Resolves the PR's conflict with main (2252 commits). Two conflicts, both
"each side added an independent block in the same place" — kept both:
- gateway/run.py — the housekeeping loop. This branch adds the Skill Sync
pulls inside the CURATOR_EVERY branch (12-space indent); main adds a
stale-session auto-archive as a sibling `if` at loop level (8-space).
Different scopes, so the naive union would have mis-nested the archive
block into the curator branch; kept each at its own indent level.
- tools/skill_manager_tool.py — the _edit_skill result dict. This branch
appends the org auto-propose note; main appends
_add_description_prompt_preview(). Independent, order-insensitive.
No behaviour dropped from either side.
Verified: 3552 passed / 0 failed across 63 suites (scope regenerated to
include main's new maybe_auto_archive / _add_description_prompt_preview
consumers) via scripts/run_tests.sh. `hermes sync` and `hermes sync status`
still work against a live token, resolving the production plane default.
The Pyright Optional-parameter warnings in skill_manager_tool.py are
pre-existing on main (`content: str = None` etc.), not introduced here.
Encapsulates the feature behind one command for launch, and adopts the
official product name.
One command:
- `propose` moves from `hermes skills propose` to `hermes sync propose`, so
the whole feature is one command to learn and one to document. Its handler
moves from cmd_skills to cmd_sync accordingly.
- The `hermes sync` parser now documents both halves plainly: personal sync
across your devices, and sharing with your organisation. Added an examples
epilog; rewrote the verb help in user language ("Include a skill in your
sync" rather than "Opt a skill into sync").
- Every user-facing string that pointed at `hermes skills propose` now points
at `hermes sync propose` (8 sites, including the agent-visible guidance
returned by skill_manage and the org provenance header).
This also clears the way for #39343, which adds its own top-level `sync` for
git-repo profile backup — that feature nests under `skills`, this one owns
`sync`.
Naming:
- HSP / "Hermes Sync Protocol" is gone from prose, docstrings, and comments.
The feature is "Skill Sync".
- Public identifiers renamed: HSPClient -> SyncClient, HSPError -> SyncError,
HSPConflict -> SyncConflict, hsp_address -> wire_address, HSP_VERSION ->
WIRE_VERSION.
- The WIRE names are deliberately NOT renamed: the `hsp_version` capability
field and the `x-hsp-object-type` response header are set by the deployed
gateway-gateway sync plane (verified in src/sync/syncRouter.ts), so
renaming them client-side would break sync against a live server. A comment
at the version constant records why they differ from the product name.
- The version-mismatch error is now actionable ("this server speaks sync
version X, but this Hermes speaks Y — update Hermes to sync with it")
instead of leaking the protocol acronym.
Also fixes a wiring gap found on the way: the gateway housekeeping tick
pulled personal skills but never org skills — the same defect already fixed
for the CLI. Org pull now runs there too, gated on real org membership.
Tests: the jargon guard now also fails on a bare "HSP". The two tests that
asserted the old cross-command structure are replaced by three asserting the
new one (propose IS under sync, propose is NOT under skills, sync usage
lists it). 2294 passed / 0 failed across all 51 suites that import the
changed modules, via scripts/run_tests.sh.
Verified by running the real CLI: `hermes sync --help` lists all eight verbs,
`hermes skills --help` no longer mentions propose, `hermes sync propose
--help` parses, and `hermes sync status` still reports live org state.
The read-only org mirror broke the learning loop precisely where it matters
most. The system prompt tells every agent to patch a skill the moment it
finds a gap, and shared skills are the ones the most people use — but every
write to _org/ was refused, and the curator was excluded from them outright.
So org skills froze while personal skills kept improving, and the offered
alternative ("fork it into a personal skill, then propose the fork") is not
something an agent does mid-task. The refusal WAS the feature; improvements
were simply lost, and manual forks would have fragmented the shared set.
Edit in place:
- skill_manage patch/edit/write_file now work on org skills. Only delete is
still refused (the mirror is a view of org HEAD — a local delete returns on
the next pull; removing a shared skill is an admin action).
