The plumbing for setting OpenRouter provider preferences and the Pareto Code
router on auxiliary tasks already exists — auxiliary.<task>.extra_body is
forwarded verbatim by call_llm() / async_call_llm(). It just wasn't documented,
so users who wanted (e.g.) Pareto Code routing for compression but the strongest
coder for the main agent had no way to discover the escape hatch.
- hermes_cli/config.py: expand the auxiliary section header with a YAML
example showing provider routing plus plugins under extra_body, and an
explicit note that main-agent provider_routing / openrouter.min_coding_score
do NOT propagate to aux calls (each task is independent by design)
- website/docs/user-guide/configuration.md: new 'OpenRouter routing and
Pareto Code for auxiliary tasks' subsection with worked example
- website/docs/integrations/providers.md: cross-link from the Pareto Code
Router section to the aux-side doc
E2E verified that auxiliary.<task>.extra_body reaches the OpenRouter API with
the configured provider routing and plugins blocks intact.
Pick openrouter/pareto-code as your model and OpenRouter auto-routes each
request to the cheapest model meeting your coding-quality bar (ranked by
Artificial Analysis). The new openrouter.min_coding_score config key (0.0-1.0,
default 0.65) tunes the floor.
- hermes_cli/models.py: add openrouter/pareto-code to OPENROUTER_MODELS so
it shows up in the picker with a description
- hermes_cli/config.py: add openrouter.min_coding_score (default 0.65 — lands
on a mid-tier coder on the current Pareto frontier)
- plugins/model-providers/openrouter: emit extra_body.plugins =
[{id: pareto-router, min_coding_score: X}] when model is openrouter/pareto-code
AND the score is a valid float in [0.0, 1.0]
- agent/transports/chat_completions.py: same emission on the legacy flag
path (when no provider profile is loaded)
- run_agent.py: openrouter_min_coding_score kwarg + storage; plumbed into
both build_kwargs() invocations and the context-summary extra_body path
- cli.py: read openrouter.min_coding_score once at init, validate float in
[0,1], pass to AIAgent constructions (CLI + background-task paths)
- cron/scheduler.py, batch_runner.py, tools/delegate_tool.py,
tui_gateway/server.py: propagate the kwarg (mirrors providers_order
plumbing — subagents inherit, cron/batch read from config)
- tests: profile-level + transport-level coverage of the model gating,
unset/empty/out-of-range handling, and the legacy flag path
- docs: new 'OpenRouter Pareto Code Router' section in providers.md
Verified end-to-end against api.openrouter.ai: at score=0.65 we land on a
mid-tier coder, at omission we get the strongest. Score is silently dropped
on any model other than openrouter/pareto-code, so it's safe to leave set.
When systemd_restart / systemd_status / systemd_stop run under sudo,
HERMES_HOME is stripped and HOME=/root, so get_hermes_home() resolves
to /root/.hermes instead of the unit's pinned home. read_runtime_status
and get_running_pid then look at the wrong gateway_state.json — the
60s status poll never sees "running", times out, and forces another
systemctl restart that SIGTERMs the in-progress new gateway.
Read the unit's pinned HERMES_HOME from `systemctl show -p Environment`
and mirror it into os.environ before any HERMES_HOME-derived read.
Early-out when system=False (user-scope inherits naturally). Errors
swallowed so a transient systemctl failure doesn't break unrelated
CLI ops.
Closes#22035.
The generated zsh completion script used `(-h --help)` as the exclusion
group for `_arguments`, which zsh rejects with:
_arguments:comparguments: invalid argument: (-h --help){-h,--help}[...]
Exclusion groups in `_arguments` cannot contain long options. Use the
canonical `(-)` form (exclude all other options) which correctly
handles flag pairs like `-h`/`--help`.
FixesNousResearch/hermes-agent#22686
Problem
-------
`hermes doctor` ran two health checks for Anthropic: a dedicated one
with the correct `x-api-key` + `anthropic-version` headers, and a
generic Bearer-auth one driven by the pluggable `ProviderProfile` for
"anthropic". The generic check called `https://api.anthropic.com/v1/models`
with `Authorization: Bearer ...`, which Anthropic answers with HTTP 404,
producing a noisy duplicate warning even when the dedicated check passed.
Root cause
----------
`hermes_cli/doctor.py:_build_apikey_providers_list` deduplicated profiles
against a `_known_canonical` set built from the static list (Z.AI/GLM,
Kimi, DeepSeek, …). Providers with their own dedicated check above the
generic loop (Anthropic, OpenRouter, Bedrock) were not in that set, so
their profiles were appended and ran a second, broken check.
Fix
---
Add `{"anthropic", "openrouter", "bedrock"}` to the skip set, and
also skip profiles whose aliases match any of those names (e.g.
`claude`, `claude-oauth` → anthropic).
Tests
-----
tests/hermes_cli/test_doctor_dedicated_provider_skip.py:
- test_build_apikey_providers_list_skips_dedicated_check_providers:
asserts the assembled list does not contain anthropic, openrouter,
or bedrock entries.
- test_build_apikey_providers_list_includes_non_dedicated_providers:
sanity guard that legitimate providers (DeepSeek, Z.AI/GLM) survive.
Both confirmed via stash-verify (fail pre-fix with anthropic/openrouter
leaking, pass post-fix).
Fixes#22346
ALTER TABLE calls inside _migrate_add_optional_columns were guarded by a
snapshot of PRAGMA table_info taken at function entry. When the gateway
dispatcher opens the kanban DB twice per tick (once in _tick_once_for_board
and once via init_db's discard-and-reconnect path), a second connection can
run the same migration before the first one commits, causing:
sqlite3.OperationalError: duplicate column name: consecutive_failures
This crashed the dispatcher on every first tick after a gateway restart
(subsequent ticks succeeded because the columns were then present).
Fix: introduce _add_column_if_missing() which wraps ALTER TABLE in a
try/except that swallows OperationalError whose message contains
'duplicate column name'. All ALTER TABLE calls in
_migrate_add_optional_columns are routed through this helper.
Closes#21708
`hermes doctor` ran every connectivity probe sequentially and on a typical
developer laptop spent ~2s of its ~5s wall time inside boto3's EC2
instance-metadata-service lookup (169.254.169.254) — the default
AWS credential chain probes IMDS even when AWS_BEARER_TOKEN_BEDROCK
or AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID is the only legitimate source.
Refactor the API Connectivity section so every probe (OpenRouter,
Anthropic, ~16 static API-key providers + dynamic profiles, AWS
Bedrock) is a pure function returning a structured result, then
fan them out through a ThreadPoolExecutor(max_workers=8). Output
order, glyphs, colours, padding, and issue strings stay byte-for-byte
identical to the sequential implementation; results are gathered
in submission order.
Also disable IMDS for the parallel block by setting
AWS_EC2_METADATA_DISABLED=true on the parent thread before submitting
work (and restoring its prior value in a finally block). Bedrock's
real-API call gets a Config(connect_timeout=5, read_timeout=10,
retries={max_attempts:1}) so a transient regional failure can't pad
the run by 30+ seconds.
Measured impact (5-run medians, 9950X3D):
hermes doctor: 5.07 → 2.16 s (-57%)
Doctor tests: 48 passed (test_doctor.py + test_doctor_command_install.py).
The remaining ~2s of wall is import overhead + a couple of one-off
network calls outside the API Connectivity section (`fetch_models_dev`
provider catalog refresh, Nous OAuth refresh in `Auth Providers`).
Those are next-tier targets, not part of this change.
Returning users who enabled '🖱️ Computer Use (macOS)' via 'hermes tools'
saw '✓ Saved configuration' but no install — cua-driver was never on
PATH and the toolset failed at first use. Two compounding causes:
1. _toolset_needs_configuration_prompt fell through to _toolset_has_keys,
which returned True for any provider with empty env_vars. cua-driver
has no env vars, so the gate skipped _configure_toolset entirely and
_run_post_setup('cua_driver') never ran.
2. No stable CLI entry-point existed for re-running the install when
the picker no-op'd it (e.g. when toggling the toolset off+on inside
one picker session, where 'added' is empty).
Changes:
- hermes_cli/tools_config.py: add _POST_SETUP_INSTALLED registry
mapping post_setup keys to installed-state predicates. The gate
now returns True when any visible provider has a registered
post_setup whose predicate fails. cua_driver is the only opt-in
for now; other post_setup hooks keep their existing behaviour.
- hermes_cli/main.py: add 'hermes computer-use install' and
'hermes computer-use status' as a stable docs target. install
reuses the same _run_post_setup('cua_driver') path that the
picker invokes; status reports whether cua-driver is on PATH.
- tools/computer_use/cua_backend.py: install hint now points users
at 'hermes computer-use install' first.
- website/docs/user-guide/features/computer-use.md: document the
new command as the primary install path.
- website/docs/reference/cli-commands.md: catalog 'hermes
computer-use' alongside 'hermes tools'.
- tests/hermes_cli/test_post_setup_gating.py: regression coverage
for the gate predicate (missing -> setup forced, installed ->
setup skipped, broken predicate -> non-blocking, unregistered
keys -> behaviour unchanged).
Fixes#22737. Reported by @f-trycua.
Native Windows, WSL, SSH sessions, and Windows Terminal all send
Ctrl+Enter as bare LF (c-j). Hermes was binding c-j as submit on
every POSIX platform, so Ctrl+Enter submitted instead of inserting
a newline on those terminals. Reported in #22379.
Add _preserve_ctrl_enter_newline() predicate that detects the
environments where Ctrl+Enter must produce a newline (sys.platform
== 'win32', SSH_CONNECTION/SSH_CLIENT/SSH_TTY env, WT_SESSION,
WSL_DISTRO_NAME, /proc/version 'microsoft' marker). Gate the
c-j-as-submit binding off in those environments and gate the
c-j-as-newline handler on. Local POSIX TTYs without those markers
(docker exec, plain ssh from a Mac) keep c-j as submit so plain
Enter still works on thin PTYs.
Add install_ctrl_enter_alias() in hermes_cli/pt_input_extras.py
mapping the three CSI-u / modifyOtherKeys variants of Ctrl+Enter
('\x1b[13;5u', '\x1b[27;5;13~', '\x1b[27;5;13u') to the
(Escape, ControlM) tuple Alt+Enter produces. This lets Kitty /
mintty / xterm-with-modifyOtherKeys users over SSH get a Ctrl+Enter
newline through the existing Alt+Enter handler.
9 new tests + extended existing test_lf_enter_binds_to_submit_handler_posix
to cover bare-local vs SSH branches.
Closes#22379.
Operator-controlled HERMES_PROFILE values were rendered as
'**${author}** (${ts}):' — markdown bold with no provenance prefix.
Worker comment bodies render directly underneath. A misleading
profile name like 'hermes-system' or 'operator' could be misread by
the next worker as a system directive above attacker-influenced
content (confused-deputy primitive gated on operator misconfig).
