Openclaw Upgrade

OpenClaw Safe Upgrade

Kcn runs a live automated trading system on OpenClaw. An upgrade that loses crons, breaks embeddings, or orphans an in-flight cron is a production incident. This is the battle-tested flow (5.28→6.1→6.5→6.6→6.8). Full version-specific history lives in auto-memory openclaw-update-missing-deps.md — read it first for the target version's known traps.

0. Check + decide

1. openclaw --version vs npm view openclaw version (latest). Pull the changelog (npm pack openclaw@<v> → package/CHANGELOG.md) and judge relevance — don't upgrade reflexively.
2. Read auto-memory openclaw-update-missing-deps.md for that version's traps.

1. 🔴 Never restart the gateway while a cron is in-flight

Use the structured runtime field, not a text grep:

openclaw cron list --json \
  | jq -e '[.jobs[] | select(.state.runningAtMs != null)] | length == 0'

If this is not true, wait. A SIGTERM mid-run can orphan the cron into permanent running. Use --no-restart and pick a quiet window between slots (bash ops/host/check_crons.sh --timeline).

2. Update (built-in updater, since 6.x)

openclaw update --tag <version> --no-restart --yes

This auto-reinstalls/links managed plugins (weixin, llama-cpp, codex) — no manual pnpm add, no systemd edits, no restore-llama-embeddings.sh needed. (Pre-6.x manual flow is in the memory file.)

3. 🔴 Reapply all upgrade-sensitive local patches before restart

The updater replaces the installed dist/ tree. From the live workspace run:

bash ops/host/reapply_openclaw_patches.sh

The wrapper applies these idempotent host scripts in order:

1. /root/tools/openclaw/current/patch-embedding-threads1.sh
2. /root/tools/openclaw/current/patch-memory-search-timeout.sh
3. /root/tools/openclaw/current/patch-minimax-m3-priority.sh
4. /root/tools/openclaw/current/patch-minimax-response-header-timeout.sh

It then verifies all four markers, runs node --check on every modified bundle, and compiles the maintenance detector. It does not restart the gateway.

Any missing script, changed source anchor, syntax error, or missing marker is a hard stop: do not restart and do not declare the upgrade complete. Inspect the new OpenClaw source, revise the relevant patch script deliberately, and rerun the wrapper. Never skip a failed patch just to make the new version start.

4. Restart once, in a clean window

Re-run the structured no-in-flight check from step 1, then:

openclaw gateway restart
bash ops/host/reapply_openclaw_patches.sh --check-only

5. Regression gate (ALL must pass before declaring done)

Run one complete isolated cron after the cheap checks. Inspect its actual session and systemPromptReport, not only the final summary. Pass means:

• all allowed workspace bootstrap files are present with truncatedFiles=0
• the full skill catalog is present and the payload-required SKILL.md body was actually read before analysis
• the full tool set is present (no stale cron tools allowlist)
• normal prompt/context window, output budget, thinking level, and whole-turn timeout are unchanged
• postflight reports zero issues and the expected delivery/dashboard results
• the model fallback chain still advances on a retryable provider failure

Do not use --light-context, a tool allowlist, lower thinking, smaller token budgets, or prompt trimming as an upgrade workaround. MiniMax token usage is not a constraint for this deployment.

6. Known-benign post-6.8 noise (don't chase)

• adp-openclaw plugin disabled (ships TS source, no dist/) — stale plugins.entries warning; harmless, offer to delete the entry.
• systemd unit shows "installed by " — cosmetic metadata; daemon runs the new global package. openclaw doctor --repair fixes it (non-blocking).
• plugins.allow is empty audit WARN — long-standing, harmless.

⚠️ Model fallback chain (verify, escalate to kcn)

The model chain breaks silently from billing/auth, not upgrades. If cron runs show FallbackSummaryError: All models failed, check each provider (MiniMax overload, glm/deepseek balance, openai/anthropic auth expiry, openai-proxy quota) and tell kcn which to top up / re-login — you can't fix billing/auth yourself. See openclaw-xiaomi-fallback.