- Org skills are curation-eligible again, so the curator can improve the
highest-leverage skills in the system instead of skipping them.
- The load-time provenance header now says edits are allowed and kept,
instead of instructing the agent not to edit.
Local edits are never overwritten:
- pull_org_skills previously rmtree'd each skill dir and re-materialized it,
silently destroying local work on the next session start. It now records a
content fingerprint per skill (.org-baseline.json) when it writes one, and
SKIPS any skill whose local content diverges from that baseline.
- When upstream ALSO changed such a skill, it is reported in the pull
result's "conflicted" list and left untouched for the user to resolve
deliberately (propose the local version, or delete it and re-pull to take
theirs). A missing baseline is treated as unmodified so pre-existing
mirrors do not raise phantom conflicts.
- Fingerprints are content-based (path + bytes, sorted), so a touch/mtime
change is not mistaken for an edit.
Sharing back:
- Default: the edit stays local and the tool result tells the user to run
"hermes skills propose <skill>".
- Opt-in sync.org_auto_propose / HERMES_SYNC_ORG_AUTO_PROPOSE submits each
edit immediately. Defaults OFF — pushing every agent edit to a whole
organisation is not a safe default. A failed submission never fails the
edit; the change is saved and can be proposed later.
- "hermes sync status" lists org skills with unshared local edits;
"hermes sync pull" reports conflicts it declined to overwrite.
Tests: 25 in the namespace suite (was 15). The two that asserted the old
read-only behaviour now assert the opposite. New coverage for edit-applied,
share-back guidance, delete-still-refused, curation-allowed, edit detection,
missing-baseline tolerance, mtime-insensitivity, and the auto-propose
default. 428 passed / 0 failed via scripts/run_tests.sh.
Verified through the REAL pull path against a mock plane: pull v1 -> edit in
place -> upstream ships v2 -> pull leaves the local edit intact, reports the
conflict, and surfaces it in status.
The background write guard decided ownership from `isinstance(usage_rec, dict)`,
so a local skill with NO usage record passed. That successful write called
bump_patch(), which created a `created_by: null` record — and the identical
write was refused from then on. "Allowed exactly once, then never" is a race
with our own bookkeeping, not a policy. Reproduced on main: patch #1 succeeds,
patch #2 with the same arguments is refused.
Option B from the issue. Option A (split `session_review` from
`scheduled_curator` and let the session fork patch user-owned skills it
consulted) would widen autonomous write permission onto skills the user owns
with no user present to consent — wrong direction for a no-user-present actor.
- skill_manager_tool: missing and explicit-null records now resolve
IDENTICALLY, both fail closed. The refusal names the reason and points at
`hermes curator adopt <name>`.
- background_review: both review prompts told the reviewer to patch any skill
consulted in the session and claimed pinned skills could be improved, while
enforcement refused both. Prompts now list pinned, external, and user-owned
skills as protected, and tell the reviewer to RECOMMEND adoption instead of
attempting a write that will be refused.
- skill_usage: document that `created_by` is a curator-management policy flag,
not a provenance claim, and add `is_curator_managed()` so call sites read as
the question they ask. Field name retained — it is on disk in every
`.usage.json` and renaming would strand those records.
- curator CLI: `hermes curator list-unmanaged` itemizes unmanaged skills with
the reason each is unmanaged (completes the #67139 spec).
Foreground writes are untouched: a user-directed edit to a user-owned skill
still works, including on pinned skills.
Sibling tests: 9 failures in test_skill_manager_tool.py were fixtures that
created record-less skills to exercise OTHER guards (consolidation-delete,
read-before-write) and relied on ownership falling through. Fixed at the
fixture, since the real curator only ever operates on managed sediment. One
test asserted the old "manually authored" wording; rewritten to assert the
behavior contract instead of the string.
Validation: 274 targeted tests + all 7 background-review files (60 tests) pass.
E2E on a temp HERMES_HOME (30 checks) covers the flip, foreground writes,
adoption unblocking, pin semantics, prompt/enforcement parity, and the new verb.
