WEEKLY UPDATE FROM THE REPOS OF NEAR [12-19.02.2026]
The devs are cooking. Here's what shipped this week across the NEAR repositories! 📟
1/ NEW RELEASE - ironclaw v0.6.0
What changed:
• Added prompt-based skills system with trust gating, tool attenuation, and ClawHub catalog integration for modular agent capabilities
• Introduced benchmarking harness with 21-scenario spot suite for agent evaluation and regression tracking
• Added PR/issue triage skills, job monitoring tools, and sandbox credential delivery for end-to-end workflows
• Implemented shell environment scrubbing, command injection detection, and path traversal fixes for security hardening
• Added infrastructure improvements: circuit breaker, cost guards, response cache, tunnel management, OS service support, and TOML config files
Why it matters:
This release (
github.com/nearai/ironclaw/r…) significantly expands agent capabilities with a secure skills system and benchmarking infrastructure while hardening security boundaries—developers can now extend agents safely and measure performance systematically.
2/ YIELD/RESUME IMPROVEMENT - nearcore: Trie Status Tracking
What changed:
• Added `PromiseYieldStatus` enum to track yield/resume operations in trie state
• Enabled yield/resume between actions in single transaction (fixes edge case)
• Removed redundant PromiseYield to Action receipt conversion logic
• Added comprehensive tests including resharding validation
Why it matters:
This pull request (
github.com/near/nearcore/pul…) enables yield/resume operations within single transactions and provides better state tracking - contract developers can now use yield/resume patterns more flexibly without edge case limitations.
3/ GAS KEY FEES - nearcore: NEP-611 Implementation
What changed:
• Added send/exec fees for TransferToGasKey and WithdrawFromGasKey actions based on transfer costs plus trie operations
• Extended permission fees for gas key variants of AddKey with per-nonce storage write costs
• Introduced dedicated gas key ActionCosts with send/exec separation in runtime config
• Added helper functions for gas key size estimation and trie key length calculations
Why it matters:
This pull request (
github.com/near/nearcore/pul…) implements proper gas accounting for NEP-611 gas key operations - developers using gas keys will now be charged appropriate fees for storage operations and trie modifications.
4/ NEW RELEASE - near-api-js v7.1.1
What changed:
• Automatically registers token receiver on fungible token transfers via Account.transfer method
• Made transactions parallel for improved performance
• Relaxed type constraints on ft getBalance function
Why it matters:
This release (
github.com/near/near-api-js/…) fixes a critical issue where FT transfers would fail if the receiver wasn't registered, while improving performance and type safety.
5/ NEW RELEASE - intents defuse/v0.4.2
What changed:
• Updated near-sdk to 5.20 and near-workspaces to 0.22
• Added optional `state_init` before `mt_on_transfer` and on `on_auth` calls
• Introduced `imt_mint`/`imt_burn` intents for implicit multi-token operations
• Added new escrow-swap contract for deterministic token swaps
• Implemented defuse-sandbox testing framework with extensive extensions
Why it matters:
This release (
github.com/near/intents/rele…) expands token functionality with new intent types, improves contract initialization, and introduces a comprehensive testing framework - developers should review new features if working with multi-token operations or escrow contracts.
6/ NEW RELEASE - mpc v3.5.0
What changed:
• Introduced foreign transaction validation allowing MPC nodes to verify Bitcoin, Ethereum/EVM, Solana, Abstract, and Starknet transactions via RPC before signing
• Added domain separation with purpose-specific domains (`Sign`, `CKD`, `ForeignTx`) to control which contract methods can target each domain
• Implemented automatic foreign chain policy voting where nodes vote for RPC providers they have configured API keys for
• Added consistent hashing for deterministic RPC provider selection per request to reduce reliance on single endpoints
• Introduced on-chain metrics tracking for sign request payload versions
Why it matters:
This release (
github.com/near/mpc/releases…) enables secure cross-chain signing by allowing the MPC network to independently verify foreign chain transactions before producing signatures - critical for bridge use cases like Omnibridge. Note: downgrading from 3.5.0 to 3.4.1 is not possible due to new storage columns.
7/ STANDARD TRAIT IMPLEMENTATIONS - near-sdk-rs
What changed:
• Added `Display`, `Error`, and `Clone` traits to `PromiseError` for better error handling
• Implemented `Display` trait for `PublicKey` and `CurveType` for direct formatting
• Added `Clone`, `Copy`, and `Hash` traits to `GasWeight` and `Abort` types
• Fixed `ParsePublicKeyError` message to show correct expected lengths for different key types
Why it matters:
This pull request (
github.com/near/near-sdk-rs/…) improves developer ergonomics by enabling standard Rust patterns like `?` operator usage and collection support with public SDK types.
8/ NEW RELEASE - near-sandbox-rs v0.3.6
What changed:
• Proper sandbox and RocksDB cleanup with new `CleanupGuard` feature
• Updated nearcore dependency to version 2.10.6
• Added comprehensive logging documentation with environment variable examples
• Improved CI workflows and caching mechanisms
Why it matters:
This release (
github.com/near/near-sandbox…) prevents resource leaks during testing and provides better debugging tools - essential for developers using the sandbox for NEAR smart contract development.
9/ CRITICAL BUG FIX - near-sdk-rs: Drain Iterator State Corruption
What changed:
• Fixed `IterableSet` and `UnorderedSet` drain iterators' `next_back()` method to properly remove entries from the internal index `LookupMap`
• Added regression tests `test_drain_next_back_removes_from_index()` and `test_drain_bidirectional()` to verify bidirectional drain behavior
• Synchronized element removal across both storage structures (Vector/FreeList and LookupMap) during backward iteration
Why it matters:
This pull request (
github.com/near/near-sdk-rs/…) fixes silent state corruption where `contains()` returned true for drained elements and `insert()` could fail unexpectedly - update immediately if using `.drain().next_back()` on these collections.
10/ NEARPLAY INTEGRATION - docs
What changed:
• Added 'Open in NearPlay' buttons to smart contract examples in
basic-contracts.md
• Included badge link to counter example in
quickstart.md
• Added 'Try in NearPlay' column to tutorial steps table in
fts.md
• Added tip section encouraging immediate testing without local setup
Why it matters:
This pull request (
github.com/near/docs/pull/29…) enables developers to instantly test NEAR smart contract examples in the browser through NearPlay - eliminating local environment setup requirements.
Check out the full repositories:
1.
github.com/nearai/ironclaw
2.
github.com/near/nearcore
3.
github.com/near/near-api-js
4.
github.com/near/intents
5.
github.com/near/mpc
6.
github.com/near/near-sdk-rs
7.
github.com/near/near-sandbox…
8.
github.com/near/docs
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