Inspired by virgiliojr94/book-to-skill (MIT): /learn now picks the skill
shape by the source. Workflows and small sources still get one tight
SKILL.md; books, paper stacks, specs, and large doc corpora get a
knowledge-base layout — a lean always-loaded SKILL.md index plus one
distilled file per chapter/topic under references/, loaded on demand via
skill_view so query cost stays proportional to the answer.
- agent/learn_prompt.py: new _KNOWLEDGE_SKILL_STANDARDS block (index +
per-chapter references/, structure-not-summary distillation, never
reproduce source passages, fold-in instead of duplicating) and a
_SOURCE_HYGIENE block pinning extracted source text as data and
dropping invisible/bidi Unicode (Trojan Source class). Clarified that
the ~200-line cap and hub-skill ban apply to SKILL.md itself, not a
knowledge skill's own references/ files.
- tests: contracts for the knowledge-base layout, the three embedded
standards blocks, and the source-hygiene coverage.
- docs: skills.md documents the knowledge-base shape.
A /learn request can mix the source(s) to gather (paths, URLs, "what we
just did") with requirements that shape the skill (focus, scope, what to
omit). When a request led with a path or link, the agent fetched it and
treated the trailing prose as incidental, dropping the user's stated
focus — the symptom @GrenFX reported.
The input layer was never the cause: both CLI (split(None, 1)) and
gateway (get_command_args()) capture the full free-text argument. The
gap was in build_learn_prompt, which dumped the request as one
undifferentiated source blob.
build_learn_prompt now tells the agent the request may mix sources and
requirements in any order, that prose after a path/link is authoring
guidance to honor (not noise), and to never fetch the first source and
ignore the rest. Adds step 1b: apply every requirement to what the
SKILL.md covers, not just which sources get read. Both surfaces inherit
it; no parser change, zero tool footprint.
/learn told the agent to fill the skill `author` field, and the system
prompt environment probe surfaces the OS login name (user=$(whoami) in
prompt_builder.py), so the model wrote the host username into published
SKILL.md frontmatter — a privacy leak the user never opted into, and
inconsistent run to run as the most-salient identity changed.
The /learn authoring prompt now sets `author` to the literal value
`Hermes` and explicitly forbids deriving it from the host environment
(OS/login user, git config, or any probeable identity). The skill names
itself as the tool that wrote it.
Closes#52368.
The /learn authoring prompt taught a subset of the HARDLINE skill rules,
and stated the <=60-char description rule without making the model enforce
it — so generated descriptions overshot (up to 202 chars), which the
60-char system-prompt skill index then silently truncates.
- description: add the index-truncation rationale, a count-and-trim
self-check, and a good/bad length example so the model actually hits <=60.
- add platforms-gating rule (OS-bound primitives -> declare platforms:).
- add author-credits-human-first rule.
- round out the Hermes-tool framing with the full wrapped-tool mapping and
references/templates layout.
Closes#52367.
Open-ended skill learning across every surface. /learn <free text> takes a
description of any source — a directory, a URL, the workflow you just walked
the agent through, or pasted notes — and the live agent gathers it with the
tools it already has (read_file/search_files, web_extract, the conversation,
the pasted text), then authors a SKILL.md via skill_manage following the
house authoring standards (<=60-char description, the standard section order,
Hermes-tool framing, no invented commands).
No engine, no model-tool footprint, works on any terminal backend (local,
Docker, remote): /learn builds a standards-guided prompt and hands it to the
agent as a normal turn.
- agent/learn_prompt.py: shared standards-guided prompt builder
- /learn registry entry (both surfaces) + CLI handler (inject onto input
queue) + gateway handler (rewrite turn, fall through, /blueprint pattern)
- tui_gateway command.dispatch returns a send directive -> TUI + dashboard chat
- dashboard Skills page 'Learn a skill' panel (dir + URL + open-ended text)
composes a /learn request and runs it in chat
- docs (slash-commands ref + skills feature page), 11 targeted tests
Inspired by OpenAI Codex's Record & Replay and the /learn concept from #47234
(dir-distillation engine); reworked to be open-ended and engine-free per
review.
Teknium