Each new test sabotage-verified: revert the fix, confirm it goes red.
Fixes#67140
`hermes curator status` reported only the skills it manages, staying silent
about curation-eligible skills it can never touch. On a 237-skill library that
meant 112 skills were invisible to every automatic transition with no signal
anywhere — the curator looked broken when it was working as designed.
A skill becomes curator-managed only when `created_by: agent` lands on its
usage record, and only the background review fork writes that marker. Two
populations therefore never qualify: records written before the marker existed
(no key at all, authorship unknowable) and every foreground
`skill_manage(create)` (unset by design — those skills belong to the user).
- skill_usage: `list_unmanaged_skill_names()` / `unmanaged_report()` enumerate
the blind spot, tagging each row with `has_provenance_key` so the two causes
are distinguishable. `adopt_skill()` writes the marker on user declaration
and refuses bundled, hub-installed, external, and protected built-ins.
Adoption never resets the inactivity clock.
- curator CLI: status prints an `unmanaged (no provenance marker)` block on
BOTH the managed and no-managed-skills paths; new `adopt` verb takes names or
`--all-unmanaged`, with `--dry-run` and a confirmation prompt on bulk.
- skills_sync: `_backfill_optional_provenance()` matched candidates by
repo-derived path only, so a skill installed at `mlops/chroma` that upstream
later moved to `mlops/vector-databases/chroma` was skipped forever and
`hermes skills repair-optional` could not fix it. Falls back to an
unambiguous name match, still gated on identical content, and records the
ACTUAL install path.
Provenance stays a declaration, never an inference: a high patch count proves
the agent MAINTAINS a skill, not that it authored one, since Hermes edits
user-written skills on the user's behalf routinely. An "looks agent-made"
heuristic would eventually archive hand-written work.
Validation: 347 targeted tests pass. Each new test verified via sabotage run
(revert the fix, confirm the test goes red) — one initially passed for the
wrong reason because the fixture pinned `prune_builtins` off, masking the guard
under test; fixed to force the shipped default on.
_read_hub_installed_names() reads ~/.hermes/skills/.hub/lock.json with a
strict utf-8 decode. Hub skill descriptions can carry Windows-1252
typographic bytes (em-dash 0x97, smart quotes, bullets) as single high
bytes; read_text(encoding="utf-8") then raises UnicodeDecodeError, which
is a ValueError sibling not caught by the function's
except (OSError, json.JSONDecodeError). It escapes and 500s the whole
/api/skills endpoint, blanking the desktop Skills panel.
Decode with errors="replace" so the offending byte degrades to U+FFFD
and the structurally valid JSON — and every other skill — stays readable.
Fixes#68053
Implements the agreed design (2026-07-23): org skills are FIRST-CLASS (bare
names) with three hard companions.
1. TOKEN-GATED RESOLUTION: _org/<org_id>/ mirrors resolve ONLY while marked
active. pull_org_skills (which runs only after the token's org_id+org_role
verified) writes _org/.active_org; discovery (iter_skill_index_files,
_find_skill_dir, snapshot manifest) prunes every other mirror. Leave the
org (verified personal token in maybe_pull_org_skills) => marker cleared
=> org skills stop resolving; offline => marker untouched (grace).
Snapshot manifest includes the marker so org switches invalidate the
prompt snapshot; _SKILLS_SNAPSHOT_VERSION bumped to 2.
2. FAIL-LOUD COLLISIONS: listing pass unified across snapshot/scan paths;
a personal/org name clash flags BOTH entries '[name collision — load via
category path]' — neither side silently wins (personal-wins = silent
divergence from the org set; org-wins = shadowed personal work).
skill_view's existing multi-candidate refusal already rejects the
ambiguous bare name.
3. PROVENANCE: org entries list under an org:<org_id> category with
'[org-shared: by <author>]' tags; skill_view prepends a load-time header
(org, author, as-of + read-only/fork-and-propose guidance) INTO the
content the model consumes, plus an org_provenance result field. Author
comes from the pull-time .org-provenance.json sidecar (HEAD commit author
— token-verified at push by the plane's author_mismatch guard, gg #166).
