Second, deeper pass over tools/gateway/hermes_cli plus first pass over
the trees wave 1 missed (acp, acp_adapter, skills, computer_use, docker,
dashboard, conformance, monitoring, secret_sources, hermes_state,
providers). Same rubric as wave 1 (AGENTS.md test policy); security,
alternation/caching invariants, issue-number regressions, and E2E kept.
Real test-quality fixes found and rooted out along the way:
- tests/tools/test_command_guards.py made real auxiliary-LLM HTTPS calls
(DEFAULT_CONFIG smart-approval leaked in) — pinned approval
mode=manual via autouse fixture: 17.4s → 0.4s.
- test_model_switch_custom_providers.py / test_user_providers_model_switch.py
silently probed live provider catalogs (~2s/test) — stubbed
cached_provider_model_ids/provider_model_ids/fetch_api_models.
- test_telegram_noise_filter.py: 15-platform copy-paste matrix over
shared gateway.run logic → 3 representative platforms (55s → 3.9s).
- test_gateway_shutdown.py: stop()'s 5s interrupt-deadline loop spun on
MagicMock agents — interrupt.side_effect now clears _running_agents
(22s → 1.0s).
- test_gateway_inactivity_timeout.py poll-harness timings shrunk 3-5x
(24s → 1.1s); test_mcp_stability.py backoff/SIGTERM-grace sleeps
patched (15.4s → 2.5s); test_async_delegation.py negative-drain wait
5s → 0.5s.
- test_telegram_init_deadline.py: loop-block margin restored to 1.0s
with rationale comment — the watchdog-dump assertion needs the loop
blocked well past deadline+grace under parallel load (flaked once in
the 40-worker verification run at a 0.2s margin).
Verification: full hermetic suite via scripts/run_tests.sh —
2,438 files, 21,718 tests passed, 0 failed, 293.9s wall.
Suite totals vs original baseline: 46,820 → 19,757 test functions
(−57.8%), wall 583.5s → 293.9s (−50%), subprocess CPU 13,564s → 11,623s.
Remove the dashboard --insecure auth-bypass, add an MCP persistence guard +
IOC blocklist, and raise the API-server key entropy floor.
Driven by the June 2026 hermes-0day campaign (r/hermesagent, live 854.media
instance): scanners find exposed Hermes dashboards/API servers, drive the
root agent to plant a 'command: bash' MCP entry that appends an attacker SSH
key to authorized_keys, which cron + startup then re-execute every tick.
- dashboard: --insecure no longer disables the auth gate. should_require_auth
returns True for every non-loopback bind; a public bind ALWAYS requires an
auth provider (bundled password provider or OAuth). --insecure kept as a
warned no-op for backward compat. Fail-closed error now points at the
password provider, not at --insecure.
- mcp_security: validate_mcp_server_entry now also rejects shell payloads that
write to OS persistence surfaces (authorized_keys/.ssh/pam.d/sudoers/cron/
rc files) and hard-rejects a hermes-0day IOC blocklist (attacker SSH key +
source IPs) anywhere in command/args/env. Runs at save AND spawn time.
- api_server: raise network-bind API_SERVER_KEY entropy floor 8->16 chars;
warn when a network-accessible API server runs an unsandboxed local backend.
Port from openclaw/openclaw#64586: users who copy .env.example without
changing placeholder values now get a clear error at startup instead of
a confusing auth failure from the platform API. Also rejects placeholder
API_SERVER_KEY when binding to a network-accessible address.
Cherry-picked from PR #8677.
