Correlate approval requests, reject stale responses, replay pending approvals after reconnect or session resume, and preserve fail-closed timeout behavior.
HERMES_EXEC_ASK (and gateway platform markers without a notify callback)
were short-circuiting interactive CLI into silent pending_approval, so
the Approve/Deny panel never appeared. Prefer the registered CLI callback
when present, and set HERMES_EXEC_ASK only in start_gateway so importing
gateway.run from CLI tools cannot poison the process.
Approval marks were emitted under a synthetic 'default' relay session:
the hook payload carried only turn_id/tool_call_id, so the observability
plugin's _session_id() fell back to 'default', parenting approval marks
to a session scope that never closes — and close-time exporters never
shipped them. The audit board's approval tables stayed empty while
approvals were demonstrably firing (staging 2026-08-10).
Bind session_id in set_current_observability_context at both dispatch
sites (model_tools tool dispatch, plugins pre-tool-call approval gate)
and forward it on every approval hook. Explicit session_id in a hook
payload still wins; unbound contexts omit it (legacy behavior).
Fixes#69472. On a Windows host every destructive native command passed
approval silently — DANGEROUS_PATTERNS were POSIX-shaped, and the
normalizer strips backslashes as shell escapes so no Windows path could
ever match a path rule. Probed live before the fix: 15 of 15 destructive
Windows commands (Remove-Item -Recurse -Force, del /s /q, iwr | iex,
taskkill /F, Format-Volume, diskpart, icacls /grant Everyone, vssadmin
delete shadows, bcdedit /set, reg delete, cipher /w, ...) sailed through
undetected.
Two changes:
1. Windows destructive tier in DANGEROUS_PATTERNS: PowerShell deletes
(bare Remove-Item -Recurse/-Force), cmd builtins with /s|/q switches,
iwr|iex remote execution (pipe and subexpression forms), taskkill /F /
Stop-Process -Force, volume/disk destruction (Format-Volume,
Clear-Disk, diskpart, format.com, cipher /w), icacls Everyone-grant /
/reset, backup destruction (vssadmin delete shadows, wbadmin delete,
bcdedit /set), reg delete / Remove-ItemProperty -Force, and service
stop/delete (Stop-Service -Force, sc stop|delete). Each pattern
requires the destructive flag so graceful/read-only usage (taskkill
/IM without /F, reg query, icacls inspect, sc query, plain del file)
does not prompt. Patterns live in the main list, not a win32-gated
tier: a Linux-hosted Hermes can drive a Windows box over SSH.
2. Windows-path detection variant in _command_detection_variants: when
the raw command contains a drive-letter/UNC backslash path, also
yield a variant with backslashes flattened to forward slashes BEFORE
normalization strips them, plus Windows spellings of the credential
path rules (Users/<u>/.ssh, AppData/{Local,Roaming}/hermes .env).
Gated on a real path shape so POSIX escape semantics are untouched.
Tests: tests/tools/test_approval_windows.py — 48 cases (27 destructive
flagged, 13 benign not flagged, 5 credential paths in both separator
spellings, 4 POSIX-escape non-regressions). The 8 pre-existing failures
under '-k approval' on this Windows host are identical on unmodified
main (ordering artifacts + known symlink cases) and unrelated.
- Single source for the approval-derived bound: public human_wait_ceiling()
in tools/approval.py; the gate's lock-timeout helper delegates to it
instead of re-deriving timeout + margin (was duplicated in two modules
and reached for a private _get_approval_timeout).
- Shared _clamped_window_seconds() for the close-time accrual and the
open-window read, so the two clamps are identical by construction.
- Gate __init__ grows session_key kwarg; tests construct via the real
constructor instead of mutating privates post-hoc.
- Gateway test resolves its pending approval via resolve_gateway_approval()
(the production /deny path) instead of hand-rolling queue-entry internals.
- Docstring accuracy: human_wait_seconds monotonicity caveat under cap
eviction; s/pre_tool_block/pre_tool_call/ hook name.
Review-driven follow-up to the #79719 fix:
- Clamp the CLOSE-side accrual too: a wedged window that eventually closed
used to inject its full unclamped overstay into completed_seconds,
retroactively extending a running batch's deadline by hours. Both clamps
now share one ceiling helper (_human_wait_ceiling = approvals.timeout +
HUMAN_WAIT_MARGIN_S), and the gate's lock-timeout uses the same margin
constant so the bounds cannot drift apart.