4. READ-ONLY MIRROR: skill_manage patch/edit/delete/write_file refuse org-
mirror targets with fork-and-propose guidance; org skills are curation-
exempt (is_curation_eligible False — the org HEAD owns them).
Tests: 11 new (tests/agent/test_org_skill_namespace.py) covering gating,
stale-mirror pruning, org-switch flip, snapshot provenance, listing labels,
both-sides collision flags, read-only guard, curation exemption; 448 green
across skills/prompt/sync suites. Live E2E (real modules, temp HERMES_HOME,
mock plane): merge -> pull -> marker+sidecar -> labeled listing -> exactly-2
collision flags -> load-time header -> edit refused -> marker cleared =>
org skills vanish, personal survive.
restore_skill() falls back to p.name.startswith(f"{skill_name}-") when no
archive directory matches the requested name exactly. That fallback is meant
to catch the timestamped duplicate archive_skill() writes on a name collision
(<skill>-YYYYMMDDHHMMSS), but the bare prefix also matches any unrelated
archived skill named <name>-something. So restoring "git" can pull an archived
"git-helpers" out of .archive/, rename it to "git", and report success: the
requested skill is not restored and the sibling is gone from the archive.
Constrain the fallback to the exact suffix archive_skill() produces, a 14 digit
timestamp. The exact-name match and the recursive nested-archive walk are
unchanged, so nested and timestamped restores still work; unrelated siblings no
longer match.
Fixes#47647
The curator's idle-archival path (apply_automatic_transitions under
prune_builtins) could archive the bundled `plan` skill, killing the
/plan slash command silently — typing /plan then returned 'Unknown
command' with no signal that a skill had vanished. The archived skill's
hash stays in .bundled_manifest, so 'hermes update' wouldn't re-seed it.
Add PROTECTED_BUILTIN_SKILLS ({plan}) enforced at the master gate
is_curation_eligible() (covers archive_skill + the transition walk) and
in the candidate enumerator (so the LLM consolidation pass never sees
them). Immune to prune_builtins, pin state, and LLM judgment.
Two related changes to the skill curator:
1. Built-in pruning. New curator.prune_builtins config (default on) lets the
curator archive bundled built-in skills after the inactivity period, not
just agent-created ones. A .curator_suppressed list tells the update-time
re-seeder (tools/skills_sync) to leave pruned built-ins archived, so the
prune is durable across `hermes update`. Built-ins are seeded with a
baseline record on first sight, so the inactivity clock starts at upgrade
time -- no mass-prune on the first run. Hub-installed skills are never
pruned regardless of the flag. Restoring a built-in clears its suppression.
2. Usage tracking for all skills. Telemetry (view/use/patch) was wrongly gated
behind curation-eligibility, so built-ins were tracked only when prunable
and hub skills never. Telemetry is observability and is now decoupled from
curation: every skill accrues usage counts regardless of provenance, while
lifecycle mutators (set_state/set_pinned/mark_agent_created) stay
curation-gated. New usage_report() + provenance() expose all skills with an
agent/bundled/hub tag.
Remove unused imports (F401) and duplicate/shadowed import
redefinitions (F811) across the codebase using ruff's safe
autofixes. No behavioral changes -- imports only.
