Audit finding (Blank Slate): the system prompt advertised web_search,
skill_view, todo, and the hermes-agent skill even when the toolset had
none of them — the model chases phantoms it can't call.
- hermes-agent skill is now essential: cannot be disabled (config reads
strip it, hermes tools writes drop it), cannot be deleted by
skill_manage, is re-seeded past curator suppression, and is seeded
even on .no-bundled-skills profiles (Blank Slate / --no-skills).
- Blank Slate core toolsets grow from file+terminal to
file+terminal+vision+skills: read_file cannot read images and points
at vision_analyze; the essential skill needs skill_view to load.
- HERMES_AGENT_HELP_GUIDANCE degrades to a docs-URL-only variant when
skill tools are absent.
- Execution-discipline guidance drops its web_search lines when web
tools are off (execution_guidance_text renderer).
- Skills-index preamble says 'basic tools like terminal' instead of
naming web_search when web tools are off.
- Coding operating brief drops the todo-tracking sentence when the todo
tool isn't loaded.
All gating keys off agent.valid_tool_names, fixed at session
construction — prompt stays byte-stable per session (cache-safe).
web_extract stopped using an auxiliary LLM long ago (deterministic
truncate-and-store), but browser snapshots still routed oversized
accessibility trees through the auxiliary web_extract model, keeping a
dead-looking aux slot alive across every config/picker surface.
- tools/browser_tool.py: remove _extract_relevant_content and
_get_extraction_model; oversized snapshots always truncate at line
boundaries, store the full tree to cache/web, and append a read_file
pointer (element refs beyond the cut live in the file)
- tools/browser_camofox.py: same — no LLM path
- Remove auxiliary.web_extract slot: config_defaults (removal note, same
pattern as session_search/PR #27590), cli.py defaults + env bridge,
gateway/run.py bridged keys, hermes config display, hermes model picker,
dashboard REST slots, desktop + web AUX_TASKS, i18n labels (en/zh/
zh-hant/ja/ar)
- Docs: env-vars, configuration, fallback-providers, browser + zh-Hans
mirrors (web-search zh-Hans was stale on the old LLM pipeline — synced
to truncate-and-store truth)
- Tests updated: aux bridge uses approval slot, browser tests assert the
LLM path is gone and stored files are secret-redacted
The docstring and all four caller comments still said the helper
refuses only / and top-level directories. Since #93757 it also refuses
the entire hermes-agent install tree. Bring the docstring and the
comments at the four credential-write call sites in line with the
actual behavior so future changes are not misled by a stale safety
description.
Follow-up to #93757.
OpenRouter's :nitro, :floor, :exacto, and :online suffixes are request-time
routing modifiers valid on any model id — /models lists only the base model.
validate_requested_model() compared the full suffixed id against the listing,
so a valid variant was either rejected outright or fuzzy-auto-corrected to
the base id, silently stripping the user's routing opt-in.
Now, for OpenRouter only, a recognized variant suffix validates the BASE id
against the live listing (and the curated-catalog soft-accept and static-
catalog fallback paths) while preserving the suffixed id for persistence and
API requests — checked BEFORE fuzzy correction. :free/:batch/:thinking
remain direct catalog SKUs and keep exact-match semantics; unknown suffixes
and unknown bases are still rejected.
Reported by JEB (Jakob's Hermes Agent) via Discord.
Per-site decisions:
1. hermes_cli/_subprocess_compat.py kill_process_tree(proc) -> None:
MIGRATED. Body now delegates to agent.deadline.kill_process_tree(proc.pid)
via a function-local import; keeps the swallow-everything fail-open
contract and the (proc) -> None signature (agent/shell_hooks.py imports
it by name; _kill_git_process_tree alias preserved). The old body is kept
verbatim as _legacy_kill_process_tree and used as fallback when the
delegation import/call fails. A final proc.kill() is retained on the
happy path so Popen bookkeeping sees the exit (matches old behavior).
