The synced identity text carries em-dashes, but install.ps1 must stay
pure ASCII (Windows PowerShell 5.1 reads BOM-less .ps1 in the ANSI code
page; a non-ASCII byte in a string literal desyncs the parser — see
tests/test_install_ps1_ascii_only.py, issues #66994/#67000). Seed the
ASCII-dashed variant there instead, and register that variant in
_LEGACY_TEMPLATE_SOULS so Windows installs converge onto the canonical
em-dash text on first run.
DEFAULT_AGENT_IDENTITY was rewritten in agent/prompt_builder.py (behavior
spec, exploration-thrift line deliberately removed) but the actual seed
written to disk on first run, hermes_cli/default_soul.py's
DEFAULT_SOUL_MD, was never updated. ensure_hermes_home() writes
DEFAULT_SOUL_MD into SOUL.md on every fresh install before the agent's
first turn, so virtually all real users end up as "SOUL.md users" seeded
with the pre-rewrite text -- including the exact "targeted and efficient
exploration" line the rewrite explicitly banned -- while the new
DEFAULT_AGENT_IDENTITY fallback essentially never serves the "fresh
install" audience its own PR body named as the target.
- DEFAULT_SOUL_MD now matches DEFAULT_AGENT_IDENTITY exactly.
- The pre-rewrite text is added to _LEGACY_TEMPLATE_SOULS so installs
already seeded with it self-heal via the existing upgrade-in-place
mechanism (same guarantee as the comment-only scaffold entries: the
string carries zero user intent, so it's safe to replace).
- Synced the other places install.sh's own comment says "MUST match
DEFAULT_SOUL_MD": scripts/install.sh, scripts/install.ps1,
docker/SOUL.md, and the docs/i18n pages that quote the fallback text
verbatim.
The desktop bootstrap (and curl/PowerShell/docker installs) seeded
~/.hermes/SOUL.md with a comment-only scaffold that contained no persona
text. That shadowed the runtime default (_ensure_default_soul_md ->
DEFAULT_SOUL_MD), since seeding is guarded by 'if SOUL.md doesn't exist'.
Result: every fresh installer install got the empty template instead of
the documented Hermes persona; desktop just made it visible in onboarding.
- install.sh / install.ps1 / docker/SOUL.md now write DEFAULT_SOUL_MD.
- _ensure_default_soul_md() upgrades a SOUL.md still matching the known
legacy scaffold in place; customized files (any deviation, incl. a
persona appended below the comment) are never touched.
- Detection normalizes CRLF/BOM so Windows-installer drift still matches.
The default SOUL.md seeded for new users should match
DEFAULT_AGENT_IDENTITY — a short, neutral identity paragraph.
The elaborate voice spec (avoid lists, dialogue examples, symbol
conventions) was never intended as the default for all users.
Users who want a custom persona write their own SOUL.md.
Seed ~/.hermes/SOUL.md when missing, load SOUL only from HERMES_HOME, and inject raw SOUL content without wrapper text. If the file exists but is empty, nothing is added to the system prompt.
Teknium