Two zero-install research skills plus routing guidance, ported as ideas
(not code) from the Agent Reach skill's per-platform backend routing.
reddit-reading (skills/social-media): subreddit listings, site/subreddit
search, threads with comments, user pages. Live-verified from a datacentre
IP: www .json, api.reddit.com, old.reddit, r.jina.ai and the browser tool
all return 403 / an empty shell / a humanity check; the Atom .rss endpoints
are the only anonymous path and are throttled to ~1 request/min/IP. The
script waits out the x-ratelimit-reset window once and retries, and
switches to the OAuth API (scores, nested comments, ~100 req/min) when
REDDIT_CLIENT_ID/SECRET are present. `doctor` reports the active backend.
rss-feeds (skills/research): RSS 2.0 / RSS 1.0 / Atom / JSON Feed parsing
with UTC-normalised dates, --since/--limit, and feed discovery behind a
page URL (<link rel=alternate>, then well-known paths). Stdlib only; the
optional blogwatcher skill remains the stateful many-feed reader and now
points at this one for one-off reads.
grounded-citations gains a "Multi-Platform Sweeps" section routing
"what are people saying about X" tasks across web, Reddit, feeds, video,
code and X with per-platform attribution and coverage-gap reporting;
competitor-news-monitor references the new sources.
Tests: two invariant tests per skill (format normalisation + discovery;
anonymous 429 handling + OAuth routing/flattening), no network. The
reddit test caught a real bug: the feed footer's "/u/author" leaked into
post bodies.
* refactor(skills): shipped-set slim — 15 skills to optional, github six-way merge, pdf absorbs OCR+nano-pdf, channel-gated teams pipeline
Maintainer-directed shipped-skills curation (skills index 1,900 -> ~1,400
tok/call on desktop; every session pays the index, so this is a per-call
diet on all installs):
- optional-skills moves (installable via skills hub, history preserved):
creative comfyui/ascii-art/excalidraw/pretext/sketch/touchdesigner-mcp;
ALL of mlops (huggingface-hub, llama-cpp, serving-llms-vllm,
weights-and-biases, evaluating-llms-harness — subcategory structure
kept); research-paper-writing (55 supporting files, 17.3K-tok load);
openhue; blogwatcher (first taught the cronjob monitor-field watch
pattern + web_extract instead of pre-cron manual workflows)
- DELETED session-librarian (Aug-12 'inspired by Perplexity Computer'
port, never maintainer-intended; session_search covers discovery)
- github: six skills (auth, issues, pr-workflow, issue-to-pr,
code-review, repo-management) merged into ONE software-development/
github skill — routing body + complete per-workflow references;
benbarclay authorship credited; codebase-inspection rides along;
discipline pins from test_github_issue_to_pr_skill.py preserved
against the reference body in the new test_github_skill.py
- pdf absorbs ocr-and-documents + nano-pdf as references/ + scripts
(extract_pymupdf, extract_marker converted to the argparse house
standard its contract test enforces)
- NEW session_platforms frontmatter gate (metadata.hermes): hides a
skill from the index on gateway channels it is not for; fail-open on
unknown platform; teams-meeting-pipeline gated to [teams, cron]
- blocked-page-recovery: research -> new web category; trigger-first
description ('Use when a fetch fails: 403/429, paywall, WAF, bot
wall.') so the model actually reaches for it on blocked fetches
- docs regenerated via generate-skill-docs.py (195 pages); related_skills
swept repo-wide; tests: 1672 passed (2 openclaw failures pre-existing
on clean main, Windows-local)
* chore: ignore .skills_prompt_snapshot.json (local index cache, accidentally committed)
hermes skills install impeccable (and the docs-page install button) now
installs the impeccable frontend-design skill as an official optional-skills
entry. The local optional-skills/creative/impeccable/ dir is a catalog STUB:
its frontmatter declares metadata.hermes.upstream (repo + path), and
OptionalSkillSource.fetch() pulls the real 163-file bundle live from
pbakaus/impeccable:.hermes/skills/impeccable — the Hermes-native bundle
upstream maintains and verifies. Nothing vendored, never stale.
New mechanism (generic, not impeccable-specific):
- OptionalSkillSource._upstream_pointer(): parses/validates the upstream
pointer (owner/name repo, clean relative path, traversal rejected).
- _fetch_from_upstream(): delegates to GitHubSource.fetch(), relabels the
bundle official/<rel> at trust 'trusted' (curated endorsement, but
third-party content — dangerous scan verdicts still block).
- The live-repo fallback path redirects stubs the same way, so stale local
checkouts behave identically.
