Two Windows agent-loop friction fixes:
1. tools/mcp_tool.py (#56536): shutil.which(cmd, path=env_path) reads
executable extensions from the PARENT process PATHEXT, not the MCP
subprocess env — a stdio MCP config supplying both PATH and PATHEXT
could fail to resolve a command its own env can locate, and startup
then got a bare command name. On Windows, when the first which() call
misses and the config env carries PATHEXT (any key casing), retry the
resolution with the config's PATHEXT temporarily applied.
2. skills/ + optional-skills/ (#50606): 42 SKILL.md files that declare
platforms: [.., windows] used python3 in their command examples.
python3 does not exist on native Windows (the toolchain probe in the
system prompt reports python3=missing), so every copy-pasted example
burned a failed agent turn before self-correction. Replaced the
command word python3 -> python (python3-config / python3.x version
strings untouched). python is the spelling that exists in every
Hermes-managed environment (Windows native, uv-managed venvs on all
three OSes); agents on POSIX hosts additionally see the probed
toolchain line and adapt either way.
Completes the Windows-gating coverage for the built-in skills/ tree. Every
bundled SKILL.md now carries an explicit platforms: declaration so the
loader (agent.skill_utils.skill_matches_platform) can skip-load skills
that don't fit the current OS.
74 skills declared cross-platform (platforms: [linux, macos, windows]):
Creative (16): ascii-art, ascii-video, architecture-diagram, baoyu-comic,
baoyu-infographic, claude-design, creative-ideation, design-md,
excalidraw, humanizer, manim-video, p5js, pixel-art,
popular-web-designs, pretext, sketch, songwriting-and-ai-music,
touchdesigner-mcp
Autonomous agents: claude-code, codex, hermes-agent, opencode
Data/devops: jupyter-live-kernel, kanban-orchestrator, kanban-worker,
webhook-subscriptions, dogfood, codebase-inspection
GitHub: github-auth, github-code-review, github-issues,
github-pr-workflow, github-repo-management
Media: gif-search, heartmula, songsee, spotify, youtube-content
MCP / email / gaming / notes / smart-home: native-mcp, himalaya,
pokemon-player, obsidian, openhue
mlops (non-broken): weights-and-biases, huggingface-hub, llama-cpp,
outlines, segment-anything-model, dspy, trl-fine-tuning
Productivity: airtable, google-workspace, linear, maps, nano-pdf,
notion, ocr-and-documents, powerpoint
Red-teaming / research: godmode, arxiv, blogwatcher, llm-wiki,
polymarket
Software-dev: debugging-hermes-tui-commands, hermes-agent-skill-authoring,
node-inspect-debugger, plan, requesting-code-review, spike,
subagent-driven-development, systematic-debugging,
test-driven-development, writing-plans
Misc: yuanbao
5 skills gated from Windows (platforms: [linux, macos]):
mlops/inference/vllm (serving-llms-vllm)
vLLM is officially Linux-only; Windows requires WSL.
mlops/training/axolotl
Axolotl's flash-attn + deepspeed + bitsandbytes stack is Linux-first.
mlops/training/unsloth
Requires Triton + xformers + flash-attn — Linux only in practice.
mlops/models/audiocraft (audiocraft-audio-generation)
torchaudio ffmpeg backend + encodec dependencies are Linux-first.
mlops/inference/obliteratus
Research abliteration workflow; relies on Linux-focused pytorch
kernels and MLX — no first-class Windows path.
Same strict-over-lenient policy as the optional-skills sweep: when the
underlying tool's Windows support is rough, missing, or WSL-only, gate the
skill. Easier to un-gate after verified Windows support lands than to leak
partial support that manifests as mid-task failures.
Combined with prior commits in this branch, every bundled SKILL.md
(skills/ + optional-skills/) now has a platforms: declaration.
For 14 of 74 compressed skills, the original description contained
trigger keywords, technique counts, attribution, or use-case phrases
not covered by the existing body content. Prepends a 'When to use' /
'What's inside' block near the top so the agent still has the full
context when the skill is loaded.
Skills salvaged:
- codex, ascii-video, creative-ideation, excalidraw, manim-video, p5js
- gif-search, heartmula, youtube-content
- lm-evaluation-harness, obliteratus, vllm, axolotl
- powerpoint
Remaining 60 skills were verified to already cover the dropped content
in their existing body sections (When to Use, overview, intro prose)
or had short descriptions fully captured by the new compressed form.
Target: every skill's description fits in a one-line gateway menu and
leads with trigger keywords an agent would match on. Drops filler like
'Use this skill to', 'A skill for', 'This skill provides'.
Before: max description length was 791 chars (architecture-diagram),
74 of 81 built-in skills were >60 chars.
After: max 60, mean 54, all 81 built-in skills <=60.
Rewritten with double-quoted YAML scalars to preserve Chinese/arrow
glyphs (baoyu-comic, yuanbao, youtube-content).
Adds opt-in creative thinking frameworks to ascii-video, p5js, and
manim-video skills, based on Lluminate (joelsimon.net/lluminate).
Only engaged when the user explicitly asks for creative, experimental,
or unconventional output. Straightforward requests are unaffected.
Each skill gets 2-3 strategies matched to its domain:
- ascii-video: Forced Connections, Conceptual Blending, Oblique Strategies
- p5js: Conceptual Blending, SCAMPER, Distance Association
- manim-video: SCAMPER, Assumption Reversal
Strategies sourced from creativity research (Boden, Eno, de Bono,
Koestler, Fauconnier & Turner, Osborn), formalized for LLM prompting
by Lluminate.
Teknium