From 2442a0c281ef42ceea5ad3977dbeb87f7e9e32a9 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Teknium <127238744+teknium1@users.noreply.github.com>
Date: Sat, 23 May 2026 22:36:28 -0700
Subject: [PATCH] fix(background-review): allow pinned skills to be improved
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The post-turn background reviewer prompt listed pinned skills under
'Protected skills (DO NOT edit these)' alongside bundled and
hub-installed skills, with the instruction to say 'Nothing to save.'
if only protected skills needed updating. This meant the reviewer
would refuse to patch a pinned skill even when the user explicitly
wanted that skill improved.

The underlying tool layer already gets this right: skill_manage's
_pinned_guard only fires on delete; patch/edit/write_file go through
on pinned skills. Curator archive/consolidation still skips pinned
at the data layer (agent/curator.py), which is the correct place for
that protection — pin's job is anti-deletion, not anti-improvement.

Both _SKILL_REVIEW_PROMPT and _COMBINED_REVIEW_PROMPT now explicitly
tell the reviewer that pinned skills can be patched, with rationale,
so it doesn't bail out of an improvement just because the target is
pinned.
---
 agent/background_review.py | 10 ++++++++--
 1 file changed, 8 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)

diff --git a/agent/background_review.py b/agent/background_review.py
index ba65b2b1bc8..35d3d5191a0 100644
--- a/agent/background_review.py
+++ b/agent/background_review.py
@@ -115,7 +115,10 @@ _SKILL_REVIEW_PROMPT = (
     "Protected skills (DO NOT edit these):\n"
     "  • Bundled skills (shipped with Hermes, e.g. 'hermes-agent').\n"
     "  • Hub-installed skills (installed via 'hermes skills install').\n"
-    "  • Pinned skills (marked via 'hermes curator pin').\n"
+    "Pinned skills (marked via 'hermes curator pin') CAN be improved — "
+    "pin only blocks deletion/archive/consolidation by the curator, not "
+    "content updates. Patch them when a pitfall or missing step turns up, "
+    "same as any other agent-created skill.\n"
     "If the only skills that need updating are protected, say\n"
     "'Nothing to save.' and stop.\n\n"
     "Do NOT capture (these become persistent self-imposed constraints "
@@ -198,7 +201,10 @@ _COMBINED_REVIEW_PROMPT = (
     "Protected skills (DO NOT edit these):\n"
     "  • Bundled skills (shipped with Hermes, e.g. 'hermes-agent').\n"
     "  • Hub-installed skills (installed via 'hermes skills install').\n"
-    "  • Pinned skills (marked via 'hermes curator pin').\n"
+    "Pinned skills (marked via 'hermes curator pin') CAN be improved — "
+    "pin only blocks deletion/archive/consolidation by the curator, not "
+    "content updates. Patch them when a pitfall or missing step turns up, "
+    "same as any other agent-created skill.\n"
     "If the only skills that need updating are protected, say\n"
     "'Nothing to save.' and stop.\n\n"
     "Do NOT capture as skills (these become persistent self-imposed "