2. tools/browser_tool.py _kill_process_tree(proc): MIGRATED, same pattern
(delegate + _legacy_kill_process_tree fallback). Behavior delta: the old
body sent SIGTERM then SIGKILL with zero grace between them; the shared
primitive sends SIGKILL only. With no grace period the observable effect
is identical, and the psutil descendant sweep now also reaches
agent-browser's setsid'd daemon grandchild, which killpg alone missed.
tests/tools/test_browser_npx_warmup.py's TestKillProcessTree repointed at
the legacy fallback (its assertions describe the fallback's internals).
3. tools/code_execution_tool.py _kill_process_group(proc, escalate):
MIGRATED. It was a plain parent+descendants terminate (then wait 5s +
kill when escalate=True) — expressed as two delegated calls:
kill_process_tree(pid, sig=SIGTERM), then on escalate-timeout
kill_process_tree(pid, sig=SIGKILL). Delegation failure degrades to
proc.kill(), mirroring the old psutil-failure fallback. Delta: the old
body terminated children before the parent; the shared primitive
signals the group atomically (child is a session leader via
start_new_session=True) plus an identity-aware descendant sweep —
strictly wider coverage, same signals.
4. gateway/status.py: KEPT BOTH SITES.
- terminate_pid (~l305) taskkill wrapper: NOT migrated. Its contract is
incompatible with the shared primitive — it must RAISE OSError with
taskkill's stderr on non-zero exit (callers branch on that), falls back
to os.kill on FileNotFoundError, and its POSIX branch is deliberately a
single-PID SIGTERM/SIGKILL, not a tree kill. Wrapping the bool-returning
fail-soft primitive would invert the error contract.
- reap_gateway_children (~l2029): NOT migrated. It operates on a
pre-snapshotted child list from a parent that is already dead
(psutil.Process(pid) on the parent would fail), and every signal is
wrapped in identity/ownership checks the primitive lacks: is_running()
identity, zombie skip, and the skip-if-ppid-still-equals-parent guard,
plus SIGTERM -> wait_procs -> SIGKILL staging and a reaped-count return.
The coupling is the feature; migrating would delete the safety logic.
5. scripts/run_tests_parallel.py _kill_process_tree (~l253): NOT migrated.
Dev tooling that intentionally kills by CAPTURED pgid because the direct
child is usually already reaped (psutil/pid-based primitive cannot find
it), and it avoids the psutil import on the test-runner hot path. Its
docstring already documents why psutil is the wrong tool there.
New tests: tests/agent/test_treekill_consolidation.py — delegation +
raise-swallowing tests per migrated wrapper, consumer-identity checks, and
a live end-to-end probe (setsid grandchild dies through the compat wrapper,
zero survivors).
A held port made 'hermes serve' print only uvicorn's bare
'ERROR: [Errno 98/10048] error while attempting to bind on address'
and exit 1 — indistinguishable from a broken backend for the desktop
spawn and wrapping scripts.
- Preflight bind probe (matching uvicorn's SO_REUSEADDR bind flags)
before uvicorn.Server; on conflict print machine-readable
'BACKEND_PORT_IN_USE port=<port>' + a human hint naming likely
holders, exit 75 (EX_TEMPFAIL — existing repo convention, see
gateway/restart.py, kanban_db.py).
- Probe-to-bind race covered: SystemExit(1) from uvicorn's own bind
failure is re-checked and translated on both POSIX and Windows
runner paths.
- --port 0 (ephemeral) short-circuits the probe: unchanged behavior.
- HERMES_BACKEND_READY contract untouched.
- Tests: real held-socket repro (sentinel + exit 75, sabotage-proven
to fail as bare exit 1 without the fix), free-port boot regression,
ephemeral-port regression, probe/classification units.
- Docs: port-conflict paragraph under 'hermes serve' in
reference/cli-commands.md.
Simplify-pass follow-ups on the #87033 fix:
- _gateway_liveness_notice(plural=) authors both wording variants at one
site; removes the exact-substring .replace() that would silently no-op
if the create-path text is ever edited.
- Collapse the operator-precedence-trap conditional in list to a plain
'if jobs' — an empty list has nothing inert and now skips the probe.
- Fix docstring/code mismatch (builder returns gateway_running: True on
the happy path) and drop the dead try/except in
_warn_if_gateway_not_running (the helper never raises).