Three real gaps this surfaced, all fixed:
- GitHubSource.fetch() only downloaded SKILL.md plus paths linked from a
canonical support dir (references/, scripts/, ...). Impeccable keeps its
playbooks under reference/ (singular) and links scripts only from
reference files, so fetch shipped 1 of 163 files. fetch() now downloads
the full skill directory via the git tree (same approach as the
optional-skills live fetch), still rejecting symlinks/hidden/unsafe paths
and still failing on a missing SKILL.md-linked references/ path.
- The five env_exfil_* scanner patterns flagged loopback requests as
critical exfiltration: impeccable's live mode polls
http://localhost:PORT/status?token=TOKEN and scored two CRITICALs.
Scheme-anchored loopback exemption added; evil.com/?u=localhost decoys
still fire (10-case regex matrix in tests).
- unified_search() truncated to limit before ranking, so official catalog
entries got crowded out by skills.sh mirrors and bare-name installs
stalled on an ambiguity table. Results now stable-sort by trust rank
before the cut, and _resolve_short_name prefers a sole official exact
match over community mirrors.
Also fixes pre-existing test pollution: TestInstallPathSafety's fixture
monkeypatched the PEP 562 dynamic SKILLS_DIR, permanently shadowing dynamic
resolution and breaking the served_repo E2E tests in any combined run
(reproducible on main).
Validation: live E2E do_install("impeccable") against real GitHub —
resolves to official/creative/impeccable, verdict SAFE, 163 files on disk,
skill loads, /impeccable slash command registers. 128/128 targeted tests;
full-dir fetch test sabotage-verified. Docs: optional-skills catalog row,
generated skill page, sidebar.
The bundled plan skill's auto-generated slash command fell off the capped
Telegram/Discord command menus for most installs (skills are the only tier
trimmed at the platform caps, alphabetically — 'plan' sat past the cutoff at
index 57 of 82 bundled skills). Converting it to a first-class CommandDef
gives it a guaranteed core-tier menu slot on every platform.
- agent/plan_prompt.py: build_plan_prompt() — plan-mode rules + authoring
craft distilled from the retired skill; prompt-injection pattern like
/learn and /init (no engine, no model-tool footprint, cache-safe).
- CLI: _handle_plan_command mixin handler (pending-input injection).
- Gateway: /plan branch rewrites event.text and falls through (role
alternation preserved).
- TUI: command.dispatch branch ('plan' was already in
_PENDING_INPUT_COMMANDS).
- Removed skills/software-development/plan/ + docs pages (EN + zh-Hans),
catalog rows, sidebar entry, related_skills references.
- PROTECTED_BUILTIN_SKILLS is now empty (mechanism kept); dependent
curator/usage tests moved to monkeypatched sentinels.
Salvages #67292 by @webtecnica (credit: first /plan command submission,
issue #67264); reworked from inline planning prompt to the prompt-injection
pattern with workspace-saved plans. Closes#67264, closes#36821 (empty
/plan infers task from conversation context).
Reverts the plan-interrogation rename from #97831 per maintainer decision —
the skill keeps its original grill-me name. The content upgrade (design-tree
frontier-rounds interview mechanic from mattpocock/skills' grilling) stays.
Docs page, catalog row, and sidebar entry renamed back.
Ports the MIT-licensed 'to-questionnaire' skill from mattpocock/skills as
decision-questionnaire (optional-skills/productivity). Interviews the user
about the send only (recipient + needed outcomes), then drafts a
most-important-first discovery questionnaire with answer stubs to
decision-questionnaire-<slug>.md. Includes staging tests for frontmatter
standards, template sections, and de-upstreaming.
Ports the MIT-licensed 'wizard' skill from mattpocock/skills as
setup-wizard-generator (optional-skills/devops). Generates an interactive
bash wizard that walks a human through manual procedures: opens dashboard
URLs, captures values (hidden entry for secrets), writes .env / GitHub
secrets idempotently, and confirms each stage. Vendors upstream's
template.sh library verbatim (bash -n verified) plus a staging test suite
covering frontmatter, template integrity, and de-upstreaming.
Renames the optional grill-me skill to the more descriptive plan-interrogation
and upgrades it with the design-tree frontier-rounds mechanic from
mattpocock/skills' MIT-licensed 'grilling' skill: batch all currently-askable
questions per round in dependency order, agent finds facts itself, decisions
stay with the user. Docs page, catalog row, and sidebar entry renamed.
Per the 'when in doubt, optional' rule — plan-interview is an
on-request capability, not a weekly daily-driver for most users.
