feat(compression): make protect_first_n configurable

The number of head messages preserved verbatim across context compactions
was previously hardcoded to 3 in AIAgent.__init__. Expose it as
`compression.protect_first_n` in config, matching the existing
`protect_last_n` pattern.

Motivation: users who rely on rolling compaction for long-running sessions
had the opening user/assistant exchange pinned as head forever, which
doesn't always match how they want the session framed after many
compactions. Lowering to 1 preserves the system prompt + first non-system
message; lowering to 0 preserves only the system prompt and lets the
entire first exchange age out naturally through the summary.

Semantics: `protect_first_n` counts non-system head messages protected
**in addition to** the system prompt, which is always implicitly protected
when present. Same meaning across both code paths:

  protect_first_n=0 → system prompt only (or nothing if no system message)
  protect_first_n=2 → system prompt + first 2 non-system messages (default)

This unifies the CLI path (which reads messages with the system prompt at
position 0) and the gateway path (where the gateway /compress handler
strips the system prompt before calling compress() — see
gateway/run.py L9150-9154 on the parent fork). Previously these two paths
disagreed:

  CLI path:     protect_first_n=1 → protect system prompt only
  Gateway path: protect_first_n=1 → protect first USER turn forever

In practice on long-running gateway sessions the old semantics pinned
whatever stale aside happened to be the first user message, reinserting
it into every compaction summary indefinitely.

Default chosen as 2 (not 3) so that the effective protected head count
remains 3 messages in the common case — assuming a system prompt is
present, default protection becomes system + 2 non-system = 3 total,
matching the pre-feature behaviour where `protect_first_n` was hardcoded
to protect 3 messages total. Sessions without a system prompt will see a
small behaviour change (2 protected head messages instead of 3), but this
is the rare path and the new semantics make the system-prompt-present
case the well-defined one.

Changes:

- agent/context_compressor.py: redefine protect_first_n as the count of
  non-system head messages protected beyond the implicit system-prompt
  guarantee; both paths converge. Constructor default updated to 2.
- hermes_cli/config.py: add `compression.protect_first_n` default (2),
  matching the new semantics. `show_config` label tweaked to
  'Protect first: N non-system head messages' for clarity.
- run_agent.py: read protect_first_n from config; 0 is now valid (system
  prompt is always implicitly protected).
- cli-config.yaml.example: document the new key and rationale.
- tests/agent/test_context_compressor.py: cover default, override, the
  end-to-end `protect_first_n=0` and `protect_first_n=1` behaviour,
  the no-system-prompt (gateway) path, and the new shared-semantics
  regression test.

Fixes #13751
Tested on Ubuntu 24.04.

hermes_cli/config.py

@@ -731,8 +731,13 @@ DEFAULT_CONFIG = {
         "target_ratio": 0.20,         # fraction of threshold to preserve as recent tail
         "protect_last_n": 20,         # minimum recent messages to keep uncompressed
         "hygiene_hard_message_limit": 400,  # gateway session-hygiene force-compress threshold by message count
+        "protect_first_n": 2,         # non-system head messages always preserved beyond the system prompt
+                                      # verbatim, in ADDITION to the system prompt
+                                      # (which is always implicitly protected). Set to
+                                      # 0 for long-running rolling-compaction sessions
+                                      # where you want nothing pinned except the
+                                      # system prompt + rolling summary + recent tail.
     },
-
     # Anthropic prompt caching (Claude via OpenRouter or native Anthropic API).
     # cache_ttl must be "5m" or "1h" (Anthropic-supported tiers); other values are ignored.
     "prompt_caching": {
@@ -4862,6 +4867,7 @@ def show_config():
         print(f"  Threshold:    {compression.get('threshold', 0.50) * 100:.0f}%")
         print(f"  Target ratio: {compression.get('target_ratio', 0.20) * 100:.0f}% of threshold preserved")
         print(f"  Protect last: {compression.get('protect_last_n', 20)} messages")
+        print(f"  Protect first: {compression.get('protect_first_n', 2)} non-system head messages")
         _aux_comp = config.get('auxiliary', {}).get('compression', {})
         _sm = _aux_comp.get('model', '') or '(auto)'
         print(f"  Model:        {_sm}")