The mid-run steer marker was '[USER STEER (injected mid-run, not tool
output): <text>]'. Replaced with a plain two-newline-prefixed
'User guidance: <text>' suffix.
Rationale: the marker lives inside the tool result's content string
regardless of whether the tool returned JSON, plain text, an MCP
result, or a plugin result. The bracketed tag read like structured
metadata that some tools (terminal, execute_code) could confuse with
their own output formatting. A plain labelled suffix works uniformly
across every content shape we produce.
Behavior unchanged:
- Still injected into the last tool-role message's content.
- Still preserves multimodal (Anthropic) content-block lists by
appending a text block.
- Still drained at both sites added in #12959 and #13205 — per-tool
drain between individual calls, and pre-API-call drain at the top
of each main-loop iteration.
Checked Codex's equivalent (pending_input / inject_user_message_without_turn
in codex-rs/core): they record mid-turn user input as a real role:user
message via record_user_prompt_and_emit_turn_item(). That's cleaner for
their Responses-API model but not portable to Chat Completions where
role alternation after tool_calls is strict. Embedding the guidance in
the last tool result remains the correct placement for us.
Validation: all 21 tests in tests/run_agent/test_steer.py pass.
When /steer is sent during an API call (model thinking), the steer text
sits in _pending_steer until after the next tool batch — which may never
come if the model returns a final response. In that case the steer is
only delivered as a post-run follow-up, defeating the purpose.
Add a pre-API-call drain at the top of the main loop: before building
api_messages, check _pending_steer and inject into the last tool result
in the messages list. This ensures steers sent during model thinking are
visible on the very next API call.
If no tool result exists yet (first iteration), the steer is restashed
for the post-tool drain to pick up — injecting into a user message would
break role alternation.
Three new tests cover the pre-API-call drain: injection into last tool
result, restash when no tool message exists, and backward scan past
non-tool messages.
* feat(steer): /steer <prompt> injects a mid-run note after the next tool call
Adds a new slash command that sits between /queue (turn boundary) and
interrupt. /steer <text> stashes the message on the running agent and
the agent loop appends it to the LAST tool result's content once the
current tool batch finishes. The model sees it as part of the tool
output on its next iteration.
No interrupt is fired, no new user turn is inserted, and no prompt
cache invalidation happens beyond the normal per-turn tool-result
churn. Message-role alternation is preserved — we only modify an
existing role:"tool" message's content.
Wiring
------
- hermes_cli/commands.py: register /steer + add to ACTIVE_SESSION_BYPASS_COMMANDS.
- run_agent.py: add _pending_steer state, AIAgent.steer(), _drain_pending_steer(),
_apply_pending_steer_to_tool_results(); drain at end of both parallel and
sequential tool executors; clear on interrupt; return leftover as
result['pending_steer'] if the agent exits before another tool batch.
- cli.py: /steer handler — route to agent.steer() when running, fall back to
the regular queue otherwise; deliver result['pending_steer'] as next turn.
- gateway/run.py: running-agent intercept calls running_agent.steer(); idle-agent
path strips the prefix and forwards as a regular user message.
- tui_gateway/server.py: new session.steer JSON-RPC method.
- ui-tui: SessionSteerResponse type + local /steer slash command that calls
session.steer when ui.busy, otherwise enqueues for the next turn.
Fallbacks
---------
- Agent exits mid-steer → surfaces in run_conversation result as pending_steer
so CLI/gateway deliver it as the next user turn instead of silently dropping it.
- All tools skipped after interrupt → re-stashes pending_steer for the caller.
- No active agent → /steer reduces to sending the text as a normal message.
Tests
-----
- tests/run_agent/test_steer.py — accept/reject, concatenation, drain,
last-tool-result injection, multimodal list content, thread safety,
cleared-on-interrupt, registry membership, bypass-set membership.
- tests/gateway/test_steer_command.py — running agent, pending sentinel,
missing steer() method, rejected payload, empty payload.
- tests/gateway/test_command_bypass_active_session.py — /steer bypasses
the Level-1 base adapter guard.
- tests/test_tui_gateway_server.py — session.steer RPC paths.
72/72 targeted tests pass under scripts/run_tests.sh.
* feat(steer): register /steer in Discord's native slash tree
Discord's app_commands tree is a curated subset of slash commands (not
derived from COMMAND_REGISTRY like Telegram/Slack). /steer already
works there as plain text (routes through handle_message → base
adapter bypass → runner), but registering it here adds Discord's
native autocomplete + argument hint UI so users can discover and
type it like any other first-class command.