The LLM-controlled author-forgery surface was already closed in
#22435 (author removed from KANBAN_COMMENT_SCHEMA). This is
defense-in-depth: render with an explicit 'comment from worker
`<author>` at <ts>:' prefix so even 'hermes-system' resolves to
'comment from worker `hermes-system` at ...' — parseable as
worker-comment metadata, not a system directive. Strip backticks
from author so they can't break out of the fence.
Update test_build_worker_context_caps_comments to count by body
regex since the rendered author line now also starts with
'comment '.
Closes#22452.
Adds 'codex' to the _MCP_PRESETS registry so users can add it via
Connecting to 'codex'...
✓ Connected! Found 2 tool(s) from 'codex':
codex Run a Codex session. Accepts configuration parameters matchi...
codex-reply Continue a Codex conversation by providing the thread id and...
Enable all 2 tools? [Y/n/select]:
Cancelled. without manually specifying
the command and args.
Enables: codex mcp-server → Hermes native MCP client → Codex tools
available as first-class Hermes tools.
Problem:
After `hermes profile use NAME`, the gateway (started via systemd with
HERMES_HOME=/root/.hermes hardcoded) ignores the active profile and
always runs as the Default profile. WebUI, Telegram, and all non-CLI
platforms are affected.
Root cause:
_apply_profile_override() contained an early-return guard:
if profile_name is None and os.environ.get("HERMES_HOME"):
return # trust the inherited value
The intent was to let child processes inherit their parent's profile via
HERMES_HOME without redundantly re-reading active_profile. But
systemd also sets HERMES_HOME — to the hermes root (/root/.hermes),
not a profile directory — so the guard fired and silently skipped the
active_profile check. The user's `hermes profile use NAME` write to
~/.hermes/active_profile was never seen by the gateway process.
Fix:
Only skip the active_profile check when HERMES_HOME is already a
profile directory, identified by its immediate parent directory being
named "profiles" (e.g. ~/.hermes/profiles/coder or
/opt/data/profiles/coder). When HERMES_HOME points to a root
directory (parent name != "profiles"), continue to read active_profile.
Tests:
- test_hermes_home_at_root_with_active_profile_is_redirected: the
bug scenario — HERMES_HOME=/root/.hermes + active_profile=coder →
HERMES_HOME must be redirected to .../profiles/coder.
Stash-verified: FAILS without fix, PASSES with fix.
- test_hermes_home_already_profile_dir_is_trusted: child-process
inheritance contract unchanged — .../profiles/coder is trusted as-is.
- test_hermes_home_unset_reads_active_profile: classic path unchanged.
- test_hermes_home_unset_default_profile_no_redirect: "default" still
produces no redirect.
4/4 tests green.
Closes#22502.
Resolve git via shutil.which with POSIX and Git-for-Windows fallbacks before clone and pull so Dashboard/API installs do not misreport Git as missing.
Add regression tests for the resolver and pull subprocess invocation.
When platform_toolsets[<platform>] contains both a composite (e.g.
hermes-cli) and at least one configurable opt-in (e.g. spotify), the
has_explicit_config branch in _get_platform_tools silently dropped the
composite, leaving sessions with only the configurable + plugin tools
and no native tools (terminal, file, web, browser, memory, etc.).
Mirror the else-branch's subset inference for composites that sit
alongside the configurables, but apply _DEFAULT_OFF_TOOLSETS only to the
implicit expansion so user-listed default-off toolsets (spotify,
discord) survive.
Enforce the parent-completion invariant at claim_task (the single
ready->running chokepoint) and re-gate unblock_task so blocked->ready
only fires when parents are done. Prevents child tasks from running
ahead of in-progress parents under the create-then-link race.
Also adds a stress test that races concurrent create+link against
hammered claim_task and asserts no child runs while any parent is undone.
Ref: kanban/boards/cookai/workspaces/t_a6acd07d/root-cause.md
Refs: t_8d6af9d6
Plugin authors had no easy way to figure out why their plugin wasn't
loading — failures were buried in agent.log at WARNING and skip reasons
(disabled, not enabled, depth cap, exclusive) were DEBUG-only and
invisible by default.
Set HERMES_PLUGINS_DEBUG=1 to attach a stderr handler at DEBUG to the
hermes_cli.plugins logger only. Surfaces:
- which directories were scanned + manifest counts per source
- per manifest: resolved key, name, kind, source, on-disk path
- skip reasons (disabled, not enabled, exclusive, depth cap, no register)
- per load: tools/hooks/slash/CLI commands the plugin registered
- full traceback on YAML parse failure (exc_info on the existing warning)
- full traceback on register() exceptions, pointing at the plugin author's line
Env var off (default) → zero new stderr output, same as before.
Touches only hermes_cli/plugins.py + a doc section in the plugin-build
guide + an entry in the env-vars reference. 3 new tests lock the
attach/idempotent/no-attach behavior.
Problem:
unlink_tasks() removes a parent→child dependency edge but does not trigger
recompute_ready(). A child whose last blocking parent is unlinked stays
stuck in 'todo' indefinitely — it only promotes to 'ready' on the next
dispatcher tick or a manual 'hermes kanban recompute'. For CLI-only users
without a dispatcher, the child is permanently stuck.
Root cause:
complete_task() and unblock_task() both call recompute_ready() after their
write transaction so downstream children are evaluated immediately.
unlink_tasks() was missing this call — removing a dependency is
semantically equivalent to completing one, so the same recompute is needed.
Fix:
Capture the rowcount result before the write_txn exits, then call
recompute_ready(conn) outside the transaction when a row was actually
deleted (so the child sees the updated task_links state).
Tests:
Added test_unlink_tasks_triggers_recompute_ready in
tests/hermes_cli/test_kanban_db.py: creates parent A (done) + parent C
(running), child B with both parents (todo), unlinks C→B, asserts B is
ready immediately. Stash-verified: FAILS without fix (child stays todo),
PASSES with fix.
62/62 tests green in tests/hermes_cli/test_kanban_db.py.
Closes#22459.
/clear, /new, /reset, and /undo now ask the user to confirm before
discarding conversation state — three-option prompt routed through the
existing tools.slash_confirm primitive.
Native yes/no buttons render on Telegram, Discord, and Slack (their
adapters already implement send_slash_confirm); other platforms get a
text-fallback prompt and reply with /approve, /always, or /cancel.
The classic prompt_toolkit CLI uses the same three-option flow via the
established _prompt_text_input pattern (see _confirm_and_reload_mcp).
TUI keeps its existing modal overlay (#12312).
Gated by new config key approvals.destructive_slash_confirm (default
true). Picking 'Always Approve' flips the gate to false so subsequent
destructive commands run silently — matches the established
mcp_reload_confirm UX.
Out of scope: /cron remove (separate domain — scheduled jobs, not
session history). Existing TUI overlay env-var (HERMES_TUI_NO_CONFIRM)
left unchanged; cosmetic unification can come later.
Closes#4069.
check_for_updates() and _resolve_repo_dir() were preferring
$HERMES_HOME/hermes-agent/ over Path(__file__).parent.parent.resolve()
when looking for a .git checkout. For profiles created with
--clone-all, $HERMES_HOME/hermes-agent/ points to a stale copy
with a frozen HEAD, causing persistent "N commits behind" banners
that never resolved.
Flip the resolution order: prefer the running code's location first,
fall back to $HERMES_HOME/hermes-agent/ only when the live checkout
doesn't have a .git (system-wide pip installs, distro packages).
The embedded-rev branch (HERMES_REVISION env var, set by nix builds)
is unaffected — it uses git ls-remote against upstream, never reads
the local checkout's HEAD.
Based on PR #21728 by @fahdad
When the source profile is the default (~/.hermes), shutil.copytree()
was copying multi-GB infrastructure alongside the ~40 MB of actual
profile data: hermes-agent/ (repo checkout + 3 GB venv), .worktrees/,
profiles/ (sibling profiles — recursive!), bin/ (installed binaries),
node_modules/ (hundreds of MB).
Add _CLONE_ALL_DEFAULT_EXCLUDE_ROOT frozenset with these five entries
and pass an ignore callback to copytree(). Exclusions are gated on
the source actually being the default profile (is_default_source) so
named-profile sources are never affected.
Also exclude at any depth: __pycache__/, *.pyc, *.pyo, *.sock, *.tmp.
Profile data (config.yaml, .env, auth.json, state.db, sessions/,
skills/, logs/) is preserved intact — clone-all means 'complete
snapshot minus infrastructure'.
Mirrors the approach already used by _default_export_ignore() and
_DEFAULT_EXPORT_EXCLUDE_ROOT (the export-side exclusion set which is
broader because it produces a portable archive, not a live clone).
Co-authored-by: MustafaKara7 <karamusti912@gmail.com>
Co-authored-by: fahdad <30740087+fahdad@users.noreply.github.com>
Fixes#5022
Based on PRs #5025, #5026, and #21728
Follow-up to PR #21293 (cli.py), which fixed the same anti-pattern.
`asyncio.get_event_loop()` is documented as effectively "always returns
the running loop when called from a coroutine" and emits
DeprecationWarning/RuntimeWarning in some interpreter configurations.
The Python docs explicitly recommend get_running_loop() inside coroutines.
Replaces the remaining 9 call sites that are unconditionally inside
async def bodies:
- tools/browser_cdp_tool.py — _cdp_call() (4 sites): deadline + remaining
computations inside the async websockets.connect context manager.
- hermes_cli/web_server.py — get_status, _start_device_code_flow,
submit_oauth_code (3 sites): all FastAPI async endpoints offloading
blocking httpx / PKCE work to run_in_executor.
- environments/agent_loop.py — HermesAgentLoop (1 site): tool dispatch
inside the async rollout loop.
- environments/benchmarks/terminalbench_2/terminalbench2_env.py —
rollout_and_score_eval (1 site): test verification thread offload.
All 9 sites are unconditionally inside async def bodies, so a running
loop is guaranteed and no try/except RuntimeError fallback is needed
(unlike the cli.py case in #21293, which ran from a background thread).
Behavior is identical on supported Python versions; aligns the codebase
with the post-#21293 idiom and avoids future warnings as the deprecation
hardens.
Salvaged from PR #21930 by @Zhekinmaksim onto current main (the
original branch was 109 commits behind and carried unintended
stale-branch reverts of unrelated landed changes — _tail_lines
encoding=utf-8 and the Windows PTY bridge guard). Only the 9 swaps
from the PR's intended scope are applied here.
