diff --git a/scripts/install.ps1 b/scripts/install.ps1
index 0a98ad6e457b..3d4b7b504b53 100644
--- a/scripts/install.ps1
+++ b/scripts/install.ps1
@@ -2435,7 +2435,22 @@ You are Hermes Agent, an intelligent AI assistant created by Nous Research. You
     $pythonExe = "$InstallDir\venv\Scripts\python.exe"
     if (Test-Path $pythonExe) {
         try {
-            & $pythonExe "$InstallDir\tools\skills_sync.py" 2>$null
+            # Force the child python.exe to emit UTF-8 on its stdout/stderr.
+            # On non-UTF-8 Windows locales (CP936/GBK zh-CN) Python defaults
+            # its stream encoding to the active codepage and crashes on glyphs
+            # like ✓ (U+2713) that the codepage can't encode; the resulting
+            # non-UTF-8 bytes break this script's JSON result frame on stdout
+            # and abort the config-templates stage. Scope to this call only.
+            $prevPythonioencoding = $env:PYTHONIOENCODING
+            $prevPythonutf8 = $env:PYTHONUTF8
+            $env:PYTHONIOENCODING = "utf-8"
+            $env:PYTHONUTF8 = "1"
+            try {
+                & $pythonExe "$InstallDir\tools\skills_sync.py" 2>$null
+            } finally {
+                $env:PYTHONIOENCODING = $prevPythonioencoding
+                $env:PYTHONUTF8 = $prevPythonutf8
+            }
             Write-Success "Skills synced to $HermesHome\skills"
         } catch {
             # Fallback: simple directory copy
diff --git a/tools/skills_sync.py b/tools/skills_sync.py
index 09b8337540b0..5a343cd80e97 100644
--- a/tools/skills_sync.py
+++ b/tools/skills_sync.py
@@ -26,8 +26,24 @@ import json
 import logging
 import os
 import shutil
+import sys
 from datetime import datetime, timezone
 from pathlib import Path, PurePosixPath
+
+# Force stdout/stderr to UTF-8. On non-UTF-8 Windows locales (e.g. CP936/GBK
+# on zh-CN), Python's default stream encoding can't represent the checkmark /
+# arrow glyphs this script prints (✓ U+2713, ↑ U+2191), raising
+# UnicodeEncodeError mid-run. The bootstrap installer (install.ps1) captures
+# this script's stdout and parses it as UTF-8; a GBK byte stream then surfaces
+# as "stream did not contain valid UTF-8" and aborts the config-templates
+# stage even though the script itself exits 0. Reconfigure unconditionally so
+# output is valid UTF-8 regardless of the active codepage or caller.
+for _stream in (sys.stdout, sys.stderr):
+    if hasattr(_stream, "reconfigure"):
+        try:
+            _stream.reconfigure(encoding="utf-8", errors="replace")
+        except (ValueError, TypeError):
+            pass
 from hermes_constants import get_bundled_skills_dir, get_hermes_home, get_optional_skills_dir
 from agent.skill_utils import is_excluded_skill_path
 from typing import Dict, List, Optional, Set, Tuple