NemoClaw v0.0.52 is out

[ericksoa]

Tonight, NemoClaw v0.0.52 is a compact release with outsized gravity. It is less a pageant of new buttons than a careful recalibration of the instruments: the runtime moves to OpenClaw 2026.5.22, Hermes gets the filesystem shape its v0.14 gateway actually expects, Windows bootstrap returns first-run Ubuntu setup to its own handoff window, and long-running plugin policy code learns to notice when the map of private space has changed.

The visible work is about trust at the edges. Slack setup no longer accepts an invalid token and calls the journey complete. The ready screen once again points users toward the authenticated dashboard URL instead of raw gateway-token handling. WeChat and WhatsApp are now named plainly as experimental paths, with the host-side WeChat QR flow documented rather than hidden from the generated docs. The private-network blocklist now refreshes in a living process, so SSRF and internal-host policy checks are not frozen at first contact.

Around those fixes, the release train also becomes a little more honest with itself. E2E coverage now retries one known empty-event TUI capture without masking real correlation failures, duplicate channel-removal coverage is trimmed back to the job that owns it, and the docs/skills refresh closes the loop on the v0.0.50 and v0.0.51 era. In a system this interdependent, confidence is not a single number. It is many small observations, each made less ambiguous.

Runtime, Messaging, and Sandbox Startup

• #4260 Upgrade OpenClaw to 2026.5.22
  Pins the NemoClaw runtime path to OpenClaw 2026.5.22, records the expected npm integrity, updates the bundled OpenClaw plugin metadata, and documents the split between the direct-blueprint compatibility floor and the Dockerfile runtime pin. Refs #4251 as the strongest candidate for the Telegram silent-start portion, and gives meaningful retest coverage for #4246, #4189, #4156, and #4237. #4015 and #4104 remain partial candidates only because the clawhub/policy path still needs targeted confirmation.
• #4272 Repair Hermes root-entrypoint startup layout
  Precreates the Hermes v0.14 runtime directories, makes /sandbox/.hermes sticky group-writable for the gateway user, stops precreating gateway.pid as a symlink, and repairs legacy PID/lock state before launch. This targets the newer root-entrypoint and gateway-UID failure mode behind the familiar step-7 Hermes gateway timeout.
• #4278 Restore separate Windows Ubuntu setup handoff
  Repairs a regression from #4101 where first-run Ubuntu account setup could run in the current PowerShell console, causing prompt alignment trouble. Missing Ubuntu distro installation now defers to the final WSL handoff window, Docker-in-WSL verification waits until first-run setup completes, and the Windows preparation docs clarify the Ubuntu-24.04 default plus the -DistroName Ubuntu reuse path.
• #4200 Reject invalid stored Slack tokens
  Validates preconfigured messaging tokens before treating Slack as configured, ignores invalid bot/app tokens from env or stored credentials, and reuses the validated-token path through messaging selection and provider setup. This fixes #3715.
• #4261 Restore dashboard URL guidance in ready output
  Restores the NemoClaw is ready / Start chatting / Manage later output shape from #3937 after the onboard-shell refactor in #3919 regressed it, and points users back to dashboard-url --quiet instead of raw gateway-token guidance.
• #4092 Reload private network cache on file changes
  Tracks the resolved private-networks.yaml path, mtimeMs, and size in the plugin-side cache, then reloads the parsed YAML and BlockList when the file changes during a long-running process. This fixes #4091.

E2E, Docs, and Release Confidence

• #4255 Retry empty TUI chat event captures
  Adds a one-time retry for the live OpenClaw TUI/webchat correlation repro only when an accepted send captures zero chat events, while preserving the strict assertions for empty finals, duplicate turns, missing replies with observed events, and uncorrelated replies.
• #4216 Remove duplicate channels remove coverage
  Removes the duplicate removal phase from the channels stop/start E2E and leaves removal coverage in the dedicated add/remove job, making the nightly signal shorter and less redundant.
• #4262 Refresh docs and generated skills
  Adds the v0.0.50 and v0.0.51 release notes to docs, regenerates NemoClaw user skills from the current Fern docs, removes obsolete legacy docs version metadata, and aligns docs verification guidance on npm run docs.
• #4276 Document experimental WeChat and WhatsApp channels
  Restores WeChat content to the docs-to-skills surface, marks WeChat and WhatsApp experimental wherever users encounter them, and documents Tencent iLink personal-WeChat QR onboarding, the host-side bridge provider, WeChat metadata, cached-token behavior, channel lifecycle commands, the wechat network-policy preset, and NEMOCLAW_WECHAT_QUIET. It also tightens the v0.0.50 and v0.0.51 release-note history so bullets sit in the versions that actually shipped them.