SQLite's WAL mode requires shared-memory (mmap) coordination and fcntl
byte-range locks that don't reliably work on network filesystems. Upstream
documents this explicitly:
https://www.sqlite.org/wal.html#sometimes_queries_return_sqlite_busy_in_wal_mode
On NFS / SMB / some FUSE mounts / WSL1, 'PRAGMA journal_mode=WAL' raises
'sqlite3.OperationalError: locking protocol' (SQLITE_PROTOCOL). Before
this change, every feature backed by state.db or kanban.db broke silently:
- /resume, /title, /history, /branch returned 'Session database not
available.' with no cause
- gateway logged the init failure at DEBUG (invisible in errors.log)
- kanban dispatcher crashed every 60s, driving the known migration race
(duplicate column name: consecutive_failures, #21708 / #21374)
Changes:
- hermes_state.apply_wal_with_fallback(): shared helper that tries WAL
and falls back to DELETE on SQLITE_PROTOCOL-style errors with one
WARNING explaining why
- hermes_state.get_last_init_error() + format_session_db_unavailable():
capture the init failure cause and surface it in user-facing strings
(with an NFS/SMB pointer for 'locking protocol')
- hermes_cli/kanban_db.connect(): use the shared helper
- gateway/run.py: bump SessionDB init failure log DEBUG -> WARNING
(matches cli.py's existing correct behavior)
- cli.py (4 sites) + gateway/run.py (5 sites): replace bare
'Session database not available.' with format_session_db_unavailable()
Tests: 12 new tests in tests/test_hermes_state_wal_fallback.py + 1 new
test in tests/hermes_cli/test_kanban_db.py. Existing suites (state,
kanban, gateway, cli) remain green for all tests unrelated to pre-existing
failures on main.
Evidence: real-world user on NFSv3 mount (172.26.224.200:d2dfac12/home,
local_lock=none) reporting 'Session database not available.' on /resume;
'locking protocol' appears in 4 distinct log entries across backup,
kanban, TUI, and CLI paths in the same session.
closes#22032
Extends #19994 to the restart path. Dashboard spawns 'hermes gateway
restart' in the background; when a wedged adapter websocket pushes
drain past the 90s CLI timeout, the dashboard previously surfaced a
raw subprocess.TimeoutExpired traceback.
Mirror systemd_stop()'s TimeoutExpired catch onto both forcing-restart
sites in systemd_restart(). Adds a test that exercises the no-active-pid
branch end-to-end.
Closes#5346.
Most terminals send the same byte sequence for `Enter` and `Shift+Enter`
by default, so the application can't tell them apart — this is a terminal
protocol limitation, not something Hermes can paper over. But terminals
that implement the Kitty keyboard protocol (Kitty / foot / WezTerm /
Ghostty by default; iTerm2 / Alacritty / VS Code terminal / Warp once the
protocol is enabled) DO emit a distinct sequence for `Shift+Enter`:
- `\x1b[13;2u` — Kitty / CSI-u, modifier=2
- `\x1b[27;2;13~` — xterm modifyOtherKeys=2
Stock prompt_toolkit doesn't have the CSI-u sequence in its
`ANSI_SEQUENCES` table at all, and it maps the modifyOtherKeys variant to
plain `Keys.ControlM` (Enter) — i.e. it strips the Shift modifier, which
is the bug users actually hit on iTerm2 and friends.
This PR adds `hermes_cli/pt_input_extras.install_shift_enter_alias()`,
called once at CLI startup from `cli.py`, which inserts/overwrites those
sequences in `ANSI_SEQUENCES` so they decode to `(Keys.Escape, Keys.ControlM)`
— the same key tuple `Alt+Enter` produces. The existing Alt+Enter newline
handler (`@kb.add('escape', 'enter')` in `cli.py`) then fires unchanged,
so there is no new keybinding to register and no behavioral change for
terminals that don't emit the distinct sequences.
Files
=====
* `hermes_cli/pt_input_extras.py` — new module hosting the helper. Lives
outside `cli.py` so it's importable in tests without dragging in the
full CLI runtime (which depends on `fire`, `rich`, etc.).
* `cli.py` — calls `install_shift_enter_alias()` once at module import.
Wrapped in try/except so prompt_toolkit version drift can't break CLI
startup.
* `tests/cli/test_cli_shift_enter_newline.py` — 6 tests:
- registration of all three byte sequences
- overwrite of stock prompt_toolkit's broken modifyOtherKeys mapping
- idempotency
- parser equivalence: CSI-u Shift+Enter == Alt+Enter
- parser equivalence: modifyOtherKeys Shift+Enter == Alt+Enter
- plain Enter remains a single key (submit), distinct from the two-key
Alt+Enter / Shift+Enter tuple
* `website/docs/user-guide/cli.md` — keybinding table updated; new
"Shift+Enter compatibility" subsection with a per-terminal status table
noting macOS Terminal / stock Windows Terminal cannot distinguish the
keystroke at the protocol level.
* `website/docs/getting-started/quickstart.md`,
`website/docs/guides/tips.md` — short mention pointing readers at the
full compatibility note in `cli.md`.
Tested
======
pytest tests/cli/test_cli_shift_enter_newline.py # 6 passed
Live-tested by triggering `\x1b[13;2u` against the running Vt100Parser
(see test). Not exercised in a real terminal end-to-end because that
requires a Kitty-protocol-capable host; the test exercises the parser
path that drives the live terminal too.
After a clean SIGUSR1 drain, cmd_update passively polled for systemd's
auto-restart to fire. Our unit file sets RestartSec=60 (a crash-loop
guard), so the voluntary-restart path waited a full minute of dead air
before the gateway came back — the user saw 'draining (up to 75s)...'
and stared at it.
Change: after the drain exits with code 75, call 'reset-failed' +
'start' explicitly. Manual start bypasses RestartSec entirely
(RestartSec only governs systemd's own auto-restart logic). Takes
about as long as the gateway needs to come up (~1-3s on a warm box)
instead of ~60s.
The RestartSec=60 default stays — it's the right crash-loop guard for
actual crashes. This only short-circuits the voluntary-restart path.
Matches the pattern already used in 'hermes gateway restart'
(systemd_restart() in hermes_cli/gateway.py, PR #20949).
Tests:
- tests/hermes_cli/test_update_gateway_restart.py: new
test_update_bypasses_restartsec_after_graceful_drain asserts both
'reset-failed hermes-gateway' AND 'start hermes-gateway' (NOT
'restart') are issued after a successful graceful drain.
- All existing tests in the affected classes still pass
(TestCmdUpdateLaunchdRestart, TestCmdUpdateResetFailedBeforeRestart
are green; one pre-existing flake in the latter is unrelated).
`hermes --help` drops from ~700ms to ~180ms; `hermes version` from
~950ms to ~240ms. ~4-5x startup speedup on inspection / diagnostic
invocations.
Changes:
- hermes_cli/main.py: gate the argparse-setup `discover_plugins()` call
behind `_plugin_cli_discovery_needed()`. Eager plugin imports
(google.cloud.pubsub_v1, aiohttp, grpc, PIL) cost 500-650ms and are
pure waste when the user is running a built-in subcommand that
doesn't take plugin extensions (`--help`, `version`, `logs`,
`config`, `sessions`, etc.). New `_BUILTIN_SUBCOMMANDS` frozenset
+ `_first_positional_argv` helper handle flag-value skipping
(`-m gpt5 chat` → still fast).
- hermes_cli/main.py: `cmd_version` now reads the OpenAI SDK version
via `importlib.metadata` (~2ms) instead of `import openai` (~800ms
of pydantic type-module loading).
Agent-running paths (`hermes chat`, `hermes gateway run`) are
unaffected — the second `discover_plugins()` call later in `main()`
still runs so plugin hooks / tools wire up normally.
Tests:
- tests/hermes_cli/test_startup_plugin_gating.py: parity test guards
the `_BUILTIN_SUBCOMMANDS` set against drift (every registered
subparser must be declared; no phantom entries). Behavior tests for
flag-value skipping, `--` terminator, inline `--flag=value` form.
37 tests.
Both setup wizards (hermes setup and hermes gateway setup) gated the
service install/start/restart prompts behind 'supports_systemd or
is_macos()' and fell through to 'run in foreground' on Windows, even
though _is_service_installed() / _is_service_running() already call
gateway_windows.is_installed() and the Windows backend has a full
install/start/stop/restart contract.
Wire the Windows branch into both wizards:
- supports_service_manager now includes is_windows().
- Install offer reads 'Scheduled Task service' on Windows.
- install() on Windows starts the task inline via schtasks /Run (or
direct-spawn fallback) so the separate 'Start the service now?'
prompt is skipped.
- Start and Restart delegate to gateway_windows.start() / .restart().
hermes_cli/setup.py +30 -4
hermes_cli/gateway.py +28 -4
teknium1 hit ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'hermes_bootstrap' after
a code update, on both his Windows machine AND his Linux workstation. The
failure mode is real and affects every user who updates hermes by any path
OTHER than a fully-successful ``hermes update``.
## What happens
hermes_bootstrap.py is a top-level module registered via pyproject.toml's
``py-modules`` list (added by Brooklyn's Windows UTF-8 stdio work). It
must be registered in the venv's editable-install .pth file before Python
can find it as a bare ``import hermes_bootstrap``.
``hermes update`` handles this correctly: (1) git reset --hard, (2) clear
__pycache__, (3) uv pip install -e . (re-registers the package including
the new py-modules list), (4) restart.
BUT if any step AFTER (1) fails — network blip during pip install, PEP 668
on a system Python, venv locked, uv not in PATH, a crash mid-update — the
user is left with new code that references hermes_bootstrap and a venv
that doesn't know about it. Every hermes invocation after that crashes
with ModuleNotFoundError, including ``hermes update`` itself. No recovery
path without manual `uv pip install -e .`.
Also affects users who ``git pull`` the repo directly without running
hermes update — relatively common for developers.
## Fix
Wrap ``import hermes_bootstrap`` in a try/except ModuleNotFoundError
across all 6 entry points (hermes_cli/main, run_agent, gateway/run,
acp_adapter/entry, cli, batch_runner). On Windows, missing bootstrap
means the UTF-8 stdio setup doesn't run — degraded behavior (Unicode
chars may fail to print) but NOT a crash. POSIX is unaffected either way
since the bootstrap is a no-op there.
Once hermes is running again, the user can ``hermes update`` to fully
recover.
## Test update
tests/test_hermes_bootstrap.py::test_entry_point_imports_bootstrap
scans for the first top-level import in each entry point and asserts it
is hermes_bootstrap. Extended the check to accept a Try block whose body
is a lone Import of hermes_bootstrap — that's the recovery-friendly form
we just introduced.
Verified behavior by ``mv hermes_bootstrap.py hermes_bootstrap.py.bak``
and confirming ``python -c "import hermes_cli.main"`` succeeds. 82/82
tests pass (hermes_bootstrap + windows-native + windows-compat).
`hermes uninstall` was POSIX-only. On Windows it would leave four classes
of installer debris behind that the user had to scrub manually:
1. Scheduled Task and/or Startup-folder .cmd entry that installer.ps1
dropped for `hermes gateway install`. Left running at next logon
even after uninstall, pointing at deleted code paths.
