docs: add v0.0.88 release changelog

[ericksoa]

Summary

Adds the canonical docs/changelog/2026-07-18.mdx release-prep entry with the exact ## v0.0.88 heading.
The entry summarizes every user-visible change on main since v0.0.87 and links each release theme to the focused user documentation.

Changes

• Add one parser-safe dated changelog entry for v0.0.88 covering DGX Station preparation, inference health, multi-gateway sandbox operations and recovery, onboarding policy defaults, and rebuild credential reuse.
• Reconcile the changelog against the merged v0.0.88-labeled PRs and the complete v0.0.87..origin/main commit range.
• Source mapping:
  • #7152 -> docs/changelog/2026-07-18.mdx: Document RDMA-aware OpenIB service remediation during DGX Station preparation.
  • #7155 -> docs/changelog/2026-07-18.mdx: Document stopped-container preservation and fail-closed restart-policy boundaries.
  • #7158 -> docs/changelog/2026-07-18.mdx: Document bounded packaged CDI refresh for the exact AI Developer Tools Station profile.
  • #7074 -> docs/changelog/2026-07-18.mdx: Document authenticated upstream model probes and precise route-reachability claims.
  • #7007 -> docs/changelog/2026-07-18.mdx: Document the explicit serving-process health gap in status and doctor.
  • #7113 -> docs/changelog/2026-07-18.mdx: Document owning-gateway selection for sandbox-scoped status and exec operations.
  • #7092 -> docs/changelog/2026-07-18.mdx: Document idempotent recovery for target-owned active port forwards.
  • #7133 -> docs/changelog/2026-07-18.mdx: Document web-search-aware policy preset defaults during onboarding.
  • #7129 -> docs/changelog/2026-07-18.mdx: Document gateway-registered web-search credential reuse during rebuild preflight.

Type of Change

• Code change (feature, bug fix, or refactor)
• Code change with doc updates
• Doc only (prose changes, no code sample modifications)
• Doc only (includes code sample changes)

Quality Gates

• Tests added or updated for changed behavior
• Existing tests cover changed behavior — justification: test/changelog-docs.test.ts validates the dated changelog contract, exact release heading, and parser-safe MDX structure.
• Tests not applicable — justification:
• Docs updated for user-facing behavior changes
• Docs not applicable — justification:
• Sensitive paths changed (security, policy, credentials, preflight, onboarding, inference, runner, sandbox, or messaging)
• Sensitive-path review completed or maintainer-approved waiver recorded — reviewer/approval link/justification:
• Non-success, skipped, or missing CI check accepted by maintainer — check name, approval link, and follow-up issue:

Verification

• PR description includes a Signed-off-by: line and every commit appears as Verified in GitHub
• Normal pre-commit, commit-msg, and pre-push hooks passed, or npm run check:diff passed when hooks were skipped or unavailable
• Targeted behavior tests pass for the current change set, or tests are marked not applicable above — command/result or justification: npx vitest run test/changelog-docs.test.ts passed 6 tests.
• Applicable broad gate passed — npm test for broad runtime/test-harness changes; npm run check for repo-wide validation/coverage changes — command/result:
• Quality Gates section completed with required justifications or waivers
• No secrets, API keys, or credentials committed
• npm run docs builds without warnings (doc changes only) — completed successfully with 0 errors and 2 existing Fern warnings.
• Doc pages follow the style guide (doc changes only)
• New doc pages include SPDX header and frontmatter (new pages only) — not applicable because native changelog entries use the required parser-safe MDX SPDX comment without frontmatter.

---

Signed-off-by: Aaron Erickson aerickson@nvidia.com

Summary by CodeRabbit

• New Features

  • Added improved DGX Station preparation workflows.
  • Enhanced sandbox status and diagnostic reporting for inference health.
  • Improved state selection and recovery across multiple gateways.
  • Added safer onboarding defaults for web search policies.
  • Improved rebuild preflight handling for credential reuse and fail-closed behavior.

• Documentation

  • Added release notes for version 0.0.88.

[coderabbitai]

No actionable comments were generated in the recent review. 🎉

ℹ️ Recent review info

⚙️ Run configuration

Configuration used: Path: .coderabbit.yaml

Review profile: CHILL

Plan: Enterprise

Run ID: 5038dc7e-5974-412b-836e-bd460fb49393

📥 Commits

Reviewing files that changed from the base of the PR and between 07432e6 and 5d69b8f.

📒 Files selected for processing (1)

• docs/changelog/2026-07-18.mdx

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📝 Walkthrough

Walkthrough

Adds the v0.0.88 changelog entry, covering DGX Station preparation, sandbox health and gateway behavior, onboarding web-search presets, and OpenClaw rebuild credential binding safeguards.

Changes

Release documentation

Layer / File(s)	Summary
v0.0.88 behavior summary docs/changelog/2026-07-18.mdx	Documents DGX Station container and RDMA remediation changes, sandbox inference and gateway state handling, onboarding web-search preset behavior, and OpenClaw credential binding reuse with fail-closed validation.

Estimated code review effort: 1 (Trivial) | ~2 minutes

Possibly related PRs

• NVIDIA/NemoClaw#6274: Covers related OpenClaw/NemoClaw rebuild preflight behavior for credential and channel-resource conflicts.

🚥 Pre-merge checks | ✅ 5

✅ Passed checks (5 passed)

Check name	Status	Explanation
Description Check	✅ Passed	Check skipped - CodeRabbit’s high-level summary is enabled.
Title check	✅ Passed	The title accurately summarizes the PR as adding the v0.0.88 release changelog documentation.
Docstring Coverage	✅ Passed	No functions found in the changed files to evaluate docstring coverage. Skipping docstring coverage check.
Linked Issues check	✅ Passed	Check skipped because no linked issues were found for this pull request.
Out of Scope Changes check	✅ Passed	Check skipped because no linked issues were found for this pull request.

✨ Finishing Touches

🧪 Generate unit tests (beta)

• Create PR with unit tests
• Commit unit tests in branch docs/v0.0.88-release-prep

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[github-actions]

🌿 Preview your docs: https://nvidia-preview-pr-7160.docs.buildwithfern.com/nemoclaw

[github-actions]

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Model lanes

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