- ~1400 safe autofixes applied across 644 files (net -1072 lines)
- __init__.py re-exports preserved (excluded from F401 removal so
public re-export surfaces stay intact)
- Re-exports that are imported or monkeypatched by tests but look
unused in their defining module are kept with explicit # noqa:
F401 (gateway/run.py load_dotenv; run_agent re-exports from
agent.message_sanitization, agent.context_compressor,
agent.retry_utils, agent.prompt_builder, agent.process_bootstrap,
agent.codex_responses_adapter)
- Unsafe F841 (unused-variable) fixes deliberately skipped -- those
can change behavior when the RHS has side effects
- ruff lints remain disabled in pyproject.toml (only PLW1514 is
selected); this is a one-time cleanup, not a config change
Verification:
- python -m compileall: clean
- pytest --collect-only: all 27161 tests collect (zero import errors)
- core entry points import clean (run_agent, model_tools, cli,
toolsets, hermes_state, batch_runner, gateway)
- static scan: every name any test imports directly from an edited
module still resolves
* fix(skills): skip dependency dirs in skill scan
* fix(skills): widen sibling rglob scanners to use shared exclusion set
Follow-up to PR #29968. The contributor's PR widened EXCLUDED_SKILL_DIRS
in the canonical walker (iter_skill_index_files), which fixes the
user-visible discovery path. This commit sweeps the ~12 other
rglob('SKILL.md') sites that did their own ad-hoc filtering — most only
checked .git/.hub, some had no filter at all — so dependency dirs
(.venv, node_modules, site-packages, etc.) cannot leak ghost skills
through the secondary paths.
Adds agent.skill_utils.is_excluded_skill_path(path) helper. Migrates
all 13 sites to use it. Removes 3 hardcoded duplicate filter sets.
Sites touched:
agent/curator_backup.py - skill backup file count
gateway/run.py - disabled-skill response (2 sites)
hermes_cli/dump.py - skill count in env dump
hermes_cli/profile_describer.py- profile description (2 sites)
hermes_cli/profile_distribution.py - profile install count
hermes_cli/profiles.py - profile skill count
hermes_cli/skills_hub.py - category detection
tools/skill_manager_tool.py - skill name lookup (already used set, now uses helper)
tools/skill_usage.py - usage tracking + skill dir lookup (2 sites)
tools/skills_hub.py - optional skills find + scan (2 sites)
tools/skills_sync.py - bundled skills sync
E2E verified with the exact reported shape
(bring/scripts/.venv/.../typer/.agents/skills/typer/SKILL.md): no
sibling site picks up the ghost skill, all five legit-skill counts
still return 1.
* chore(infographic): retro-pop-grid bento for PR #30042 skill-scanner sweep
---------
Co-authored-by: helix4u <4317663+helix4u@users.noreply.github.com>
1. trajectory_compressor.py: yaml.safe_load() returns None on empty
files, crashing with TypeError on `if 'tokenizer' in data`. Fix by
adding `or {}` fallback. (HIGH — blocks startup with empty config)
2. 6 files with fcntl.flock(LOCK_UN) in finally blocks without
try/except: cron/scheduler.py, hermes_cli/auth.py,
agent/shell_hooks.py, tools/skill_usage.py,
tools/environments/file_sync.py, tools/memory_tool.py. If unlock
raises OSError, fd.close() is skipped and the lock is held forever.
The msvcrt branches already had try/except; the fcntl branches did
not. Fix by wrapping in try/except (OSError, IOError): pass.
3. agent/copilot_acp_client.py line 639: TOCTOU race — path.exists()
followed by path.read_text() with no try/except. If file is deleted
between the check and the read, FileNotFoundError propagates. Fix
by using try/except FileNotFoundError.
4. gateway/sticker_cache.py: non-atomic write via Path.write_text()
can leave truncated JSON on crash, causing JSONDecodeError on next
load. Fix by writing to tempfile + fsync + os.replace (atomic).
## 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.
Lists the skills sitting in ~/.hermes/skills/.archive/ so users have
something to pass to `hermes curator restore`. `curator status` already
shows counts; this fills the name-discovery gap.
Archive layout is flat (`archive_skill` writes to `.archive/<skill>/`),
so the directory name IS the skill name — no frontmatter parsing
needed. Timestamped collision directories (`<skill>-<ts>`) are listed
literally; user can still pass them to `restore`.
Reshape of @EvilDrag0n's #20651, simplified: drop the frontmatter
rglob + preamble/trailer output + duplicate subcommand registration.