2. User-scope PATH entries for the Hermes venv, PortableGit (cmd, bin,
usr\bin), and bundled Node, all written to HKCU\Environment\Path.
3. User-scope env vars HERMES_HOME and HERMES_GIT_BASH_PATH, same
registry key.
4. PortableGit and Node copies under %LOCALAPPDATA%\hermes\ (~200MB),
plus gateway-service/ scratch dir.
Fixes:
- `uninstall_gateway_service()` gets a Windows branch that calls into
`gateway_windows.stop()` + `gateway_windows.uninstall()`, which already
know how to remove both schtasks entries and Startup-folder .cmd files
and how to stop any running detached pythonw gateway.
- `remove_path_from_windows_registry(hermes_home)` reads HKCU\Environment
via winreg, strips any PATH entry whose path-prefix matches the
installer-owned markers (\hermes-agent, \git, \node, \venv under the
current HERMES_HOME), and writes the cleaned value back. Preserves
REG_EXPAND_SZ vs REG_SZ so unexpanded %VARS% in the user's PATH
survive. No PowerShell subprocess, no fragile `reg query` parsing.
- `remove_hermes_env_vars_windows()` deletes HERMES_HOME and
HERMES_GIT_BASH_PATH from the same key.
- `remove_portable_tooling_windows(hermes_home)` rmtree's
`hermes_home/git`, `hermes_home/node`, `hermes_home/gateway-service`
— they're installer artifacts, not user data, so they get removed in
BOTH "keep data" and "full uninstall" modes.
Wired these into `run_uninstall()` guarded by `_is_windows()` so
POSIX paths are untouched. Also fixed the closing "Reload your shell"
footer to point Windows users at opening a new terminal (PATH changes
don't propagate into the current PowerShell session) with the
PowerShell install one-liner instead of bash's curl-pipe.
Verified on Delta-1 (Windows 10) via preview script: correctly
identifies 4 Hermes-installed PATH entries out of 13 total to remove,
leaves Python/LM Studio/ripgrep/ffmpeg/winget entries alone.
## Two residual Windows fixes that were hanging from earlier commits.
### 1. `hermes gateway status` reported 2 PIDs per gateway — TWO bugs compounded
Diagnosed with psutil parent/child walk against live gateway PIDs:
**Bug A (the real one): `_get_parent_pid` silently failed on Windows.**
The helper shelled out to `ps -o ppid= -p <pid>`, which doesn't exist
on Windows — `FileNotFoundError` → returns `None` → the ancestor walk
terminated at `os.getpid()` alone. Consequence: the PID table scan in
`_scan_gateway_pids` couldn't filter out `hermes gateway status`'s own
launcher stub (a venv `pythonw.exe`/`python.exe` that matches the same
`-m hermes_cli.main gateway` pattern as the gateway). Every status
call saw "itself" as a second gateway.
Fix: `_get_parent_pid` now calls `psutil.Process(pid).ppid()` first
(psutil is a core dependency since 3dfb35700) and falls back to `ps`
only when `shutil.which("ps")` succeeds — matching the Windows-footgun
checker's "always guard `ps` / `wmic` / etc. with `shutil.which`" rule.
Before: `Gateway process running (PID: 21952, 46880)` — 46880 changing
on every call (the status invocation's own launcher, which died by the
time the next status call looked).
After (5 consecutive calls):
```
✓ Gateway process running (PID: 21952)
✓ Gateway process running (PID: 21952)
✓ Gateway process running (PID: 21952)
✓ Gateway process running (PID: 21952)
✓ Gateway process running (PID: 21952)
```
Ancestor walk on the fix: 14 PIDs (full chain through bash/explorer)
instead of the broken 1-PID set.
**Bug B (the cosmetic one): venv-launcher dedup.** Standard Windows
CPython venv behaviour is that `<venv>/Scripts/pythonw.exe` is a ~5 MB
launcher stub that spawns the base Python (`C:\\Program Files\\Python311
\\pythonw.exe`) with the same command line and waits. Our process
scanner sees two PIDs for every gateway: launcher + interpreter, same
cmdline. Bug A masked this by accidentally counting the status call
AS one of them; with Bug A fixed, we see both the real launcher and
real interpreter for the gateway process itself.
Fix: `_filter_venv_launcher_stubs` at the tail of `_scan_gateway_pids`
walks each matched PID's ppid via psutil. Any PID that's the PARENT
of another matched PID is a launcher stub — drop it, keep the child.
Scoped to Windows (`is_windows() and len(pids) > 1`) and no-ops when
psutil isn't importable.
Net effect: `gateway status` now reports one PID per gateway — the
interpreter — matching POSIX behaviour and user expectations.
### 2. `install.ps1`: bootstrap pip + auto-install platform SDKs
New `Install-PlatformSdks` function wired between `Invoke-SetupWizard`
and `Start-GatewayIfConfigured`. Fixes two related issues on fresh
Windows installs:
1. The tiered `uv pip install` cascade (introduced in 87fca8342)
correctly falls through when tier 1 `.[all]` fails on the RL git
deps, but the fallback tiers can silently skip SDKs from `[messaging]`
when there's a partial-resolve. Result: user sets `DISCORD_BOT_TOKEN`
in `.env`, fires up gateway, hits "discord module not installed".
2. `uv` creates venvs WITHOUT pip by default, so the user's escape
hatch (`pip install discord.py` in the venv) doesn't exist either.
The new function:
- Skips if `-NoVenv` (nothing to bootstrap into).
- Scans `~/.hermes/.env` for messaging tokens (TELEGRAM_BOT_TOKEN,
DISCORD_BOT_TOKEN, SLACK_BOT_TOKEN, SLACK_APP_TOKEN, WHATSAPP_ENABLED),
filtering placeholder values.
- For each token that's set, runs `python -c "import <sdk>"` to verify.
- If any import fails: runs `python -m ensurepip --upgrade` to bootstrap
pip into the venv (idempotent — no-ops if pip is already present),
then `pip install <spec>` for each missing SDK with specs mirroring
pyproject.toml's `[messaging]` extra to avoid version drift.
The `$ErrorActionPreference = "SilentlyContinue"` spans are not
cosmetic — PowerShell wraps native-stderr from a non-zero-exit
subprocess as a `NativeCommandError` that prints even through
`*> $null` / `2>$null`. Save + restore EAP over the import-probe
and pip-install blocks keeps the output clean.
Verified on this Windows 10 box:
- Initial state: telegram+fastapi+psutil present, discord+slack_sdk
missing (tier 1 `.[all]` had failed — `.tirith-install-failed`
marker in `%LOCALAPPDATA%\\hermes`).
- First run with discord+slack tokens in .env: detects both missing,
ensurepip (skipped — pip was already bootstrapped earlier this
session for telegram), installs `discord.py[voice]==2.7.1` +
`PyNaCl` + `davey`, installs `slack-sdk==3.41.0`. All imports
succeed on verify.
- Second run: all three SDKs report OK, function no-ops.
Pip spec strings mirror pyproject.toml's `[messaging]` extra verbatim
so a bump to the extra picks up here automatically — no drift.
### Files
- `hermes_cli/gateway.py`: `_get_parent_pid` rewritten (psutil-first);
`_filter_venv_launcher_stubs` added; `_scan_gateway_pids` dedups
launchers on Windows when it finds >1 match.
- `scripts/install.ps1`: new `Install-PlatformSdks` function (~85
lines); wired into the main flow at line 1438.
### Verification
- `venv/Scripts/python.exe scripts/check-windows-footguns.py --all`
→ `✓ No Windows footguns found (380 file(s) scanned).`
- `ast.parse` passes on gateway.py.
- `[System.Management.Automation.Language.Parser]::ParseFile` passes
on install.ps1.
- Live gateway (PID 21952, running since 12:33 today) survived 5x
stress loop of `hermes gateway status` without dying.
## Why
Hermes supports Linux, macOS, and native Windows, but the codebase grew up
POSIX-first and has accumulated patterns that silently break (or worse,
silently kill!) on Windows:
- `os.kill(pid, 0)` as a liveness probe — on Windows this maps to
CTRL_C_EVENT and broadcasts Ctrl+C to the target's entire console
process group (bpo-14484, open since 2012).
- `os.killpg` — doesn't exist on Windows at all (AttributeError).
- `os.setsid` / `os.getuid` / `os.geteuid` — same.
- `signal.SIGKILL` / `signal.SIGHUP` / `signal.SIGUSR1` — module-attr
errors at runtime on Windows.
- `open(path)` / `open(path, "r")` without explicit encoding= — inherits
the platform default, which is cp1252/mbcs on Windows (UTF-8 on POSIX),
causing mojibake round-tripping between hosts.
- `wmic` — removed from Windows 10 21H1+.
This commit does three things:
1. Makes `psutil` a core dependency and migrates critical callsites to it.
2. Adds a grep-based CI gate (`scripts/check-windows-footguns.py`) that
blocks new instances of any of the above patterns.
3. Fixes every existing instance in the codebase so the baseline is clean.
## What changed
### 1. psutil as a core dependency (pyproject.toml)
Added `psutil>=5.9.0,<8` to core deps. psutil is the canonical
cross-platform answer for "is this PID alive" and "kill this process
tree" — its `pid_exists()` uses `OpenProcess + GetExitCodeProcess` on
Windows (NOT a signal call), and its `Process.children(recursive=True)`
+ `.kill()` combo replaces `os.killpg()` portably.
### 2. `gateway/status.py::_pid_exists`
Rewrote to call `psutil.pid_exists()` first, falling back to the
hand-rolled ctypes `OpenProcess + WaitForSingleObject` dance on Windows
(and `os.kill(pid, 0)` on POSIX) only if psutil is somehow missing —
e.g. during the scaffold phase of a fresh install before pip finishes.
### 3. `os.killpg` migration to psutil (7 callsites, 5 files)
- `tools/code_execution_tool.py`
- `tools/process_registry.py`
- `tools/tts_tool.py`
- `tools/environments/local.py` (3 sites kept as-is, suppressed with
`# windows-footgun: ok` — the pgid semantics psutil can't replicate,
and the calls are already Windows-guarded at the outer branch)
- `gateway/platforms/whatsapp.py`
### 4. `scripts/check-windows-footguns.py` (NEW, 500 lines)
Grep-based checker with 11 rules covering every Windows cross-platform
footgun we've hit so far:
1. `os.kill(pid, 0)` — the silent killer
2. `os.setsid` without guard
3. `os.killpg` (recommends psutil)
4. `os.getuid` / `os.geteuid` / `os.getgid`
5. `os.fork`
6. `signal.SIGKILL`
7. `signal.SIGHUP/SIGUSR1/SIGUSR2/SIGALRM/SIGCHLD/SIGPIPE/SIGQUIT`
8. `subprocess` shebang script invocation
9. `wmic` without `shutil.which` guard
10. Hardcoded `~/Desktop` (OneDrive trap)
11. `asyncio.add_signal_handler` without try/except
12. `open()` without `encoding=` on text mode
Features:
- Triple-quoted-docstring aware (won't flag prose inside docstrings)
- Trailing-comment aware (won't flag mentions in `# os.kill(pid, 0)` comments)
- Guard-hint aware (skips lines with `hasattr(os, ...)`,
`shutil.which(...)`, `if platform.system() != 'Windows'`, etc.)
