diff --git a/.github/workflows/openclaw-performance.yml b/.github/workflows/openclaw-performance.yml
index 2bb14f64060d..b8b3ef73549e 100644
--- a/.github/workflows/openclaw-performance.yml
+++ b/.github/workflows/openclaw-performance.yml
@@ -70,7 +70,7 @@ env:
   OCM_VERSION: v0.2.29
   OCM_LINUX_X64_SHA256: d966098d6ba2bc10891be3c76e162a37b07f28c4f51da75d2eb509886eb7e1cf
   KOVA_REPOSITORY: openclaw/Kova
-  KOVA_CANONICAL_CONFIG_REF: 1bf080f6dbf8800a3187591493f2551824e4ccc7
+  KOVA_CANONICAL_CONFIG_REF: 517952b835640a368c4af6dfe6dc8365ae841b57
   KOVA_LEGACY_LIST_CONFIG_REF: f3d037b5b8aacd6adf8ef1dd2ea4c1d778ec7c6c
   PERFORMANCE_MODEL_ID: gpt-5.6-luna
   # Release matrices cold-build the candidate runtime before measurement.
diff --git a/qa/scenarios/channels/channel-chat-baseline.yaml b/qa/scenarios/channels/channel-chat-baseline.yaml
index de113fc9c2ee..353aa4cc72dd 100644
--- a/qa/scenarios/channels/channel-chat-baseline.yaml
+++ b/qa/scenarios/channels/channel-chat-baseline.yaml
@@ -32,6 +32,8 @@ scenario:
       }
     kind: flow
     suiteIsolation: isolated
+    transportPolicy:
+      requireGroupMention: true
     summary: Verify the QA agent can respond correctly in a shared channel and respect mention-driven group semantics.
     config:
       expectedMarker: QA-CHANNEL-BASELINE-OK
diff --git a/test/scripts/openclaw-performance-workflow.test.ts b/test/scripts/openclaw-performance-workflow.test.ts
index 8c4e044dc529..af5738948e28 100644
--- a/test/scripts/openclaw-performance-workflow.test.ts
+++ b/test/scripts/openclaw-performance-workflow.test.ts
@@ -84,7 +84,7 @@ describe("OpenClaw performance workflow", () => {
 
   it("pins the Kova evaluator with release validation contracts", () => {
     const workflow = readFileSync(WORKFLOW, "utf8");
-    const canonicalKovaRef = "1bf080f6dbf8800a3187591493f2551824e4ccc7";
+    const canonicalKovaRef = "517952b835640a368c4af6dfe6dc8365ae841b57";
     const legacyKovaRef = "f3d037b5b8aacd6adf8ef1dd2ea4c1d778ec7c6c";
     const install = findStep("Install OCM and Kova");
     const installRun = install.run ?? "";