Install via: hermes skills install official/software-development/grill-me
Per the 'when in doubt, optional' rule — site publishing is an
on-request capability, not a weekly daily-driver for most users.
Joins cloudflare-temporary-deploy/page-agent under
optional-skills/web-development (existing category, existing
DESCRIPTION.md kept; the new bundled category dir is dropped).
Install via: hermes skills install official/web-development/publish-site
Bot Mode ships built into the desktop app (default on) but only had a
short section in desktop.md. This adds a dedicated user-guide page
covering the Bots roster, creating and editing Bots, avatars, routines,
group chats, bot-to-bot messaging (agent.bot_mode_protocol), the
multi-connection roster, and CLI parity.
Ports Claude Code's /loop (and its /proactive alias) across every Hermes
surface. /loop [interval] <prompt> re-runs a prompt or slash command on a
recurring cadence inside the live session; omitting the interval enables
self-paced mode (starts at the floor, backs off exponentially while the
agent's replies stop changing, snaps back on change — local digest
comparison, zero extra LLM cost).
Stop conditions: agent-emitted LOOP_COMPLETE marker, --times N,
--until <condition> (judged by the existing goal_judge aux task,
fail-open), /loop stop, and a loops.max_ticks backstop budget.
Core: hermes_cli/loops.py (LoopState + LoopManager + shared
dispatch_loop_command), persisted per session in SessionDB state_meta
(loop:<sid>) so /resume picks it up; migrates across compression
boundaries like /goal. New SessionDB.list_meta_prefix() powers the
gateway's cross-session scan.
Surfaces:
- CLI: /loop handler + idle-fire and post-turn-complete hooks in
process_loop (mirrors the /goal hook shape; Ctrl+C pauses the loop)
- Gateway: /loop handler with route capture, mid-run control-verb guard,
post-turn tick completion, and a supervised loop_wakeup_watcher that
injects due wakeups into idle chats via the synthetic-message path
- TUI/dashboard/desktop: command.dispatch handler + per-session
notification-poller wakeup driver + post-turn completion in the turn
dispatcher; /loop added to the desktop slash palette
- /goal mixing: an active non-parked goal owns the idle boundary — loop
ticks defer until it finishes, pauses, or parks; real user input always
wins over both
Config: loops.{min_interval_seconds,max_ticks,self_paced_floor_seconds,
self_paced_ceiling_seconds}. Docs page + sidebar entry. 77 new tests.
Slack's 50-slash cap: /version moves to /hermes version to free the
native slot for /loop.
Adds a bundled productivity skill that lets Hermes organize the user's own
session library conversationally: find sessions by topic via session_search,
summarize goals/decisions from bookends, rename them meaningfully, propose
archives/prunes with a mandatory plan-first + dry-run discipline, and split
requests into parallel workstreams via delegate_task.
Inspired by Perplexity Computer's session management by prompt (changelog
07/27/26): find/summarize past sessions, fork focused follow-ups, rename,
pin/archive with plan-first confirmation, and fan one request out into
parallel per-task sessions.
omo's ultimate-browsing engine added a 'surrogate retrieval tier' (PR #6662):
when a page fetch is blocked by a WAF/paywall/rate-limit, it falls back to
third-party copies (Wayback, archive.today, Jina Reader) with strict
provenance labeling and validators that reject fake successes (dead Google
Cache interstitials, AMP redirect stubs, rate-limit bodies).
Hermes adaptation: a bundled research skill + stdlib-only script instead of
a Python sub-engine — zero core-tool footprint, per the footprint ladder.
Clean-room implementation (their repo is Sustainable Use License; nothing
copied), keeping the good ideas: provenance contract (snapshot vs live),
body validation over status codes, domain rotation for archive.today,
API-first pivot guidance, and explicit skip of proxy relays (MITM).
E2E tested: recovered a real 486KB Wayback snapshot with timestamp;
validators reject redirect stubs, interstitial titles, and sub-floor bodies.
The upstream ahujasid/blender-mcp and ahujasid/ableton-mcp GitHub repos
were hijacked on 2026-08-08: the maintainer (@sidahuj) publicly reported
his account was compromised and ownership stripped, and both repos now
redirect to an attacker-controlled org (MCPBlender, created the same
day, pushing new commits since).
Although our catalog pinned blender-mcp==1.6.4 from PyPI (pre-compromise,
sha256 verified unchanged), the server is only half the bridge: the
manifest's post-install instructions and the optional skill directed
users to download addon.py — arbitrary Python executed inside Blender —
from the now-compromised GitHub repo (the raw URL currently 404s, and
the addon ships in no PyPI artifact). There is no trustworthy source
for the addon half, so the entry cannot be installed safely end-to-end.