- Inline suppression with `# windows-footgun: ok — <reason>`
- `--list` to print all rules with fixes
- `--all` / `--diff <ref>` / staged-files (default) modes
- Scans 380 files in under 2 seconds
### 5. CI integration
A GitHub Actions workflow that runs the checker on every PR and push is
staged at `/tmp/hermes-stash/windows-footguns.yml` — not included in this
commit because the GH token on the push machine lacks `workflow` scope.
A maintainer with `workflow` permissions should add it as
`.github/workflows/windows-footguns.yml` in a follow-up. Content:
```yaml
name: Windows footgun check
on:
push:
branches: [main]
pull_request:
branches: [main]
jobs:
check:
runs-on: ubuntu-latest
steps:
- uses: actions/checkout@v4
- uses: actions/setup-python@v5
with: {python-version: "3.11"}
- run: python scripts/check-windows-footguns.py --all
```
### 6. CONTRIBUTING.md — "Cross-Platform Compatibility" expansion
Expanded from 5 to 16 rules, each with message, example, and fix.
Recommends psutil as the preferred API for PID / process-tree operations.
### 7. Baseline cleanup (91 → 0 findings)
- 14 `open()` sites → added `encoding='utf-8'` (internal logs/caches) or
`encoding='utf-8-sig'` (user-editable files that Notepad may BOM)
- 23 POSIX-only callsites in systemd helpers, pty_bridge, and plugin
tool subprocess management → annotated with
`# windows-footgun: ok — <reason>`
- 7 `os.killpg` sites → migrated to psutil (see §3 above)
## Verification
```
$ python scripts/check-windows-footguns.py --all
✓ No Windows footguns found (380 file(s) scanned).
$ python -c "from gateway.status import _pid_exists; import os
> print('self:', _pid_exists(os.getpid())); print('bogus:', _pid_exists(999999))"
self: True
bogus: False
```
Proof-of-repro that `os.kill(pid, 0)` was actually killing processes
before this fix — see commit `1cbe39914` and bpo-14484. This commit
removes the last hand-rolled ctypes path from the hot liveness-check
path and defers to the best-maintained cross-platform answer.
On Windows, Python's ``os.kill(pid, 0)`` is NOT a no-op. CPython's
implementation (``Modules/posixmodule.c::os_kill_impl``) treats sig=0
as ``CTRL_C_EVENT`` because the two integer values collide at the C
layer, and routes it through ``GenerateConsoleCtrlEvent(0, pid)`` —
which sends a Ctrl+C to the ENTIRE console process group containing
the target PID, not just the PID itself. Any caller that wanted to
check "is PID X alive" via the classic POSIX ``os.kill(pid, 0)``
idiom was silently killing that process (and often unrelated
processes in the same console group) on Windows. Long-standing
Python Windows quirk; see bpo-14484 (open since 2012).
This manifested in Hermes as: every ``hermes gateway status``
invocation would read the gateway's PID from the PID file, call
``os.kill(pid, 0)`` via ``gateway.status.get_running_pid()`` as a
"liveness check", and instantly terminate the gateway it was trying
to report on. No shutdown log, no traceback, no atexit hook fire,
no exit-diag entry — just silent termination of the detached pythonw
process. "Bot answered one message then stopped typing" was the
characteristic end-user symptom because `os.kill(pid, 0)` fires
mid-response-send and kills the gateway between logs.
Reproduction (verified in this branch before the fix):
$ hermes gateway start # gateway alive, PID 37520
$ hermes gateway status # reports "No gateway process detected"
$ tasklist /FI "PID eq 37520" # INFO: No tasks are running
# — gateway terminated silently
Root-cause fix is a new ``gateway.status._pid_exists(pid)`` helper:
- On Windows: Win32 ``OpenProcess(PROCESS_QUERY_LIMITED_INFORMATION |
SYNCHRONIZE, False, pid)`` + ``WaitForSingleObject(handle, 0)``
via ctypes. Zero signal delivery, zero console-group side effects.
Pins ctypes return types to avoid DWORD-vs-signed-int parse bugs
on WAIT_TIMEOUT (0x102). Distinguishes ERROR_INVALID_PARAMETER
(PID gone) from ERROR_ACCESS_DENIED (alive but another user).
- On POSIX: the canonical ``os.kill(pid, 0)`` idiom that actually is
a no-op there.
Then patch every ``os.kill(pid, 0)`` liveness-check callsite to
route through ``_pid_exists`` instead. Total 14 callsites across
11 files; every single one was a latent silent-kill on Windows:
gateway/run.py:2810 — /restart watcher (inline subprocess)
gateway/run.py:15195 — --replace wait loop
gateway/status.py:572 — acquire_gateway_runtime_lock stale check
gateway/status.py:828 — get_running_pid (THE killer for status)
gateway/platforms/whatsapp.py:111
hermes_cli/gateway.py:228, 522, 1012 — gateway-related drain loops
hermes_cli/kanban_db.py:2826 — _pid_alive was claiming to
be cross-platform but used
os.kill(pid, 0) on Windows
hermes_cli/main.py:5792 — CLI process-kill polling
hermes_cli/profiles.py:782 — profile stop wait loop
plugins/google_meet/process_manager.py:74
tools/browser_tool.py:1215, 1255 — browser daemon ownership probes
tools/mcp_tool.py:1255, 3374 — MCP stdio orphan tracking
The watcher source in gateway/run.py:2810 is a multi-line string
that gets spawned as an inline ``python -c "..."`` subprocess, so
it can't import gateway.status. The fix for that callsite inlines
the same ctypes probe directly into the watcher source.
Tested on Windows 10 with the hermes gateway + Telegram bot:
- gateway start → alive
- 5 consecutive ``hermes gateway status`` invocations → gateway
alive after every one, same PID reported each time (37520, 21952)
- gateway.log shows uninterrupted operation; no spurious shutdown
entries; cron ticker and kanban dispatcher still running on
their 60-second cadence
- bot continues answering Telegram messages throughout
Ships alongside an exit-path diagnostic wrapper in
``hermes_cli/gateway.py::run_gateway()`` that captures every way
``asyncio.run(start_gateway(...))`` can return (success, SystemExit,
KeyboardInterrupt, BaseException, atexit) with full traceback to
``logs/gateway-exit-diag.log``. This was used to prove the gateway
was being hard-killed externally (no exit event fired) and should
be kept for future Windows debugging.
Refs: https://bugs.python.org/issue14484
See also: references/windows-subprocess-sigint-storm.md in
the hermes-agent skill.
Hermes gateway now installs as a real Windows service via
`hermes gateway install`, auto-starts on user logon, and stays running
across reboots. Mirrors the launchd (macOS) / systemd (Linux) contract
so the rest of the CLI dispatcher just plugs into the same `install /
uninstall / start / stop / restart / status` entrypoints.
Primary implementation is the new `hermes_cli/gateway_windows.py`:
- `schtasks /Create /SC ONLOGON /RL LIMITED /RU <user> /NP /IT` creates
a per-user Scheduled Task running as the current user at next logon,
with no UAC prompt and no stored password. Same pattern OpenClaw uses.
- When `schtasks /Create` returns "Access is denied" or times out
(locked-down corporate boxes, 15s/30s hard + no-output cutoffs),
fall back to writing a `.cmd` file into
`%APPDATA%\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup\`, which
Windows Explorer fires at every logon. Either path produces the same
end-user experience.
- `_spawn_detached()` launches `pythonw.exe -m hermes_cli.main gateway
run --replace` directly with `DETACHED_PROCESS |
CREATE_NEW_PROCESS_GROUP | CREATE_NO_WINDOW |
CREATE_BREAKAWAY_FROM_JOB` + DEVNULL stdio + sidecar
`logs/gateway-stdio.log`. Going through pythonw.exe (no console)
instead of a cmd.exe shim is what lets the gateway survive the
spawning shell's exit on Windows — documented in
`references/windows-subprocess-sigint-storm.md`.
- Two separate quoting helpers for cmd.exe vs schtasks (`/TR` argument)
— they're different parsers and mixing breaks both. Same split
OpenClaw documents in src/daemon/schtasks.ts.
- `_wait_for_gateway_ready()` + `_report_gateway_start()` poll for a
live gateway process after spawn and report the PID, so install
doesn't lie about success.
Dispatcher wiring in `hermes_cli/gateway.py`:
- `_gateway_command_inner()` gets Windows branches for install /
uninstall / start / stop / restart / status + `_is_service_installed`
+ `_is_service_running`. `gateway status` output + suggested
commands now mention `hermes gateway install` instead of
`sudo hermes gateway install --system` on Windows.
Two separable Windows fixes that only matter for a working
detached gateway, bundled here because shipping them independently
leaves install broken:
(1) Spurious CTRL_C_EVENT on detached pythonw runs. When the gateway
is launched detached on Windows, something on the boot path (HTTPX /
python-telegram-bot / asyncio ProactorEventLoop subprocess plumbing)
synthesizes a Ctrl+C within ~60-90 seconds. Python 3.11 translates it
into KeyboardInterrupt inside `asyncio.run(start_gateway(...))`, the
outer `except KeyboardInterrupt: return` exits cleanly, and the
process dies with no shutdown log — "bot started typing, then
stopped" is the fingerprint because the interrupt fires mid-send.
Fix in `run_gateway()`: when `is_windows()` and stdin is not a TTY,
install `signal.signal(SIGINT, SIG_IGN)` + same for SIGBREAK. Real
console runs have a TTY and skip the absorber, so user Ctrl+C still
works interactively. Same family as commit 449ad952b's browser-tool
SIGINT absorber; cross-referenced in the ref doc.
(2) `wmic process get` is the process-list path used by
`_scan_gateway_pids()` / `find_gateway_pids()`, which power status,
stop, and restart on Windows. `C:\Windows\System32\wbem\WMIC.exe` has
been deprecated since Windows 10 21H1 and is not installed on modern
Win 10/11 boxes, so `find_gateway_pids()` silently returns [] — status
sees no gateway even when one is running. Fix: `shutil.which("wmic")`
first, fall back to PowerShell's `Get-CimInstance Win32_Process`
emitting the same LIST-style `CommandLine=...` / `ProcessId=...` pairs
the downstream parser already handles. Zero behavior change on boxes
where wmic still works.
