compaction logic.
  • If no plugin is configured, the legacy compaction logic seamlessly takes over via the LegacyContextEngine wrapper, ensuring 100% backward compatibility.

2. 🔌 Persistent ACP Bindings & Advanced Telegram Routing

Subagent (ACP) and channel management features have received a massive upgrade.

  • Persistent ACP Channel Binding (Thanks @dutifulbob): Discord channel and Telegram topic binding storage is now durable. Your ACP thread targets will survive server restarts.
  • Telegram Topic Agent Routing (Thanks @kesor, @Sid-Qin): You can now override agentId on a per-topic basis in forum groups and DM topics. This means you can create a “Coding Topic” and a “Translation Topic” in the same channel, operating as completely isolated sessions.
  • Telegram Mac Dash (-) Support & UX Fixes (Thanks @huntharo): Enhanced /acp spawn commands, actionable approval buttons, and successful bind confirmation pinning dramatically improve the Telegram UX.

3. ⚡ Google Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite Official Support

The rising star of lightweight models, google/gemini-3.1-flash-lite-preview, is now a first-class citizen. This includes model-id normalization, default aliases, media-understanding (image lookups), and fallback compatibility. It’s an excellent choice for slashing API costs on lightweight tasks.

4. 🐳 Docker / Podman Optimization (Diet & Speed)

(Thanks @sallyom)

The container deployment environment has been completely revamped.

  • Pre-baked Dependencies (OPENCLAW_EXTENSIONS): NPM extension dependencies can now be pre-installed during the image build phase, leading to drastically faster container boot times.
  • Multi-stage Builds: The new multi-stage Dockerfile strips out build tools, source code, and the Bun runtime to produce an ultra-minimal runtime image. You can also target a bookworm-slim variant using the OPENCLAW_VARIANT=slim build arg.

5. 🔍 Web Search Revamp & Onboarding Wizard

(Thanks @kesku, @thewilloftheshadow)

  • Onboarding Wizard: The initial setup wizard now features a full provider selection step with flawless SecretRef support.
  • Perplexity Update: The Perplexity provider has been switched to the Search API, enabling structured results along with new language, region, and time filters.

6. 📉 Hooks & Prompt Optimization (Token Diet)

  • System Context Caching (Thanks @maweibin): prependSystemContext and appendSystemContext hooks have been added. Placing static plugin guidance in the system prompt space maximizes provider caching, significantly lowering repeated token costs.
  • Separating Diffs Tool Guidance (Thanks @sircrumpet, @gumadeiras): Diffs usage guidance has been moved from unconditional prompt injection to the plugin companion skill path, vastly reducing prompt noise.
  • Compaction Hook Events (Thanks @vincentkoc): New session:compact:before and session:compact:after hooks allow you to elegantly trigger automation scripts around compaction cycles.

7. 🛠️ Other Notable QoL Improvements

  • Slack Socket Mode Typing Reactions (Thanks @dalefrieswthat): When native Slack typing indicators aren’t available, the bot now shows a reaction-based processing status.
  • Discord Mention Gating (allowBots) (Thanks @thewilloftheshadow): You can strictly gate bot responses so it only replies to bot-authored messages if it is explicitly mentioned.
  • Gateway SecretRef Support (Thanks @joshavant): The gateway.auth.token config now officially supports SecretRef inputs.
  • Spanish (es) UI Support (Thanks @DaoPromociones): The Control UI now features a Spanish locale with lazy loading.
  • Cron Job Snapshot Persistence (Thanks @0xsline): The jobs.json.bak file now preserves pre-edit snapshots, making rollbacks much easier.

Conclusion

OpenClaw 3.7 isn’t just about flashy frontend features—it’s an engineering masterpiece focused on Extensibility (Context Plugins, Hooks) and Operational Stability (Docker Slim, Persistent ACP, Token Caching).

The fact that ACP threads survive restarts and that you can rewrite the compaction logic via plugins makes this update a must-have.

As always, to update:

openclaw update

Happy hacking! 🚀