- Evict idle sessions until the table is under the cap (was: at most one
per insert, so churn could outgrow _HUMAN_WAIT_MAX_SESSIONS). Entries
with an open window are still never evicted.
- Log (debug) instead of silently swallowing a failed session-key snapshot
in the gate constructor.
Tests: close-side clamp regression + table-cap assertion added; suite at
17 passed.
A tool wedged inside _ConcurrentToolAuthorizationGate hung the whole turn
forever (#79719): excluded_seconds() measured residency in gate.run() —
arbitrary code — so an open window grew 1:1 with wall clock and the batch
deadline's remaining was constant (remaining = deadline - window_started;
now cancels out). A hanging pre_tool_call plugin or an approval round-trip
to a dead client defeated the deadline entirely. The serialization lock was
also an unbounded acquire, so every other worker needing authorization
parked behind the wedged holder forever.
Fix, in two halves:
- tools/approval.py grows per-session human-wait accounting
(human_wait_window / human_wait_seconds). The two places that are
verifiably blocked on a HUMAN — the CLI approval prompt and the gateway
approval poll loop — mark their own windows. Both are intrinsically
bounded by approvals.timeout; the open-window read is additionally
clamped to that timeout plus a margin as belt-and-braces.
- _ConcurrentToolAuthorizationGate keeps only serialization, with a bounded
acquire (approvals.timeout + 60s; on expiry the prompt runs unserialized —
the same degradation the start-order gate accepted in #79705).
excluded_seconds() becomes a baseline-delta read of the session's
human-wait total.
A wedged plugin now contributes nothing to the exclusion, so the batch
times out at the normal deadline with correctly labeled results, while a
genuine approval wait — which can legitimately exceed any fixed bound —
still extends the deadline in full. E2E (real AIAgent, worktree imports):
wedged-plugin batch on main never ends (>30s observed, 3s deadline); with
the fix it ends at 3.0s. A 4s simulated approval over a 2s deadline
completes without a timeout label.
Closes#79719
A raw newline in the _CMDPOS start-position class made ANY multi-line
quoted argument look like a command boundary, so hermes send message
bodies, multi-line git commit -m messages, and heredoc text that merely
mentioned dangerous command names tripped the unconditional hardline
blocklist and could not run at all.
Mask newlines inside single/double quotes (detection-only, mirroring the
quote tracking in _iter_shell_command_starts) before building detection
variants. Real threats keep blocking: unquoted newlines stay command
separators, command substitutions inside quotes still anchor, and
_mark_command_starts still re-inserts newlines at genuine quote-aware
command starts. Masking runs on the RAW command before normalization,
which strips escapes and would otherwise corrupt quote state.
Regression tests cover both directions: multi-line quoted data passes
(hermes send, git commit -m, heredocs); bare/chained/substituted
shutdown-class and rm-floor commands still block.
When an approval prompt expired without a response, every CLI-side path
collapsed the timeout into the same 'deny' choice as an explicit user
refusal, so the agent was told the user denied the action when the user
simply never answered. The gateway wait already distinguished the two
('timed out without user response... Silence is not consent.'); this
brings the CLI/TUI/ACP surfaces to parity.
- prompt_dangerous_approval(): input()-path expiry now returns a distinct
'timeout' choice (still fail-closed).
- cli.py _approval_callback + hermes_cli/callbacks.py approval_callback:
deadline expiry returns 'timeout' instead of 'deny'.
- check_all_command_guards / _run_approval_gate CLI tails: 'timeout' maps
to outcome='timeout' with a 'timed out without user response... Silence
is not consent.' BLOCKED message (matching the gateway wording);
explicit deny keeps outcome='denied' and gains user_consent=False for
shape parity.
- computer_use: 'timeout' verdict threads through the CLI adapter and
yields a 'prompt timed out — the user did not respond' error instead of
'denied by user'.
- ACP permissions bridge: FutureTimeout returns 'timeout' (other failures
still 'deny'); elicitation maps 'timeout' to 'cancel' like the gateway's
unresolved outcome; codex wire mapping documents deny/timeout→decline.
- write_approval already treats unknown choices as 'stage, not drop', so
a timeout now stages the memory write instead of silently refusing it.
Every timeout path remains fail-closed — the action never runs; only the
classification reported to the agent changes.
Follow-up to the recovery-recipe commit on this branch, per review:
instead of only TELLING the model to re-author the payload via
write_file (2 turns), materialize the blocked command to
~/.hermes/cache/blocked-scripts/blocked-*.sh and point the recovery
at it directly: 'saved to <path> - review it, then run
terminal(command="bash <path>")' (1 turn).