Verified end-to-end on Windows 10 (Delta-1):
- `hermes gateway install` → falls back to Startup folder (access
denied on schtasks for this user) + detached pythonw spawn, PID
reported correctly.
- Gateway connects to Telegram, answers messages, stays alive past
2min (previously died at ~85s with no shutdown log).
- `hermes gateway stop` + `uninstall` both clean up both tracks.
Refs: openclaw/openclaw src/daemon/schtasks.ts for the ONLOGON +
startup-folder-fallback pattern. skill hermes-agent
references/windows-subprocess-sigint-storm.md for the deeper
CTRL_C_EVENT / ProactorEventLoop background.
Replace hardcoded ~/.hermes/shared/ references with
get_default_hermes_root() / 'shared' so the cross-profile Nous auth
store lands in the correct location on every platform:
- Linux/macOS: ~/.hermes/shared/
- native Windows: %LOCALAPPDATA%\hermes\shared- Docker / custom HERMES_HOME: <root>/shared/
Updates _nous_shared_auth_dir(), the pytest seat-belt in
_nous_shared_store_path(), and the auth_add_command comment to match.
Previously Windows installs wrote to ~/.hermes/shared/ even though the
rest of the CLI uses %LOCALAPPDATA%\hermes, so profiles couldn't see
each other's shared credential.
scripts/install.sh runs 'npx playwright install --with-deps chromium'
on every Linux distro after the npm-install step, which is why browser
tools Just Work on Linux. scripts/install.ps1 never did the equivalent
step, so on native Windows installs check_browser_requirements() in
tools/browser_tool.py would return False (no Chromium under
%LOCALAPPDATA%\ms-playwright) and every browser_* tool got silently
filtered out of the agent's tool schema — no error, no log entry, user
just wondered why the tools didn't exist.
Two-part fix:
1. scripts/install.ps1: after 'npm install' in InstallDir succeeds, run
'npx playwright install chromium'. Resolves npx via the same
execution-policy-aware logic already used for npm (prefer npx.cmd
next to npmExe, fall back to Get-Command). Surfaces a warning +
manual-recovery hint when the install fails, matching install.sh
behaviour for distros.
2. hermes_cli/doctor.py: after the agent-browser check, lazily import
tools.browser_tool and reuse the exact same _chromium_installed()
predicate check_browser_requirements() uses, so the doctor signal
cannot drift from the runtime gate. Skip the check when Camofox /
CDP override / a cloud provider / Lightpanda is configured (those
bypass local Chromium). On missing Chromium, the hint is
platform-correct: '--with-deps' on POSIX, plain 'install chromium'
on win32.
Verified on Windows 10:
- 'npx playwright install chromium' completes successfully, drops
Chrome Headless Shell under %LOCALAPPDATA%\ms-playwright
- check_browser_requirements() flips from False -> True
- 'hermes doctor' now prints either '✓ Playwright Chromium (browser
engine)' or '⚠ Playwright Chromium not installed' + fix command
- tests/hermes_cli/test_doctor.py: 38/38 pass
- tests/tools/test_browser_chromium_check.py: 16/16 pass
Windows Terminal intercepts Alt+Enter for its fullscreen shortcut, leaving
Windows users with no Enter-involving way to insert a newline in the Hermes
prompt. Fix it by reclaiming c-j on Windows only:
- _bind_prompt_submit_keys now binds c-j (LF) to submit only on POSIX, where
thin PTYs (docker exec, some SSH configs) deliver Enter as LF. On Windows
plain Enter is always c-m, so c-j is free.
- Windows-only prompt binding: c-j inserts a newline. Windows Terminal sends
Ctrl+Enter as LF, so the user-facing keystroke is Ctrl+Enter — no terminal
settings changes required.
- Alt+Enter binding unchanged; still works on mac/Linux/WSL.
- Test TestPromptToolkitTerminalCompatibility::test_lf_enter_binds_to_submit_handler
split into platform-aware assertions for POSIX vs win32.
- Fixed the Ctrl+J claim in hermes_cli/tips.py (was wrong before this commit
even on POSIX) to point Windows users at Ctrl+Enter.
Tradeoff: on Windows, raw Ctrl+J (without Enter) also inserts a newline,
since WT collapses Ctrl+Enter and Ctrl+J to the same c-j keycode. No
conflicting Hermes binding existed for Ctrl+J, so this is a harmless side
effect.
Closes the last Python-on-Windows UTF-8 exposure by making every
text-mode open() call explicit about its encoding.
Before: on Windows, bare open(path, 'r') defaults to the system
locale encoding (cp1252 on US-locale installs). That means reading
any config/yaml/markdown/json file with non-ASCII content either
crashes with UnicodeDecodeError or silently mis-decodes bytes.
After: all 89 affected call sites in production code now pass
encoding='utf-8' explicitly. Works identically on every platform
and every locale, no surprise behavior.
Mechanical sweep via:
ruff check --preview --extend-select PLW1514 --unsafe-fixes --fix --exclude 'tests,venv,.venv,node_modules,website,optional-skills, skills,tinker-atropos,plugins' .
All 89 fixes have the same shape: open(x) or open(x, mode) became
open(x, encoding='utf-8') or open(x, mode, encoding='utf-8'). Nothing
else changed. Every modified file still parses and the Windows/sandbox
test suite is still green (85 passed, 14 skipped, 0 failed across
tests/tools/test_code_execution_windows_env.py +
tests/tools/test_code_execution_modes.py + tests/tools/test_env_passthrough.py +
tests/test_hermes_bootstrap.py).
Scope notes:
- tests/ excluded: test fixtures can use locale encoding intentionally
(exercising edge cases). If we want to tighten tests later that's
a separate PR.
- plugins/ excluded: plugin-specific conventions may differ; plugin
authors own their code.
- optional-skills/ and skills/ excluded: skill scripts are user-authored
and we don't want to mass-edit them.
- website/ and tinker-atropos/ excluded: vendored / generated content.
46 files touched, 89 +/- lines (symmetric replacement). No behavior
change on POSIX or on Windows when the file is ASCII; bug fix on
Windows when the file contains non-ASCII.
Codebase-wide fix for Python-on-Windows UTF-8 footguns, complementing
the earlier execute_code sandbox fixes (which remain load-bearing for
when the sandbox explicitly scrubs child env).
Problem: Python on Windows has two long-standing text-encoding pitfalls:
1. sys.stdout/stderr are bound to the console code page (cp1252 on
US-locale installs) — print('café') crashes with UnicodeEncodeError.
2. Subprocess children don't know to use UTF-8 unless PYTHONUTF8 and/or
PYTHONIOENCODING are set in their env — so any Python we spawn
(linters, sandbox children, delegation workers) hits the same bug.
Solution: A tiny bootstrap module (hermes_bootstrap.py) imported as the
first statement of every Hermes entry point:
- hermes_cli/main.py (hermes / hermes-agent console_script)
- run_agent.py (hermes-agent direct)
- acp_adapter/entry.py (hermes-acp)
- gateway/run.py (messaging gateway)
- batch_runner.py (parallel batch mode)
- cli.py (legacy direct-launch CLI)
On Windows, the bootstrap:
- os.environ.setdefault('PYTHONUTF8', '1') (PEP 540 UTF-8 mode)
- os.environ.setdefault('PYTHONIOENCODING', 'utf-8')
- sys.stdout/stderr/stdin.reconfigure(encoding='utf-8', errors='replace')
Children inherit the env vars → they run in UTF-8 mode.
Current process's stdio is reconfigured → print('café') works now.
On POSIX (Linux/macOS), the bootstrap is a complete no-op. We don't
touch LANG, LC_*, or anything else — users who have intentionally
configured a non-UTF-8 locale aren't affected. POSIX systems are
already UTF-8 by default in 99% of modern setups, so there's nothing
to fix.
setdefault() (not overwrite) means users who explicitly set PYTHONUTF8=0
or PYTHONIOENCODING=cp1252 in their environment are respected.
What this does NOT fix: bare open(path, 'w') calls in the *parent*
process still default to locale encoding because PYTHONUTF8 is only
read at interpreter init. A ruff PLW1514 sweep (separate follow-up)
will add explicit encoding='utf-8' at those ~219 call sites for
belt-and-suspenders.
Tests (17): 16 passed, 1 skipped on Windows.
- Windows: env vars set, stdio reconfigured, child inherits UTF-8 mode
- POSIX: complete no-op (verified on fake POSIX + skipped on real
POSIX since we don't have a Linux box in this session)
- Idempotence: multiple calls safe
- Graceful degradation: non-reconfigurable streams don't crash
- User opt-out: explicit PYTHONUTF8=0 is respected
- Load order: every entry point's FIRST top-level import is
hermes_bootstrap, enforced by an AST-level parametrized test
pyproject.toml: added hermes_bootstrap to py-modules so it ships with
pip installs.
Two fixes from teknium1's next install run:
1. **npm install: "npm.ps1 cannot be loaded because running scripts is
disabled on this system."** Get-Command's default PATHEXT ordering
picked up ``npm.ps1`` (the PowerShell shim) ahead of ``npm.cmd`` (the
batch shim). Most Windows users have PowerShell's execution policy
set to Restricted or RemoteSigned, which blocks unsigned ``.ps1``
files. ``npm.cmd`` has no such restriction and works universally.
Install-NodeDeps now detects when Get-Command returned npm.ps1, looks
for a sibling npm.cmd in the same directory, and prefers it. Prints
an info line so the user sees why. Emits a warning + hint if only
npm.ps1 is available.
2. **"Launch hermes chat now? Y" crashes with "%1 is not a valid Win32
application" on Windows installs.** The setup wizard calls
``relaunch(["chat"])``; ``resolve_hermes_bin()`` returned
``sys.argv[0]`` which was ``...\\hermes_cli\\main.py`` (because hermes
was launched via ``python -m hermes_cli.main`` during setup).
On Windows, ``os.access(script.py, os.X_OK)`` returns True because
PATHEXT lists ``.py`` when the Python launcher is registered — but
``subprocess.run([script.py, ...])`` can't actually execute a ``.py``
directly. CreateProcessW needs a real PE file.
Fixed ``resolve_hermes_bin`` to reject ``.py``/``.pyc`` argv0 values
on Windows specifically. Falls through to ``shutil.which("hermes")``
(hermes.exe in the venv Scripts dir) or, as a final fallback, lets
build_relaunch_argv build ``[sys.executable, "-m", "hermes_cli.main"]``
which is bulletproof. POSIX behaviour unchanged — ``.py`` argv0 with
a shebang + chmod+x is still a valid exec target there.
3 new tests cover the Windows paths: .py argv0 + hermes.exe on PATH →
returns hermes.exe; .py argv0 + no PATH → returns None (caller uses
python -m); POSIX + executable .py → still accepted.
26 relaunch tests pass, no POSIX regressions.