Follow-ups for the salvaged #93098:
- Move the tri-state liveness heuristic into hermes_cli.cron
(_builtin_gateway_liveness) so the CLI warning and the cronjob tool
share one implementation instead of two drifting copies.
- Surface gateway_running/warning on the list action too — an agent
inspecting jobs in a gateway-less environment has the same silent-
inert-job failure mode (#87033) as create. Empty lists stay quiet.
A malformed OPENROUTER_API_KEY in ~/.hermes/.env (truncated paste, wrong
provider's key) passed has_usable_secret's length/placeholder check and was
returned by _resolve_api_key_provider_secret before the credential-pool
fallback was ever reached, producing opaque '401 Missing Authentication
header' errors even when a valid pool entry existed (#93593).
- Add KNOWN_PROVIDER_KEY_PREFIXES (openrouter: sk-or-) and skip env values
that mismatch a declared prefix, logging a WARNING naming the env var and
expected prefix, then continuing to the next env var / pool fallback.
- Iterate credential-pool entries (peek first, then entries()) instead of
only peek(), so one malformed pool entry doesn't block a valid one.
- Providers without a declared prefix are fail-open: unknown key formats
are never rejected. Valid env keys still win over the pool (precedence
unchanged).
Fixes#93593
pty_ws already fell back to the per-channel active-session file when a
/chat WS connects with no ?resume= param, replaying the whole session
into the PTY, but the frontend only pinned xterm's viewport to the
bottom when resumeParam came from the URL (#59591). The implicit path
had no way to learn a replay was happening, so the viewport stayed at
the top of the scrollback.
pty_ws now sends a one-off JSON control frame naming the session id it
resolved from the active-session file, before any PTY bytes; PTY
output itself always arrives as binary frames, so this is unambiguous
on the wire. ChatPage tracks an `effectiveResume` value seeded from
resumeParam and updated when this control frame arrives, and the
existing follow-scroll/sanitizer/hydration logic keys off it instead
of the URL param alone.
Fixes#93518.
The re-exec'd venv child spawned by
_reexec_dependency_sync_off_windows_shim completes every update step —
the receipt records success / "completed at command boundary" — but then
hangs in interpreter shutdown on a leftover non-daemon thread, freezing
the PowerShell window for minutes after "Update complete!". On the
hand-off path only (HERMES_UPDATE_REEXEC=1), after the receipt is
finalized, the update lock released, and stdio restored, flush and
os._exit(code) instead of unwinding — the same treatment #79040's cron
workaround applies. SystemExit codes (including early refusals)
propagate to the hard exit; real exceptions keep the normal raise path
so tracebacks still print. Non-hand-off invocations are untouched: the
marker env is set solely when the shim spawns the child.
Fixes#93581
The #93410 guard keyed on (restarted_services or killed_pids), which never
fires on Windows: _pause_windows_gateways_for_update /
_resume_windows_gateways_after_update populate neither list, so a healthy
resumed Windows gateway still yielded zero fleet rows and exit 0.
Hoist the decision into _fleet_probe_expected_runtimes(), keyed on every
pre-update liveness signal:
- restarted_services / killed_pids (POSIX restart bookkeeping)
- _pre_restart_gateway_pids non-empty or None (unreadable pre-state,
same fail-closed contract as _restart_phase_failure_is_incomplete, #78574)
- pre-update plan inventoried >=1 runtime
- Windows pause/resume token carries profiles or unmapped entries
Gate the 2.0s settle sleep on the same condition so a resumed Windows
gateway gets its settle window before the probe. The guard keys only on
zero-rows-despite-expected-runtimes; non-empty snapshots (including
'unknown'-state rows) are still judged solely by print_fleet_version_matrix.
Regression tests cover: empty snapshot + plan runtimes -> incomplete;
empty snapshot + genuinely idle -> success; Windows-resume token path ->
fail-closed + settle sleep wiring.
Builds on RelaxJonh's #93410. Fixes#93406
collect_fleet_versions() swallows every probe exception via
logger.debug() and returns whatever accumulated — which can be an
empty list. print_fleet_version_matrix([]) returns False (no rows
to report), so the update exits 0 with "success" even though no
gateway was actually verified.