Removing the catalog entry and skill entirely until the maintainer
confirms account recovery; re-adding is a follow-up PR once upstream
is verified clean.
- optional-mcps/blender/: removed
- optional-skills/creative/blender-mcp/: removed
- docs: catalog rows, sidebar entry, skill pages (en + zh-Hans) removed
- cross-references in unreal-mcp and kanban-video-orchestrator cleaned
New tests/skills/test_authoring_standards.py parametrizes every bundled +
optional SKILL.md (1148 checks) against the mechanically-verifiable subset
of the hardline standards:
- required frontmatter fields (name/description/version/author/license/
platforms) + tags
- frontmatter name == directory name
- description <= 60 chars, ends with period, no marketing words
- related_skills resolve in-repo
- no machine-local paths
- <= 100k chars
Grandfather dict for legacy debt ships EMPTY — all pre-existing violations
fixed in this PR:
- 13 frontmatter names canonicalized to their directory names (the install
identifier); all related_skills references updated (comfyui -> stable-
diffusion). Fixes the class behind PR #42788's report; also fixes
here.now's invalid dot-name.
- optional-skills/devops/cli -> inference-sh-cli (dir was the generic
'cli'; fm name was right) incl. docs pages (en + zh-Hans), catalog row,
sidebar entry.
- pytorch-fsdp: 157k generated 'Quick Reference' dump moved to
references/common-patterns.md; SKILL.md 159k -> 2.5k with a pointer.
- research-paper-writing: 31.7k Phase 5 drafting section moved to
references/phase5-paper-drafting.md; SKILL.md 103k -> 71k.
Docs regenerated with scope discipline.
- description 210 -> 57 chars; author credits Ben Barclay (benbarclay) first
- optional-skills/creative/ (marketing vertical, narrowest audience of
the batch)
- dropped phantom 'image-generation-workflow' ref; visuals via the
image_generate tool
- honest handoff language: platforms without connectors end at approved
drafts marked handed-off, never claimed as published
- tests (10) incl. phantom-ref and honest-handoff guards
- docs regen scoped: per-skill page + one catalog row + one sidebar line
Skill polish:
- description 208 -> 57 chars; author credits Ben Barclay (benbarclay) first
- connector framing (google-workspace, obsidian, notion, email-inbox-triage)
- modern section order; boilerplate folded into step-local rules
Blueprint wiring (completes the batch's recipe integration):
- weekly-review blueprint loads weekly-review-planning; prompt follows the
skill's seven-section shape, drafts-only
- morning-brief blueprint loads google-workspace; prompt points at
references/daily-brief.md when connected
- important-mail blueprint loads email-inbox-triage
- blueprints index regenerated
Tests: 13 skill tests + two catalog invariants (every blueprint skills=
entry resolves to a real bundled skill; the four task blueprints are wired
to their procedure skills). 32 green across both files.
Rewrote from a sibling-skill routing table into a skill that carries its
own procedure, and folded in generalized rules from maintainer practice:
- full-thread reads (gh issue view --comments; newest comment = live state)
- duplicate-PR sweep (issue number + keyword variants) before any code
- design-intent check via git log -p -S alongside premise reproduction
- fix the class: sweep sibling call sites into the same PR
- sabotage run: prove the regression test fails without the fix
- open the PR immediately (PR dispatches CI; CI latency is the long pole)
- close the loop: comment the issue with the PR link
Also: description 205 -> 59 chars, author credits Ben Barclay first,
modern section order, boilerplate trimmed, tests (10) incl. a
router-pattern guard, scoped docs regen.
- description 219 -> 58 chars
- author credits Ben Barclay (benbarclay) first
- modern section order; trimmed template safety boilerplate into
step-local rules and a skill-specific verification checklist
- tests at tests/skills/test_email_inbox_triage_skill.py (9 passing)
- docs regen scoped: per-skill page + one catalog row + one sidebar line
Fleet audit showed these task skills are commonly needed across users;
shipping bundled per Teknium's direction. Docs and tests follow the
bundled paths.
Per the 'when in doubt, optional' rule — niche prediction-market data
skill that sees no regular use; belongs alongside stocks in the finance
optional category rather than the default bundle.
Install via: hermes skills install official/finance/polymarket
/heartbeat every <interval> <prompt> gives the current session one
recurring instruction. When the session is idle and the interval has
elapsed, the prompt is injected as a plain user turn — same
conversation, same context, prompt cache and role alternation
untouched.