Co-authored-by: EvilDrag0n <lxl694522264@gmail.com>
Treat skill views and edits as activity when curator reports and applies lifecycle transitions, so recently loaded or patched skills are not displayed or transitioned as never used.\n\nAdds regression tests for activity derivation, automatic transitions, and CLI status output.
restore_skill() in tools/skill_usage.py used archive_root.iterdir(), which
only walked the top level of .archive/. Skills archived under nested layouts
(e.g. .archive/openclaw-imports/<skill>/ from older archive paths or
external imports) were invisible to both the exact-match and prefix-match
candidate scans, surfacing as a misleading "skill '<name>' not found in
archive" error even though the directory existed on disk.
Switch both candidate scans to archive_root.rglob('*') so the lookup
descends into category subdirectories.
Fixes#17942
Previous invariants only gated the primary entry points
(apply_automatic_transitions, archive_skill, CLI pin). Several paths
were unprotected:
- bump_view / bump_use / bump_patch / set_state / set_pinned wrote
usage records unconditionally, which is confusing noise in
.usage.json even though the review list filtered them out
- restore_skill did not check whether a bundled skill now shadows
the archived name
- CLI unpin was asymmetric with CLI pin — it had no gate
Fixes:
- _mutate() (the shared counter / state writer) now drops silently
when the skill is not agent-created. .usage.json never gains a
record for a bundled or hub-installed skill.
- restore_skill() refuses to restore under a name that is now
bundled or hub-installed (would shadow upstream).
- CLI unpin gate matches CLI pin.
New tests:
- 5 provenance-guard tests on skill_usage (one per mutator)
- 1 end-to-end test that hammers every mutator at a bundled skill
and a hub skill, asserts both are untouched on disk, and asserts
the sidecar stays clean
- 2 CLI tests proving pin/unpin refuse bundled skills symmetrically
64/64 tests passing (29 skill_usage + 27 curator + 8 new guards).
Adds the Curator — an auxiliary-model background task that periodically
reviews AGENT-CREATED skills and keeps the collection tidy: tracks usage,
transitions unused skills through active → stale → archived, and spawns
a forked AIAgent to consolidate overlaps and patch drift.
Default: enabled, inactivity-triggered (no cron daemon). Runs on CLI
startup and gateway boot when the last run is older than interval_hours
(default 24) AND the agent has been idle for min_idle_hours (default 2).
Invariants (all load-bearing):
- Never touches bundled or hub-installed skills (.bundled_manifest +
.hub/lock.json double-filter)
- Never auto-deletes — archive only. Archives are recoverable
via `hermes curator restore <skill>`
- Pinned skills bypass all auto-transitions
- Uses the aux client; never touches the main session's prompt cache
New files:
- tools/skill_usage.py — sidecar .usage.json telemetry, atomic writes,
provenance filter
- agent/curator.py — orchestrator: config, idle gating, state-machine
transitions (pure, no LLM), forked-agent review prompt
- hermes_cli/curator.py — `hermes curator {status,run,pause,resume,
pin,unpin,restore}` subcommand
- tests/tools/test_skill_usage.py — 29 tests
- tests/agent/test_curator.py — 25 tests
Modified files (surgical patches):
- tools/skills_tool.py — bump view_count on successful skill_view
- tools/skill_manager_tool.py — bump patch_count on skill_manage
patch/edit/write_file/remove_file; forget record on delete
- hermes_cli/config.py — add curator: section to DEFAULT_CONFIG
- hermes_cli/commands.py — add /curator CommandDef with subcommands
- hermes_cli/main.py — register `hermes curator` subparser via
register_cli() from hermes_cli.curator
- cli.py — /curator slash-command dispatch + startup hook
- gateway/run.py — gateway-boot hook (mirrors CLI)
Validation:
- 54 new tests across skill_usage + curator, all passing in 3s
- 346 tests across all touched files' neighbors green
- 2783 tests across hermes_cli/ + gateway/test_run_progress_topics.py green
- CLI smoke: `hermes curator status/pause/resume` work end-to-end
Companion to PR #16026 (class-first skill review prompt) — together
they form a loop: the review prompt stops near-duplicate skill creation
at the source, and the curator prunes/consolidates what still accumulates.
Refs #7816.