Safety posture is unchanged or better:
- Nothing is executed here; the file is only written.
- The bash <path> follow-up goes through the normal execution
pipeline, including the referenced-script content guard, which
inspects script files named in commands - the payload is MORE
visible to policy than it was inline.
- Genuine hardline blocks (destructive ops) never save anything
(test-asserted).
- Save failures fall back to the previous manual write_file recipe.
- 7-day opportunistic cleanup of saved payloads.
Two block classes from production mining (250k-call window) that
models answered with blind rephrase-retries:
1. Parser-limit / malformed-payload hardline blocks (198x): these fire
on oversized inline payloads (heredocs, giant one-liners), not on a
forbidden operation - but the message read like a permanent ban.
The block now appends: 'RECOVERY: ... write the script to a file
with write_file, then run bash /path/script.sh - do not retry
inline.' Genuine hardline blocks (destructive filesystem
operations) are unchanged.
2. Backgrounding-wrapper blocks (200x): the guidance now spells out
the exact corrected call shape - 're-send WITHOUT the wrapper as
terminal(command="<cmd>", background=true,
notify_on_complete=true)' - instead of describing the feature
abstractly.
Replace the process-global HERMES_CRON_SESSION env var with a per-session
ContextVar so a cron tick in the gateway process cannot leak into unrelated
live gateway/API/TUI turns. The cron scheduler now sets the ContextVar
inside the job's try/finally scope and resets it on cleanup. Gateway, API
server, ACP adapter, and TUI gateway all pass cron_session='' to explicitly
mark their sessions as non-cron, masking any stale process env.
Co-authored-by: hinablue <hinablue@gmail.com>
Closes#37968
Review follow-up on the #76194 salvage: the readonly swap makes this
function leak the live config-cache 'approvals' sub-dict to callers.
All current callers are read-only (audited); the docstring now carries
the do-not-mutate contract for future ones.
The terminal-command guard path loaded config 2-3x per invocation via
load_config(), which pays a defensive deepcopy of the entire config on
every call (~356us of the ~376us warm-cache cost measured on a real
config.yaml). All six swapped call sites were audited read-only — every
caller takes scalar reads or iterates the returned structures; none
mutate (the save path at save_permanent_allowlist keeps load_config) —
so they now use load_config_readonly(), the API built for exactly this
(precedent: #74211, #74322; the one unsafe-site lesson from #56085's
salvage is covered by the mutation audit and a cache-integrity test).
Measured (real config.yaml, warm cache): load_config 376.0us ->
load_config_readonly 19.9us (18.9x); full guard pass
check_all_command_guards('ls -la','local') 930.7us -> 241.8us (3.85x).
Tests: new test_approval_config_readonly.py drives the real functions
against a temp HERMES_HOME — readonly call counts per function, a
no-deepcopy pin for the full guard pass, and cache-identity/integrity
checks. Existing test mocks retargeted from load_config to
load_config_readonly (same injection intent). Note: 6
test_approval_mode_parity failures are pre-existing ordering flakes —
identical with the change stashed on clean main.
Port from openai/codex#33464: GNU rm permutes options, so
`rm build/ -rf`, `rm build/ -r -f`, and `rm build/ --recursive
--force` are equivalent to the flags-first spellings — but every
existing rm pattern required the flag group BEFORE the path, so these
spellings ran with no approval prompt at all (proven live on main).
The hardline floor was NOT affected: protected paths (/, system dirs,
$HOME) match regardless of flag position because the hardline path
matcher does not require flags. The gap was the approval-prompt layer
for arbitrary paths.
New DANGEROUS_PATTERNS entry with a tempered operand run: cannot cross
command separators (; | & newline), quotes, or a bare -- end-of-options
separator (after --, -rf is a literal filename). Flag token must be
whitespace-anchored so the r inside long options like --registry does
not count.
9 positive + 7 negative shapes in tests; approval cluster (868 tests)
green.
Inspired by Claude Code 2.1.214, which added permission prompts for
container-CLI commands (including the Podman shim) carrying
daemon-redirect flags (--url, --connection, --identity, remote mode)
that previously ran without one.
A daemon redirect makes a local-looking command operate on a different
(often remote) daemon, silently acting on production infrastructure.
