OpenClaw 2.0 Feature Tour: Conversation Search, Widget Dashboards and Memory
One route through OpenClaw 2.0's (v2026.8.1) eight headline capabilities: the rebuilt Control UI, conversation search, durable progress cards, structured questions, widget dashboards, private credentials, one-time approvals and the new memory system. The 2026.9 line adds a unified Plugins workspace, revocable session sharing and a meeting library — see step 9.
Prerequisites
- OpenClaw v2026.8.1 or newer (check openclaw --version)
- Having finished the upgrade tutorial (/tutorials/upgrade-to-openclaw-2/)
- Browser access to the Control UI
Steps
Meet the rebuilt Control UI
The 2.0 web experience is rebuilt end to end: a new chat layout, a sidebar grouped by project, a command palette and three themes (Tide, Beacon, Phosphor). Start from the command palette — it beats hunting menus.
Tips
- • Shift+Cmd+B toggles the sidebar
- • First thing after the redesign: search a favorite feature in the command palette to learn where it now lives
Find old conversations with search
The Control UI now searches past conversation text by exact words or phrases and reopens the surrounding messages. Turn "where did we leave off" from scrolling into one search.
Tips
- • Reopened context can seed a new task
- • On personal installs, conversations also feed recall (see step 8)
Track long tasks with durable progress cards
Session progress cards survive reloads and show subagent activity and edits across web and native chat. Batch jobs and multi-agent tasks no longer need a babysitter.
Tips
- • The card is durable — close the browser, reopen, it's still there
Answer via structured question cards
When the agent needs a decision, answer directly in web/native cards or messaging buttons — free text and a Skip path remain. Decisions stop being buried in chat scrollback.
Tips
- • Not sure? Skip — the agent continues whatever can proceed in parallel
Pin widgets to session dashboards
Interactive widgets generated in chat can be pinned to a session dashboard for reuse; grant each widget only the exact actions and network origins it needs, and export views as images.
Tips
- • Least privilege: tick only the actions and origins the widget actually uses
Private credential requests
When an agent needs third-party credentials it asks via a masked prompt — values never appear in chat or model context. With the opt-in proxy, secret substitution only happens for destinations you approved.
Tips
- • Combine with one-time approvals (next step) to scope sensitive grants to a single job
One-time automation approvals
Approve exactly one operation for an automation: if the job changes, fresh approval is required; granted permissions can be inspected and revoked anytime. Scheduled jobs no longer need broad permanent grants.
Tips
- • Migrate old "always allow" grants to the one-time model and tighten over time
Manage the new memory: recall, Dream Diary and forgetting
2.0 memory is proactive by default: personal conversation recall (personal installs only; groups excluded), background consolidation the team calls grounded dreaming (inspectable in the Dream Diary), and automatic skill self-learning. Clean up precisely with openclaw memory forget.
Commands
openclaw memory forget Tips
- • Sessions persist across idle periods and day boundaries by default — review memory regularly
- • For privacy-sensitive content prefer memory forget over deleting whole conversations
2026.9 Line: Plugins Workspace, Session Sharing and the Meeting Library
The 2026.9 stable line shipped four releases after 2.0; three changes matter for daily use: the unified Plugins workspace to discover, install and manage bundled and ClawHub plugins (v2026.9.4); revocable read-only session sharing plus a searchable meeting library with Markdown/JSONL export (v2026.9.3); and prepared cloud sessions started from local projects or public GitHub repositories (v2026.9.4).
Tips
- • Pre-upgrade check: since v2026.9.3, Node must be 24.16.0+ (or 26.1.0+) — upgrade Node before OpenClaw
- • Confirm content is safe to share: the link is read-only and revocable, but anyone who has it can view