After the restart phase touches live gateways (restarted_services or
killed_pids is truthy), an empty fleet snapshot means verification
failed, not that everything is healthy. Treat it as incomplete so
the receipt records "partial" and the exit code is 1.
Fixes#93406
Mirror the full update_cmd._holder_value_flags precedent: derive both
top-level value-flag sets from build_top_level_parser() with a cached
frozenset, and fall back to a handwritten snapshot if parser
introspection ever fails, so argv classification keeps working on a
broken tree. Parity test pins the derived sets against the live parser
so drift fails CI.
Builds on #93551 (fangliquanflq) and #93570 (aniruddhaadak80) for #93530.
Follow-up cleanup for salvaged PR #92838:
- Collapse redundant context_back and effective_allow_back into a single
allow_back variable (they were always identical, never reassigned)
- Update _run_curses_menu docstring to reflect draw_header's actual
signature including search and back_enabled kwargs
Decode Ghostty/Kitty enhanced selection and cancellation keys, make setup cancellation terminal, and add cross-terminal previous-step navigation to setup and model flows.
Refs #92833
The desktop pools per-profile backends and reaps them after ~10 idle minutes; a reaped profile took its cron ticker with it, so its jobs silently stopped until the user next opened that profile. The primary desktop backend (which outlives the pool) now ticks every local profile store, same as a multiplex gateway (#69377 desktop sibling). External cron providers keep single-store semantics (registries are not profile-scoped); enumeration failure fails open to the active profile. Per-store .tick.lock still dedupes against live pool backends.
Widen the exception guard from OSError to Exception (re-raising
KeyboardInterrupt/EOFError first) so any prompt_toolkit runtime
failure degrades to input() — matching the established pattern in
masked_secret_prompt. ValueError and RuntimeError can arise from
exotic stream wrappers or event-loop issues with the same root cause:
prompt_toolkit cannot attach stdin on the terminal.
Add test_line_input_falls_back_to_input_on_any_prompt_toolkit_failure
covering the ValueError case.
line_input() only guarded against a missing prompt_toolkit (ImportError),
not against prompt_toolkit failing at runtime. On some terminals isatty()
returns True but the asyncio event-loop selector rejects registering stdin
(macOS kqueue raises OSError EINVAL / 'Invalid argument' for fd 0), so
prompt_toolkit's Application.run() crashes while attaching its input.
This aborted 'hermes setup' at the first plain text prompt. Telegram hit it
first because its automatic/manual selection uses prompt() rather than the
curses-based prompt_choice() the other platforms use, but every text prompt
shared the same failure.
Catch OSError from the prompt_toolkit path and fall back to the built-in
input() reader, which needs no selector and works in cooked mode. The
prompt_toolkit raw-mode context manager restores terminal state on the way
out, so the fallback reads cleanly.
Merging main brought in the RFC 8252 native sign-in path for password
providers (#75808), added while this PR was open. Its loopback-code
branch calls clear_pkce_cookie() without use_https, which is now a
required keyword-only argument — so /auth/native/password-login raised
TypeError on the success path.
This is the same call-site class the PR already fixed at the other three
sites: the deletion must mirror the shape the setter emitted for the
active origin, or the browser keeps the stale PKCE cookie.
Caught by CI running the merge commit against main's newer
test_dashboard_auth_native_flow.py suite, which does not exist on the
branch. Three tests failed there and pass with this change.
The SameSite=None change updated the website docs but left two
source-level contracts asserting the opposite:
- base.py: LoginStart.cookie_payload said cookies set there "MUST"
be SameSite=Lax.
- cookies.py: the module docstring said all three cookies are
SameSite=Lax.
Both now describe the actual behaviour: session cookies stay Lax, the
short-lived PKCE cookie is SameSite=None; Secure over HTTPS and Lax
over plain HTTP. A provider author following the old base.py contract
would have had a documented reason to undo the fix.
Also records the forwarded_allow_ips caveat in cookies.py: uvicorn only
honours X-Forwarded-Proto from a peer inside forwarded_allow_ips
(default 127.0.0.1), so a TLS terminator reaching the dashboard from a
non-loopback address (a reverse proxy in its own container) leaves the
request looking like HTTP and the cookies written in their HTTP shape.