Any container-CLI invocation carrying a redirect now requires approval
regardless of subcommand:
- -H/--host and --context global flags (value required, global-flag
position only — bare -h help and run-level -h <hostname> stay allowed)
- context use (persistently switches the default daemon)
- podman --url/--connection/--identity and -r/--remote
- DOCKER_HOST=/DOCKER_CONTEXT=/CONTAINER_HOST=/CONTAINER_CONNECTION=
environment prefixes
Sibling-site widening: the existing container lifecycle rules matched
only the verb directly adjacent to the binary name, so a global flag or
a compose -f file flag slipped past the guard, and the legacy hyphenated
compose binary was never covered. They now tolerate global flags — the
same treatment the 'hermes ... gateway' rule already has — and match the
hyphenated compose binary.
Validation: 33 new tests; 339 pass in test_approval.py + new file;
442 pass across the adjacent guard suites; E2E battery of 12 dangerous
+ 17 safe commands via real imports, hot path ~330us/call.
After N consecutive guardian denials in a session the deny message escalates to a hard-stop instruction. Inspired by ChatGPT Work auto-review circuit breaker.
Adds an allow_session flag to the gateway approval payload so adapters
can render the session tier independently of the permanent tier. Matrix
gains a session reaction (🌀) and a reaction legend; pure-tirith prompts
now offer once/session/deny instead of collapsing to once/deny.
Salvaged from PR #67312, adapted to the allow_permanent semantics that
landed in #68597 (Always offered when any dangerous-pattern warning is
persistable; pure-tirith prompts stay session-max).
Three related messaging-approval fixes:
1. approvals.timeout default 60 -> 300. PR #63501 collapsed the gateway
wait onto the canonical approvals.timeout (previously
gateway_timeout=300), silently shrinking messaging approval windows
to 60s. Push-notification approvals routinely arrive later than a
minute; taps landed after the wait had already failed closed.
2. Stale-tap honesty: adapters resolved the approval AFTER rendering
'<checkmark> Approved by <user>' (Telegram/Discord/Slack), or ignored a zero
resolve count (WhatsApp Cloud/Feishu). A tap on an expired prompt
claimed approval while the command had already been denied. All
button paths now resolve first and render 'Approval expired -
command was not run' when nothing was waiting.
3. Mixed-warning prompts (dangerous pattern + tirith finding) now offer
Always: the persistence layer already permanently allowlists the
pattern key and downgrades the tirith key to session scope, but the
UI hid Always whenever ANY tirith warning was present. Pure-tirith
prompts still withhold Always (content findings are session-max by
design), and Smart-DENY overrides remain once-only.
_run_approval_gate's gateway branch only queued via submit_pending, so
plugin-escalated approvals never sent the interactive embed+buttons on
Discord/Telegram/Slack (#59413) - the user was never notified and the
action stayed silently blocked. Mirror check_dangerous_command's path:
when a session notify callback is registered, run the blocking
_await_gateway_decision round-trip (redacted payload, once/session/
always persistence, deny/timeout produce definitive BLOCKED outcomes);
fall back to submit_pending only when no callback exists.
Fixes#59413.
Adds approvals.deny to config.yaml — a list of fnmatch globs matched
against terminal commands. A match blocks unconditionally, BEFORE the
--yolo / /yolo / approvals.mode=off bypass, making it the user-editable
counterpart to the code-shipped hardline blocklist.
- Checked in both command gates (check_dangerous_command and
check_all_command_guards), after the hardline floor and sudo-stdin
guard, before the yolo bypass and permanent allowlist.
- Matching runs over the same normalized/deobfuscated command variants
as the dangerous-pattern detector, case-insensitive.
- Opt-in: empty/absent list is a no-op; behavior unchanged.
Supersedes the trust-engine approach from #21500 with a minimal
config-native design: the only capability the existing stack lacked
was deny-that-beats-yolo. Allow already exists (command_allowlist),
ask already exists (session approvals).
Follow-up to #56236: the broadened root token /[/.]*\** treats any run of
dots after the root slash as a collapse spelling, so a literal root-level
directory named '...' (rm -rf /...) was unconditionally hardline-blocked
with no approval path. Tighten the token to /(?:(?:\.\.?)?/)*(?:\.\.?)?\**
so each inter-slash segment must be exactly '.' or '..' — all real collapse
spellings (//, /., /./, /.., //*, ///, /../..) stay on the hardline floor
while literal dot-run dirs fall through to the softer DANGEROUS_PATTERNS
rules like every other real path.
konsisumer