NEXO 7.9.16 — restart marker deadlock fix
Published 2026-04-24. Patch release over v7.9.15.
v7.9.16 fixes the post-update deadlock in Brain's MCP restart-required marker. The previous marker hardcoded Claude Desktop, Claude Code, and Codex as pending acknowledgers after every Brain update. Users who did not have all three clients, or whose MCP config did not expose NEXO_MCP_CLIENT, could restart repeatedly and still remain blocked by mcp_restart_required.
Restart markers now match real clients
Brain now builds the marker from the user's active interactive_clients preference instead of assuming every supported client is installed. Fresh or legacy installs fall back to the primary Claude Code client instead of waiting forever for absent clients.
Startup and auto-ack close the recovery loop
nexo_startup is now allowed through the restart gate, so a session can come up and report actionable state while recovery is in progress. When the MCP process is already running the installed version and the client is identified, the middleware clears that client's pending marker automatically before normal tool dispatch.
Release surfaces now gate the package version
This patch also keeps plugin metadata, ClawHub/OpenClaw artifacts, changelog, site pages, sitemap, and LLM discovery text aligned with the package version before npm publication.
Verification
Regression coverage now pins adaptive marker clients, single-client unlink behaviour, startup allowlisting, and middleware auto-ack on version match. Release artifact sync, OpenClaw build/test, and release-readiness gates are part of the final validation before publishing.