- CLI: idle-poll watchdog thread (wake-word watchdog pattern) feeding
_pending_input; gateway: single gateway-wide async poller injecting
through the adapter FIFO. Busy sessions coalesce their tick to the
next idle poll.
- Missed ticks coalesce (anchor resets on fire) — a busy hour yields
ONE heartbeat turn, never a backlog. Real user messages always win.
- 60s interval floor; injected prompt carries a don't-invent-work
guard so idle heartbeats don't generate busywork.
- State persists in SessionDB.state_meta (heartbeat:<session_id>),
survives /resume, migrates across compression session rotations
alongside /goal state.
- Session-scoped and in-process by design — durable cross-process
schedules remain the cron subsystem's job (docs draw the boundary).
- Slack stays under the 50-slash cap via /hermes heartbeat; ghost-text
suggester now prefers the shortest prefix match so /he still
suggests /help.
Adapted from the session-heartbeat concept in Prime Intellect's
Prime-Agent (/heartbeat).
- New website/docs/user-guide/messaging/a2a.md: when/where to use A2A
(cross-machine, specialist peers, being callable) vs delegation/kanban
for same-machine multi-agent; enable, outbound tools, inbound surface,
security model, env reference, quick test, troubleshooting. Registered
in sidebars.ts and the messaging index.
- README/DESIGN/plugin.yaml/protocol.py prose updated to name the A2A
v1.0 canonical discovery path /.well-known/agent-card.json (the code
already served both; only the docs lagged).
Answers and written deliverables that rest on retrieved information now get
inline numbered citations plus a mechanically-rendered Sources list, with a
persistent ledger that makes a hallucinated citation detectable.
- skills/research/grounded-citations/scripts/sources.py: stdlib citation
ledger (add/ingest/list/render/verify) at
$HERMES_HOME/cache/citations/ledger.json, profile-aware, O_EXCL-locked so
parallel subagents sharing a ledger can't collide on ids
- SKILL.md: cite-while-drafting procedure, register-at-retrieval rule,
pitfalls, verification gate
- references/citation-formats.md: per-target placement (markdown, LaTeX/PDF,
docx, pptx, xlsx, wiki, BibTeX handoff to research-paper-writing)
- references/grounding-rationale.md: why numbered ids (ALCE 2305.14627,
WebGPT 2112.09332, Perplexity marker conventions), and how this relates to
the in-process registry in PR #44833
- tests/skills/test_grounded_citations_skill.py: 30 tests
One page consolidating all three Hermes×Buzz integration paths —
Desktop managed runtime, buzz-acp relay bridge, and the native gateway
platform — with a comparison table, per-path pointers into the detailed
docs, identity guidance, and contributor credits. Registered in
sidebars.ts under Integrations; Buzz added to the messaging platform
list and a new Collaboration Workspaces section on the integrations
index. en + zh-Hans.
Follow-up on the salvaged #71610 commits:
- acquire/release a scoped lock on relay_url+pubkey in connect/disconnect
(IRC pattern) so two profiles can't drive one Buzz identity — duplicate
replies and split de-dupe state; +2 tests
- negative-cache _resolve_user_name failures so a profile-less pubkey
doesn't re-hit 'users get' every poll sweep (flagged by @jethac on the PR)
- register user-guide/messaging/buzz in website/sidebars.ts (page was
unreachable — the #63359 trap)
Auto-gen page slugs, catalog rows/paths, sidebar entries, and zh-Hans
mirrors follow the directory renames. Also updates the install path
official/creative/audiocraft -> official/creative/audiocraft-audio-generation
in the songwriting-and-ai-music pointer section.
skills/computer-use/SKILL.md sat at the root of the bundled skills
tree as an uncategorized single-skill directory. Move it to
skills/autonomous-ai-agents/computer-use/ alongside claude-code,
codex, opencode, and hermes-agent.
- git mv skills/computer-use -> skills/autonomous-ai-agents/computer-use
(history preserved)
- root-level-skill docstring examples (commands.py,
generate-skill-docs.py) now use a generic placeholder instead of
naming a specific skill, since categorizing root-level skills is
ongoing
- docs: move the bundled page to autonomous-ai-agents-computer-use,
update sidebars.ts, skills-catalog.md, and the two skill-path
references in features/computer-use.md
E2E validated: fresh sync_skills() copies to the new nested path;
existing installs with the old flat copy keep it untouched (manifest
name-keyed, hash unchanged -> skipped, no duplicate);
_get_category_from_path resolves 'autonomous-ai-agents'; docusaurus
build green; 396 targeted tests pass.
Teknium