Two small bugs in the kanban dispatcher's CLI surface that were
silently degrading two distinct workflows. Bundled because the test
files and the surrounding code surface overlap.
## #33488: hermes kanban dispatch ignored kanban.max_in_progress / max_spawn
The CLI wrapper in hermes_cli/kanban.py:_cmd_dispatch only passed
default_assignee and max_in_progress_per_profile through to
dispatch_once. The global concurrency cap (kanban.max_in_progress)
and the per-tick spawn limit (kanban.max_spawn) were silently dropped,
so operators using 'hermes kanban dispatch' as a one-shot or in a
custom loop couldn't reach either cap from config — only the gateway
embedded dispatcher honored them.
Fix: read both keys from config in the same coerce-positive-int
helper that already handled max_in_progress_per_profile. CLI --max
still wins over config kanban.max_spawn when both are present
(explicit operator signal beats default), but absent --max falls
back to config.
## #29415: synthesizer crashed in retry loop on missing skill
hermes_cli/kanban_swarm.py:212 hardcoded skills=['avoid-ai-writing'],
a skill that doesn't exist in the bundled skills/ directory or any
registered hub source. Every synthesizer worker spawn failed at CLI
startup with 'Unknown skill(s): avoid-ai-writing' before the agent
loop even started — the dispatcher retried up to failure_limit
(default 2), then auto-blocked the task, then dependency rules could
re-promote it, looping forever until manual intervention.
Fix: replace with 'humanizer' which is bundled at
skills/creative/humanizer/SKILL.md (description: 'Humanize text:
strip AI-isms and add real voice'). That's the obvious intent behind
the 'avoid-ai-writing' name, and the skill is platform-portable
(linux/macos/windows) so it works on every supported runtime.
## Tests
tests/hermes_cli/test_kanban_cli_dispatch_passthrough.py — 4 cases:
- CLI passes max_in_progress / max_spawn / default_assignee /
max_in_progress_per_profile from config to dispatch_once
- CLI --max flag overrides config kanban.max_spawn
- Invalid cap values (0, -1, 'abc', '1.5') silently fall through to None
- kanban_swarm.py no longer references 'avoid-ai-writing' AND the
replacement 'humanizer' skill exists at the expected on-disk path
Kanban suite: 468/468 pass (was 464; +4 new regression tests).
Teknium
69b74c15a3