OpenClaw version 2026.3.8 is out, and it’s a substantive release. More than two dozen fixes land across all platforms, with the headline features addressing three pain points that have frustrated OpenClaw users since at least the previous major version: missing local backup tooling, unreliable gateway restarts on macOS, and fragile API key exposure in logs.

New: Local Backup CLI

The biggest new feature is the backup command pair:

openclaw backup create
openclaw backup verify

backup create produces a local snapshot of your agent state, configuration, and critical data. backup verify checks the integrity of an existing backup without restoring it — useful for scheduled validation in production setups.

Until now, backing up OpenClaw state required either manual file copying or custom scripts. This brings that workflow into the core CLI where it belongs. If you’re running agents on critical workflows, set up a cron or heartbeat that calls openclaw backup create daily.

Gateway Restart Fix (macOS LaunchAgent)

GitHub issue #40932 documented a recurring failure where openclaw gateway restart would silently fail on macOS machines configured to run the gateway as a LaunchAgent service. This was particularly common on Apple Silicon Macs where the LaunchAgent timing and socket inheritance model differs from Linux systemd behavior.

2026.3.8 resolves this. Restart behavior on macOS now correctly stops, waits for socket release, and relaunches the LaunchAgent without leaving zombie processes or stale socket files.

If you’ve been using openclaw gateway stop && openclaw gateway start as a workaround, you can go back to openclaw gateway restart.

Telegram Topic Routing

OpenClaw agents can now route messages to specific Telegram topics within supergroups. This is particularly useful for teams using a single Telegram group as a hub for multiple agent pipelines — each pipeline can now write to its own topic thread rather than flooding a single channel.

Configuration is handled through the channel routing layer, with topic IDs specified in the channel config.

API Key Hardening

Previous versions of OpenClaw would occasionally include partial token snippets in log output — specifically in debug-level gateway logs and in error messages when API calls failed. This release removes token exposure from all standard and debug log paths.

The change affects:

  • Gateway access logs
  • Agent session startup messages
  • Tool call error traces

Token snippets are replaced with [REDACTED] markers. If you’ve been grepping logs for debugging purposes, adjust your patterns accordingly.

Podman / SELinux Fixes

For users running OpenClaw in containerized environments (particularly on RHEL/Fedora with SELinux enforcing), several socket permission and volume mount issues that caused gateway startup failures are resolved in this release.

Upgrading

npm install -g openclaw@latest
openclaw gateway restart

Check your version with openclaw --version. The release is tracked at v2026.3.8 on GitHub releases.

Full Changelog

The complete list of fixes (25+ changes) is documented in the GitHub release notes. Worth scanning if you’ve filed issues — there’s a reasonable chance something you reported is in there.

Sources

  1. OpenClaw 2026.3.8 Release — ClawCloud.sh Blog
  2. OpenClaw v2026.3.8 — GitHub Releases
  3. OpenClaw v2026.3.8 — newreleases.io

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