Three interrelated bugs from teknium1's first interactive chat on Windows:
1. **Snapshot/cwd file paths unquoted in bash command strings.** The session
bootstrap and per-command wrapper interpolated
``self._snapshot_path`` / ``self._cwd_file`` unquoted into bash commands
like ``export -p > C:/Users/ryanc/.../hermes-snap-xxx.sh``. Git Bash's
MSYS2 layer handles ``C:/...`` paths correctly ONLY when quoted; unquoted,
the colon and forward-slash get glob-parsed and the redirect targets a
bogus path. Symptom: every terminal command emitted two
``C:/Users/.../hermes-snap-*.sh (No such file or directory)`` lines that
bled into stdout (``stderr=STDOUT`` on the local backend) and corrupted
file contents when the agent wrote to scratch paths via the terminal
tool. Fix: ``shlex.quote()`` every interpolation of ``_snapshot_path``
and ``_cwd_file`` in base.py — no-op on POSIX (the paths contain no
shell-metachars), critical on Windows.
2. **Stale PATH on first hermes launch after install.** ``install.ps1``
adds the PortableGit ``cmd`` / ``bin`` / ``usr\bin`` directories to the
Windows **User** PATH via ``SetEnvironmentVariable(..., "User")``. That
write propagates to newly *spawned* processes only — already-running
shells (including the one the user types ``hermes`` into immediately
after install) retain their old PATH. So hermes starts with a PATH that
doesn't include bash, rg, grep, ssh — and ``search_files`` reports
"rg/find not available" when the user clearly just installed them.
Fix: new ``_augment_path_with_known_tools()`` helper called from
``configure_windows_stdio()`` on startup. Prepends the Hermes-managed
Git directories + the WinGet Links directory (where ripgrep lands) to
``os.environ['PATH']`` if they exist on disk but aren't already in
PATH. Subsequent subprocess calls (including bash spawns via
``_find_bash()``) inherit the augmented PATH and find everything.
No-op on POSIX and when the directories don't exist.
3. **Root cause of "file content corruption".** #1 was the proximate cause.
Errors like ``C:/Users/.../hermes-snap-xxx.sh: No such file or directory``
were emitted on stderr by the failed redirect, captured into stdout via
``stderr=subprocess.STDOUT``, and if the agent used terminal commands
like ``cat > file`` the leaked error bytes became part of the file.
Fixing #1 eliminates this entirely.
## Tests
All 77 Windows-compat tests still pass on Linux (POSIX path is
shlex.quote('/tmp/foo.sh') → '/tmp/foo.sh' — unchanged).
## Not addressed here (would need a bigger design)
- Python file tools (``write_file``, ``read_file``) and the bash-backed
terminal tool see DIFFERENT views of ``/tmp`` on Windows. Python treats
``/tmp`` as ``C:\tmp`` (drive-relative), Git Bash's MSYS2 treats it as
a virtual mount to the PortableGit install's ``tmp\``. Would need a
translation shim in the Python tools to resolve bash-virtual paths to
their native-Windows equivalents. Workaround for users today: use
absolute native paths (``C:\Users\you\...``) instead of ``/tmp/...``
when crossing between terminal and Python file tools.
Three real bugs from teknium1's first Windows install run:
1. **MinGit has no bash.exe.** MinGit is the minimal-automation Git for Windows
distribution — it ships git.exe but deliberately strips bash and the POSIX
coreutils. Installer logged "Could not locate bash.exe" and Hermes would
fail to run any shell command. Switched to PortableGit — the full Git for
Windows minus the installer UI. PortableGit ships bash.exe at
<root>\bin\bash.exe plus sh, awk, sed, grep, curl, ssh in usr\bin\. ARM64
variant is detected separately (PortableGit-*-arm64.7z.exe). 32-bit falls
back to MinGit-32-bit with a warning (PortableGit is 64-bit only).
PortableGit ships as a 7z self-extractor (56MB vs MinGit's 38MB). We
invoke it with `-o<target> -y` to extract silently — no 7z install needed,
it's self-contained.
Updated tools/environments/local.py::_find_bash candidate order to prefer
the PortableGit layout (<root>\bin\bash.exe) with the MinGit layout
(<root>\usr\bin\bash.exe) as a fallback so existing installs keep working.
2. **os.execvp "Exec format error" on Windows.** Setup wizard's "Launch
hermes chat now? Y" called `os.execvp(["hermes", "chat"])` which on
Windows can only swap to real Win32 .exe files — chokes with OSError(8)
on .cmd batch shims and Python console-script wrappers. Added a
win32 branch in hermes_cli/relaunch.py::relaunch() that uses
subprocess.run + sys.exit — functionally identical (user sees "hermes
exited, then new hermes started") with one extra PID in play. POSIX
path is UNCHANGED — still uses os.execvp for in-place replacement.
Catches OSError in the Windows branch and surfaces a "open a new
terminal so PATH picks up, then re-run hermes" hint instead of a
cryptic traceback.
3. **npm install failures silent on Windows.** The install.ps1 was invoking
`npm install --silent 2>&1 | Out-Null` inside a try/catch. PowerShell's
try/catch does NOT trigger on non-zero process exit codes — only on
unhandled .NET exceptions — so npm failing printed a generic "npm
install failed" with zero information about WHY. The silent pipe ate
the stderr.
Rewrote Install-NodeDeps to:
- Resolve npm.cmd via Get-Command (respects PATHEXT) instead of
relying on bare `npm` name resolution.
- Use Start-Process with -PassThru to capture the actual exit code.
- Redirect stderr to a temp log and surface the first ~800 chars of
the real npm error when install fails, plus the log path for the
full text.
- Fail loudly with the right exit code instead of a misleading success.
- Bail cleanly with a helpful message when npm isn't on PATH at all.
4. **"True" printing to console after Node check.** `Test-Node` returns $true;
installer called it as a bare statement (no assignment, no cast). PowerShell
prints bare return values. Wrapped the call in `[void](Test-Node)`.
## Tests
- Added 3 new tests in tests/hermes_cli/test_relaunch.py covering the
Windows branch: subprocess is called (not execvp), child exit code
propagates, OSError surfaces a helpful message. All 23 tests pass
(20 existing + 3 new).
- 77 Windows-compat tests still pass, POSIX behaviour unchanged.
Second pass on native Windows support, driven by a systematic audit across
five areas: POSIX-only primitives (signal.SIGKILL/SIGHUP/SIGPIPE, os.WNOHANG,
os.setsid), path translation bugs (/c/Users → C:\Users), subprocess patterns
(npm.cmd batch shims, start_new_session no-op on Windows), subsystem health
(cron, gateway daemon, update flow), and module-level import guards.
Every change is platform-gated — POSIX (Linux/macOS) behaviour is preserved
bit-identical. Explicit "do no harm" test: test_posix_path_preserved_on_linux,
test_posix_noop, test_windows_detach_popen_kwargs_is_posix_equivalent_on_posix.
## New module
- hermes_cli/_subprocess_compat.py — shared helpers (resolve_node_command,
windows_detach_flags, windows_hide_flags, windows_detach_popen_kwargs).
All no-ops on non-Windows.
## CRITICAL fixes (would crash or silently break on Windows)
- tui_gateway/entry.py: SIGPIPE/SIGHUP referenced at module top level would
AttributeError on import on Windows, breaking `hermes --tui` entirely (it
spawns this module as a subprocess). Guard each signal.signal() call with
hasattr() and add SIGBREAK as Windows' SIGHUP equivalent.
- hermes_cli/kanban_db.py: os.waitpid(-1, os.WNOHANG) in dispatcher tick was
unguarded. os.WNOHANG doesn't exist on Windows. Gate the whole reap loop
behind `os.name != "nt"` — Windows has no zombies anyway.
- tools/code_execution_tool.py: AF_UNIX socket for execute_code RPC fails on
most Windows builds. Fall back to loopback TCP (AF_INET on 127.0.0.1:0
ephemeral port) when _IS_WINDOWS. HERMES_RPC_SOCKET env var now accepts
either a filesystem path (POSIX) or `tcp://127.0.0.1:<port>` (Windows).
Generated sandbox client parses both.
- cron/scheduler.py: `argv = ["/bin/bash", str(path)]` hardcoded. Use
shutil.which("bash") so Windows (Git Bash via MinGit) works, with a
readable error when bash is genuinely absent.
- 6 bare npm/npx spawn sites: tools_config.py x2, doctor.py, whatsapp.py
(npm install + node version probe), browser_tool.py x2. On Windows npm
is npm.cmd / npx is npx.cmd (batch shims); subprocess.Popen(["npm", ...])
fails with WinError 193. shutil.which(...) returns the absolute .cmd
path which CreateProcessW accepts because the extension routes through
cmd.exe /c. POSIX behaviour unchanged (shutil.which still returns the
same path subprocess would resolve itself).
## HIGH fixes (silent misbehaviour on Windows)
- tools/environments/local.py get_temp_dir: hardcoded /tmp returned on
Windows meant `_cwd_file = "/tmp/hermes-cwd-*.txt"`, which bash wrote
via MSYS2's virtual /tmp but native Python couldn't open. Result: cwd
tracking silently broken — `cd` in terminal tool did nothing. Windows
branch now returns `%HERMES_HOME%/cache/terminal` with forward slashes
(works in both bash and Python, guaranteed no spaces).
- tools/environments/local.py _make_run_env PATH injection: `/usr/bin not
in split(":")` heuristic mangles Windows PATH (";" separator). Gate
the injection behind `not _IS_WINDOWS`.
- hermes_cli/gateway.py launch_detached_profile_gateway_restart: outer
Popen + watcher-script Popen both used start_new_session=True, which
Windows silently ignores. Watcher stayed attached to CLI's console,
died when user closed terminal after `hermes update`, left gateway
stale. Now branches through windows_detach_popen_kwargs() helper
(CREATE_NEW_PROCESS_GROUP | DETACHED_PROCESS | CREATE_NO_WINDOW on
Windows, start_new_session=True on POSIX — identical to main).
## MEDIUM fixes
- gateway/run.py /restart and /update handlers: hardcoded bash/setsid
chain crashes on Windows when user triggers /update in-gateway. Now
has sys.platform=="win32" branch using sys.executable + a tiny
Python watcher with proper detach flags. POSIX path is unchanged.
- cli.py _git_repo_root: Git on Windows sometimes returns /c/Users/...
style paths that break subprocess.Popen(cwd=...) and Path().resolve().
Added _normalize_git_bash_path() helper that translates /c/Users,
/cygdrive/c, /mnt/c variants to native C:\Users form. POSIX no-op.
_git_repo_root() now routes every result through it.
- cli.py worktree .worktreeinclude: os.symlink on directories failed
hard on Windows (requires admin or Developer Mode). Falls back to
shutil.copytree with a warning log.