Docstrings only; no behaviour change.
`hermes curator pin` guarded on is_agent_created (a filesystem-shape
check), but the flag only matters when the skill carries the
curator-management marker: curated_report() walks marker-carrying skills
only, so auto-transitions never consider an unmanaged (pre-marker)
skill at all. Pinning one recorded the flag and then printed
"will bypass auto-transitions" — an effect that does not exist.
Keep the write (the flag becomes meaningful after `hermes curator
adopt`) and branch the message on is_curator_managed: unmanaged pins
now say the skill is unmanaged and point at adopt. Unpin gets the
symmetric wording.
Review feedback on #93149:
- _cmd_unpin now checks set_pinned's return (same false-success defect
existed symmetrically on the unpin path)
- curated_report() pinned-visibility branch requires a local skill dir,
so stale records for deleted dirs don't render as ghost rows
- test 2 asserts rc==0 unconditionally instead of vacuous-passing
- error message points to list-unmanaged (status doesn't render reasons)
`hermes curator pin <skill>` printed success even when the underlying
write never landed. set_pinned() routes through _mutate() with
require_curation_eligible=True, which silently returns None for skills
that pass is_agent_created() but fail is_curation_eligible() — e.g. a
user-created skill named "plan", which PROTECTED_BUILTIN_SKILLS blocks
by name. The CLI then announced a pin that does not exist (#92993).
Also, a pin that DID land on an eligible-but-unmanaged skill (no
created_by marker) was invisible: curated_report() only iterated
list_agent_created_skill_names(), which requires the management marker,
so the skill showed up under 'unmanaged' with no trace of its pin.
- set_pinned() now returns bool write success; _cmd_pin() checks it,
exits nonzero and explains the refusal when the write did not land
- curated_report() additionally includes curation-eligible skills whose
usage record carries pinned=true, so their pins are visible in status
Fixes#92993
When the bind is loopback and the only gate trigger is
dashboard.public_url, the startup refusal now says so explicitly and
gives both exits (configure a dashboard auth provider, or remove
dashboard.public_url if the proxy no longer exists). Prevents the
stale-public_url mystery-locked-dashboard upgrade trap.
Adds a truth-table regression suite for should_require_auth and the
fail-closed message shape.
Follow-up to the #65422 salvage:
- startup_orphan_reap joins _RECOVERABLE_END_REASONS (kept distinct from
ws_orphan_reap for forensics): every recovery fence
(find_latest_gateway_session_for_peer, unarchive_recoverable_session,
promote_to_session_reset) now treats a startup-swept row as an
accidental end, so a sweep never makes a session unresumable.
- Config key moves from sessions.orphan_reaper to
dashboard.startup_orphan_sweep in DEFAULT_CONFIG, next to its siblings
ws_ping_interval / ws_ping_timeout / ws_orphan_reap_grace_s; the raw
loader in tui_gateway.server reads the new key (fail-open on missing).
cli-config.yaml.example and website/docs/user-guide/configuration.md
follow the dashboard.* documentation pattern.
- New regression test: a stranded 'active' row (ended_at NULL, no live
runtime) is swept AND still recoverable via peer-keyed lookup and fully
revivable via reopen_session afterward.
Close session rows left ended_at IS NULL when the in-process websocket
orphan timer dies with the process (#65194). Dual-clock staleness
(started_at AND newest message), desktop included, live in-memory
sessions excluded, scheduled once from both entry.main and the WS
sidecar so desktop/dashboard boots also run the sweep.
resolve_runtime_provider() documents target_model as the explicit model
override for mid-session switches and auxiliary slots, but the custom
provider path (_resolve_named_custom_runtime) never received it and
silently substituted the provider's configured default_model instead.
This made auxiliary slots such as auxiliary.background_review silently
run the provider's default model rather than the configured one — e.g. an
ocx-proxy slot configured for gemini-flash actually executed
cursor/claude-sonnet-5, hitting upstream rate limits.
Pass target_model through to the custom runtime resolver and prefer it
over the provider's default model in both the pooled and non-pooled
credential paths.
