OpenClaw 4.1 Update [2026]: /tasks, SearXNG, and Guardrails

OpenClaw v2026.4.1 shipped on April 1, 2026, and it is one of those releases that matters more in day-to-day operations than the version number suggests. The headline features are obvious: a chat-native /tasks board, a bundled SearXNG search provider, and Amazon Bedrock Guardrails support. The quieter changes are just as important: safer cron execution, global default provider params, and a saner rate-limit failover path.

If you run OpenClaw as a real always-on assistant instead of a demo, 4.1 is worth reading carefully before you update.

What Is New in OpenClaw 4.1?

The official 4.1 changelog groups the release around background task visibility, search, provider safety, and operator ergonomics. The biggest operator-facing additions are:

• /tasks chat board for the current session, including recent task detail and fallback counts when there are no linked tasks.
• Bundled SearXNG provider for web_search, with configurable host support.
• Amazon Bedrock Guardrails inside the bundled Bedrock provider.
• agents.defaults.params so you can set global provider parameters once instead of repeating them per agent.
• Auth cooldown and retry caps so provider failover does not churn forever on rate-limited profiles.
• openclaw cron --tools for per-job tool allowlists.

There are also meaningful fixes around WebChat history truncation, WhatsApp routing, task-registry stability, and startup reload behavior, which makes this feel like both a feature release and an operator-hardening release.

How Does the New /tasks Board Work?

Before 4.1, background work was becoming more real in OpenClaw, but the visibility was still uneven. You could have detached work happening through ACP, cron, or subagents without a single chat-native place to inspect what was running. The new /tasks surface fixes that for the current session.

In practice, this means you can ask OpenClaw to kick off work, then inspect task state inside the conversation instead of dropping to logs or the Control UI first. That matters because the agent can reason over task state with you. You are no longer just launching background work; you have a lightweight operator board inside the chat thread.

Use it when you want to:

• check whether a background run actually started,
• see recent task details without leaving chat,
• confirm whether the agent had to fall back to local task state,
• keep long-running work visible to the human operator.

Pair this with our background tasks guide if you want the bigger picture behind flows, detached runs, and task recovery.

How Do You Use the Bundled SearXNG Search Provider?

OpenClaw 4.1 adds a bundled SearXNG provider for web_search. The practical upside is simple: you can point OpenClaw at a self-hosted search layer instead of relying exclusively on external managed search APIs. For privacy-sensitive operators, that is a real upgrade.

SearXNG is useful when you want:

• more control over what search endpoint the agent hits,
• fewer third-party dependencies in the retrieval path,
• a search backend you can colocate with your own OpenClaw deployment.

The release notes call out configurable host support, which is the key part. OpenClaw is not forcing one hosted SearXNG endpoint on you; it is exposing the bundled provider so you can wire in the instance you trust. Once you have it configured, test it with a simple retrieval request and confirm the results differ from your previous web search stack.

If you want the operational setup flow, start with How to Set Up SearXNG for OpenClaw.

What Changed for Amazon Bedrock Guardrails?

OpenClaw 4.1 adds Bedrock Guardrails support to the bundled Bedrock provider. That matters if you are running OpenClaw in environments where policy enforcement cannot rely only on prompt engineering or downstream human review.

Guardrails are most useful when you need Bedrock to enforce content or action constraints at the provider level. The right mental model is not “a nicer system prompt.” It is “one more boundary between the model and bad outcomes.”

If you are already using Bedrock, 4.1 means you can start aligning your OpenClaw workflows with the same guardrail framework your AWS stack may already use elsewhere. If you are not using Bedrock, this does not force a switch, but it does make Bedrock more attractive for policy-heavy deployments.

I would treat this as especially relevant for regulated workflows, internal copilots, and any setup where you need to show that guardrails exist outside the assistant prompt itself.

Why Do the Failover and Default Param Changes Matter?

Two of the most operator-friendly 4.1 additions are easy to miss in the changelog: agents.defaults.params and the new auth-cooldown failover behavior.

Global default params let you define shared provider parameters once and stop copy-pasting them across multiple agents. That is mostly an ergonomics feature, but it also reduces config drift.

Retry caps and cooldowns matter more. When a provider profile is rate-limited, older failover behavior could feel noisy or opaque. 4.1 caps repeated same-provider auth-profile rotations before cross-provider fallback and adds an explicit cooldown knob. In plain language: fewer useless loops, quicker recovery, and a cleaner fallback story when a provider gets hot.

If you run multiple providers on purpose, this is one of the better reasons to update quickly.

What Is New for Cron Tool Allowlists?

The new openclaw cron --tools support lets you define a per-job tool allowlist. That is a security feature disguised as a convenience feature.

Instead of thinking of cron as “whatever the agent can do on a schedule,” you can now think of each job as its own narrower trust envelope. A reporting cron job does not need the same tool surface as a deployment cron job. 4.1 gives you a cleaner way to express that distinction.

This is exactly the direction you want if you are turning OpenClaw into something more production-like: smaller permissions, more predictable automation, less accidental blast radius.

How Should You Update to 4.1?

If you are already on a recent March build, the update path is straightforward:

cd ~/openclaw
docker compose pull
docker compose up -d

After the upgrade, check three things immediately:

1. Run /tasks in an active session and confirm the board renders.
2. Verify your web search path if you plan to use SearXNG.
3. Review any cron jobs that should now get explicit tool allowlists.

If you use Bedrock, follow with a guardrail test before you assume your policies are attached correctly. If you use multiple providers, stress one provider intentionally and make sure the new failover behavior looks the way you expect.

For the broader release cadence, also read the 3.31 update and the March roundup.