## Tests
- 29 new tests in tests/tools/test_windows_native_support.py covering:
subprocess_compat helpers, TUI entry signal guards, kanban waitpid
guard, code_execution TCP fallback source-level invariants, cron bash
resolution, npm/npx bare-spawn lint per-file, local env Windows temp
dir, PATH injection gating, git bash path normalization, symlink
fallback, gateway detached watcher flags.
- One existing test assertion adjusted in test_browser_homebrew_paths:
it compared captured Popen argv to the BARE `"npx"` literal; after the
shutil.which() change argv[0] is the absolute path. New assertion
checks the shape (two items, second is `agent-browser`) rather than
the exact first-item string. Behaviour unchanged; test was too strict.
All 56 tests pass on Linux (30 from previous commits + 26 new).
267 tests from the affected files/dirs (browser, code_exec, local_env,
process_registry, kanban_db, windows_compat) all pass — zero regressions.
tests/hermes_cli/ (3909 pass) and tests/gateway/ (5021 pass) unchanged;
all pre-existing test failures confirmed unrelated via `git stash` re-run.
## What's still deferred (LOW priority)
- Visible cmd-window flashes on short-lived console apps (~14 sites) —
cosmetic, needs a follow-up pass once we have user reports.
- agent/file_safety.py POSIX-only security deny patterns — separate
hardening task.
- tools/process_registry.py returning "/tmp" as fallback — theoretical;
reachable only when all env-var candidates fail.
Pre-existing Windows bug surfaced while reviewing the portable-MinGit
install: prompt_toolkit's Buffer.open_in_editor() falls back to POSIX
absolute paths (/usr/bin/nano, /usr/bin/vi, /usr/bin/emacs) that don't
exist on native Windows. When neither $EDITOR nor $VISUAL is set,
Ctrl+X Ctrl+E ("open prompt in editor") and /edit both silently do
nothing on Windows — the user hits the key, nothing happens, no error.
This wasn't caused by MinGit (full Git for Windows doesn't fix it either,
because the Windows Python subprocess call resolves `/usr/bin/nano` as
`C:\usr\bin\nano`, which doesn't exist even with nano installed).
Fixes:
- hermes_cli/stdio.py::configure_windows_stdio now sets EDITOR=notepad
on Windows if neither EDITOR nor VISUAL is set. notepad.exe is in
every Windows install, works as a blocking editor (subprocess.call
waits for the window to close), and writes back to the file.
- hermes_cli/config.py (hermes config edit): reorder fallback list so
Windows tries notepad first — previously nano led the list, which
required Git Bash / WSL to be in PATH.
- Users who want VSCode / Neovim / Notepad++ can still override via
$env:EDITOR — that's checked before our default kicks in. Docstring
spells out the common overrides.
The Ink TUI (`hermes --tui`) already handled Windows correctly via
ui-tui/src/lib/editor.ts falling back to notepad.exe on win32 — this
commit brings the classic prompt_toolkit CLI into parity.
3 new tests in test_windows_native_support.py verify:
- EDITOR=notepad gets set when unset on Windows
- Explicit $EDITOR is respected
- $VISUAL is respected (not overwritten by our default)
Native Windows (with Git for Windows installed) can now run the Hermes CLI
and gateway end-to-end without crashing. install.ps1 already existed and
the Git Bash terminal backend was already wired up — this PR fills the
remaining gaps discovered by auditing every Windows-unsafe primitive
(`signal.SIGKILL`, `os.kill(pid, 0)` probes, bare `fcntl`/`termios`
imports) and by comparing hermes against how Claude Code, OpenCode, Codex,
and Cline handle native Windows.
## What changed
### UTF-8 stdio (new module)
- `hermes_cli/stdio.py` — single `configure_windows_stdio()` entry point.
Flips the console code page to CP_UTF8 (65001), reconfigures
`sys.stdout`/`stderr`/`stdin` to UTF-8, sets `PYTHONIOENCODING` + `PYTHONUTF8`
for subprocesses. No-op on non-Windows. Opt out via `HERMES_DISABLE_WINDOWS_UTF8=1`.
- Called early in `cli.py::main`, `hermes_cli/main.py::main`, and
`gateway/run.py::main` so Unicode banners (box-drawing, geometric
symbols, non-Latin chat text) don't `UnicodeEncodeError` on cp1252
consoles.
### Crash sites fixed
- `hermes_cli/main.py:7970` (hermes update → stuck gateway sweep): raw
`os.kill(pid, _signal.SIGKILL)` → `gateway.status.terminate_pid(pid, force=True)`
which routes through `taskkill /T /F` on Windows.
- `hermes_cli/profiles.py::_stop_gateway_process`: same fix — also
converted SIGTERM path to `terminate_pid()` and widened OSError catch
on the intermediate `os.kill(pid, 0)` probe.
- `hermes_cli/kanban_db.py:2914, 3041`: raw `signal.SIGKILL` →
`getattr(signal, "SIGKILL", signal.SIGTERM)` fallback (matches the
pattern already used in `gateway/status.py`).
### OSError widening on `os.kill(pid, 0)` probes
Windows raises `OSError` (WinError 87) for a gone PID instead of
`ProcessLookupError`. Widened the catch at:
- `gateway/run.py:15101` (`--replace` wait-for-exit loop — without this,
the loop busy-spins the full 10s every Windows gateway start)
- `hermes_cli/gateway.py:228, 460, 940`
- `hermes_cli/profiles.py:777`
- `tools/process_registry.py::_is_host_pid_alive`
- `tools/browser_tool.py:1170, 1206`
### Dashboard PTY graceful degradation
`hermes_cli/pty_bridge.py` depends on `fcntl`/`termios`/`ptyprocess`,
none of which exist on native Windows. Previously a Windows dashboard
would crash on `import hermes_cli.web_server` because of a top-level
import. Now:
- `hermes_cli/web_server.py` wraps the pty_bridge import in
`try/except ImportError` and sets `_PTY_BRIDGE_AVAILABLE=False`.
- The `/api/pty` WebSocket handler returns a friendly "use WSL2 for
this tab" message instead of exploding.
- Every other dashboard feature (sessions, jobs, metrics, config
editor) runs natively on Windows.
### Dependency
- `pyproject.toml`: add `tzdata>=2023.3; sys_platform == 'win32'` so
Python's `zoneinfo` works on Windows (which has no IANA tzdata
shipped with the OS). Credits @sprmn24 (PR #13182).
### Docs
- README.md: removed "Native Windows is not supported"; added
PowerShell one-liner and Git-for-Windows prerequisite note.
- `website/docs/getting-started/installation.md`: new Windows section
with capability matrix (everything native except the dashboard
`/chat` PTY tab, which is WSL2-only).
- `website/docs/user-guide/windows-wsl-quickstart.md`: reframed as
"WSL2 as an alternative to native" rather than "the only way".
- `website/docs/developer-guide/contributing.md`: updated
cross-platform guidance with the `signal.SIGKILL` / `OSError`
rules we enforce now.
- `website/docs/user-guide/features/web-dashboard.md`: acknowledged
native Windows works for everything except the embedded PTY pane.
## Why this shape
Pulled from a survey of how other agent codebases handle native
Windows (Claude Code, OpenCode, Codex, Cline):
- All four treat Git Bash as the canonical shell on Windows, same as
hermes already does in `tools/environments/local.py::_find_bash()`.
- None of them force `SetConsoleOutputCP` — but they don't have to,
Node/Rust write UTF-16 to the Win32 console API. Python does not get
that for free, so we flip CP_UTF8 via ctypes.
- None of them ship PowerShell-as-primary-shell (Claude Code exposes
PS as a secondary tool; scope creep for this PR).
- All of them use `taskkill /T /F` for force-kill on Windows, which
is exactly what `gateway.status.terminate_pid(force=True)` does.
## Non-goals (deliberate scope limits)
- No PowerShell-as-a-second-shell tool — worth designing separately.
- No terminal routing rewrite (#12317, #15461, #19800 cluster) — that's
the hardest design call and needs a separate doc.
- No wholesale `open()` → `open(..., encoding="utf-8")` sweep (Tianworld
cluster) — will do as follow-up if users hit actual breakage; most
modern code already specifies it.
## Validation
- 28 new tests in `tests/tools/test_windows_native_support.py` — all
platform-mocked, pass on Linux CI. Cover:
- `configure_windows_stdio` idempotency, opt-out, env-preservation
- `terminate_pid` taskkill routing, failure → OSError, FileNotFoundError fallback
- `getattr(signal, "SIGKILL", …)` fallback shape
- `_is_host_pid_alive` OSError widening (Windows-gone-PID behavior)
- Source-level checks that all entry points call `configure_windows_stdio`
- pty_bridge import-guard present in `web_server.py`
- README no longer says "not supported"
- 12 pre-existing tests in `tests/tools/test_windows_compat.py` still pass.
- `tests/hermes_cli/` ran fully (3909 passed, 9 failures — all confirmed
pre-existing on main by stash-test).
- `tests/gateway/` ran fully (5021 passed, 1 pre-existing failure).
- `tests/tools/test_process_registry.py` + `test_browser_*` pass.
- Manual smoke: `import hermes_cli.stdio; import gateway.run;
import hermes_cli.web_server` — all clean, `_PTY_BRIDGE_AVAILABLE=True`
on Linux (as expected).
## Files
- New: `hermes_cli/stdio.py`, `tests/tools/test_windows_native_support.py`
- Modified: `cli.py`, `gateway/run.py`, `hermes_cli/main.py`,
`hermes_cli/profiles.py`, `hermes_cli/gateway.py`,
`hermes_cli/kanban_db.py`, `hermes_cli/pty_bridge.py`,
`hermes_cli/web_server.py`, `tools/browser_tool.py`,
`tools/process_registry.py`, `pyproject.toml`, `README.md`, and 4
docs pages.
Credits to everyone whose prior PR work informed these fixes — see
the co-author trailers. All of the PRs listed in
`~/.hermes/plans/windows-support-prs.md` fixing `os.kill` / `signal.SIGKILL`
/ UTF-8 stdio / tzdata / README patterns found the same issues; this PR
consolidates them.
Co-authored-by: Philip D'Souza <9472774+PhilipAD@users.noreply.github.com>
Co-authored-by: Arecanon <42595053+ArecaNon@users.noreply.github.com>
Co-authored-by: XiaoXiao0221 <263113677+XiaoXiao0221@users.noreply.github.com>
Co-authored-by: Lars Hagen <1360677+lars-hagen@users.noreply.github.com>
Co-authored-by: Luan Dias <65574834+luandiasrj@users.noreply.github.com>
Co-authored-by: Ruzzgar <ruzzgarcn@gmail.com>
Co-authored-by: sprmn24 <oncuevtv@gmail.com>
Co-authored-by: adybag14-cyber <252811164+adybag14-cyber@users.noreply.github.com>
Co-authored-by: Prasanna28Devadiga <54196612+Prasanna28Devadiga@users.noreply.github.com>
