From b67ea7ff474831743b14edefb6c9113cb12216e7 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Teknium <127238744+teknium1@users.noreply.github.com>
Date: Sat, 9 May 2026 18:20:28 -0700
Subject: [PATCH] perf(cli): skip welcome banner on `chat -q` single-query mode
 (#22904)
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit

`hermes chat -q "..."` printed the full welcome banner before
running the query — kawaii ASCII logo, available toolsets list,
available skills list, model name, session ID, working directory,
update-available notice. Building it took ~420 ms on cold start
(~200 ms version-update probe, the rest is toolset / skill enumeration
plus Rich panel rendering).

For a one-shot `-q` query the banner is noise: the user already
picked the prompt, doesn't need a toolset reference, and gets the
session ID + resume hint from `_print_exit_summary()` after the
response prints.

The fully-quiet `-Q` / `--quiet` machine-readable path was already
banner-free; this brings the human-facing single-query path in line
so all non-interactive invocations are fast.

Measured impact (`hermes chat -q "ok" --max-turns 1`, 10-run
percentiles, 9950X3D):
  median:  1.90 → 1.75 s  (-150 ms)
  min:     1.80 → 1.73 s  ( -70 ms)
  P25:     1.82 → 1.74 s  ( -80 ms)

Wider variance than expected; the banner cost overlaps with API
latency on real `chat -q` runs. Min-time delta of 70 ms is the
cleanest signal — that's the deterministic banner-build cost gone.
The 150 ms median delta picks up cases where the version-update
probe also finishes during the wait.

Interactive mode (`hermes` with no `-q`) and the `--list-tools` /
`--list-toolsets` one-shot listing commands still show the banner —
those are the contexts where it's actually wanted.

Tests: 656/656 `tests/cli/` pass on top of latest main (modulo 5 pre-
existing flakes in `test_cli_save_config_value.py` that fail with
`No module named 'ruamel'` both with and without this change).
---
 cli.py | 14 +++++++++++++-
 1 file changed, 13 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/cli.py b/cli.py
index 6bd883d173c..d474e405a16 100644
--- a/cli.py
+++ b/cli.py
@@ -12934,7 +12934,19 @@ def main(
             # Exit with error code if credentials or agent init fails
             sys.exit(1)
         else:
-            cli.show_banner()
+            # Single-query mode (`hermes chat -q "…"`): skip the welcome
+            # banner. Building the banner takes ~420 ms on cold start —
+            # ~200 ms of that is the version-update check, the rest is
+            # toolset / skill enumeration and Rich panel rendering. None
+            # of that is useful for a one-shot query: the user already
+            # picked the prompt, doesn't need a toolset reference, and
+            # gets the session ID + resume hint from
+            # ``_print_exit_summary()`` after the response prints.
+            #
+            # The fully-quiet ``-Q`` / ``--quiet`` machine-readable path
+            # above was already banner-free; this brings the human-
+            # facing single-query path in line so all non-interactive
+            # invocations are fast.
             _query_label = query or ("[image attached]" if single_query_images else "")
             if _query_label:
                 cli.console.print(f"[bold blue]Query:[/] {_query_label}")