Adversarial-review fixes for the #93057 snapshot-compaction PR:
- Fail-closed detachment: only re-enable compression after
bind_session_state successfully severs the engine's parent binding.
A failed rebind keeps the historical compression_enabled=False
behavior and warns, instead of running compaction against a
compressor still bound to the parent's SessionDB (#38727 re-open).
- Warm-cache parity: defer both compression gates (turn-prologue
preflight + pre-API pressure check) until the fork's first provider
response, so the first request replays the full snapshot as the
intended cached read and compaction applies from the second request
on — matching the documented budget mental model.
- Tests: regression for the rebind-failure fail-closed path (red on
pre-fix code) and the existing threshold-crossing test reworked to a
two-request review asserting the warm first request + compacted
second request. 116 tests green across all touched suites; ruff
clean.
Detach the review fork's compressor from the parent SessionDB/session_id
and re-enable in-memory-only compaction for oversized snapshots, instead
of the historical compression_enabled=False guard that left the fork's
replayed transcript unbounded (350k-384k input tokens per request, 1.49M
total across one 8-request review). Add an aggregate input-token budget
(auxiliary.background_review.max_input_tokens, default 600k) so repeated
tool calls cannot recreate an unbounded transcript; the tool loop stops
before the provider call that would cross it.
Closes#93057
Follow-up to #93339: the auxiliary.review slot existed in config but was
missing from every model-picker surface, so users could only set the
review model by hand-editing config.yaml.
- hermes_cli/web_server.py: review in _AUX_TASK_SLOTS (REST allowlist,
stale-aux warning sweep)
- hermes_cli/main.py: review in _AUX_TASKS (hermes model aux picker)
- apps/desktop model-settings.tsx + all 5 i18n locales (en/ja/zh/
zh-hant/ar): review slot with label/hint
- web/src/pages/ModelsPage.tsx: review row in dashboard Models page
- tests: registry-sync test pinning review across DEFAULT_CONFIG,
_AUX_TASKS, and _AUX_TASK_SLOTS (curator pattern)
- docs: aux-task table in fallback-providers.md (en) + zh-Hans mirrors
of fallback-providers and the delegation /review section missed in
#93339
- New dashboard.ws_ping_interval / dashboard.ws_ping_timeout defaults
(20.0/20.0) in DEFAULT_CONFIG; hermes_cli/web_server.py reads them for
non-loopback binds. Loopback keeps ws_ping=None (event-loop stalls must
never kill a healthy local connection).
- New dashboard.ws_orphan_reap_grace_s (20.0): tui_gateway/server.py's
_WS_ORPHAN_REAP_GRACE_S now resolves from config via
_resolve_ws_orphan_reap_grace(); the HERMES_TUI_WS_ORPHAN_REAP_GRACE_S
env var is kept as an internal override for backward compat and wins
when set.
- tests/test_ws_keepalive_config.py: real load_config against a temp
HERMES_HOME yaml — defaults, propagation, deep-merge, env override,
invalid-value fallback.
/review takes the last 10 chat messages plus optional instructions,
spawns a full-privilege background subagent (the async delegation
rail) that investigates the referenced work (PR, code, docs), and its
complete review re-enters the spawning session as a normal
async-delegation completion the primary agent can act on.
- agent/review_engine.py: shared engine (snapshot, briefing,
auxiliary.review credential resolution, dispatch, note formatting)
- tools/delegate_tool.py: internal credentials_cfg per-call override
(never model-facing) resolved through the same credential system as
delegation.provider pins
- auxiliary.review config block (provider/model/base_url/api_key/
api_mode); provider auto + empty model = inherit the main model
- Surfaces: CLI process_command, gateway run.py dispatch +
slash_commands handler (binds the approval session key so the
completion routes back), TUI/Desktop live dispatch in
tui_gateway/server.py, CommandDef registry (+Slack /hermes-only cap)
- Docs: delegation.md section + slash-commands.md (both tables)
- Tests: 15 engine tests (sabotage-verified: credentials_cfg and
dispatch tests fail without the fix), 4 gateway handler tests
through the real async rail
Teknium