Follow-ups on top of @teyrebaz33's cherry-picked commit:
1. New shared helper format_no_match_hint() in fuzzy_match.py with a
startswith('Could not find') gate so the snippet only appends to
genuine no-match errors — not to 'Found N matches' (ambiguous),
'Escape-drift detected', or 'identical strings' errors, which would
all mislead the model.
2. file_tools.patch_tool suppresses the legacy generic '[Hint: old_string
not found...]' string when the rich 'Did you mean?' snippet is
already attached — no more double-hint.
3. Wire the same helper into patch_parser.py (V4A patch mode, both
_validate_operations and _apply_update) and skill_manager_tool.py so
all three fuzzy callers surface the hint consistently.
Tests: 7 new gating tests in TestFormatNoMatchHint cover every error
class (ambiguous, drift, identical, non-zero match count, None error,
no similar content, happy path). 34/34 test_fuzzy_match, 96/96
test_file_tools + test_patch_parser + test_skill_manager_tool pass.
E2E verified across all four scenarios: no-match-with-similar,
no-match-no-similar, ambiguous, success. V4A mode confirmed
end-to-end with a non-matching hunk.
When patch_replace() cannot find old_string in a file, the error message
now includes the closest matching lines from the file with line numbers
and context. This helps the LLM self-correct without a separate read_file
call.
Implements Phase 1 of #536: enhanced patch error feedback with no
architectural changes.
- tools/fuzzy_match.py: new find_closest_lines() using SequenceMatcher
- tools/file_operations.py: attach closest-lines hint to patch errors
- tests/tools/test_fuzzy_match.py: 5 new tests for find_closest_lines
Two hardening layers in the patch tool, triggered by a real silent failure
in the previous session:
(1) Post-write verification in patch_replace — after write_file succeeds,
re-read the file and confirm the bytes on disk match the intended write.
If not, return an error instead of the current success-with-diff. Catches
silent persistence failures from any cause (backend FS oddities, stdin
pipe truncation, concurrent task races, mount drift).
(2) Escape-drift guard in fuzzy_find_and_replace — when a non-exact
strategy matches and both old_string and new_string contain literal
\' or \" sequences but the matched file region does not, reject the
patch with a clear error pointing at the likely cause (tool-call
serialization adding a spurious backslash around apostrophes/quotes).
Exact matches bypass the guard, and legitimate edits that add or
preserve escape sequences in files that already have them still work.
Why: in a prior tool call, old_string was sent with \' where the file
has ' (tool-call transport drift). The fuzzy matcher's block_anchor
strategy matched anyway and produced a diff the tool reported as
successful — but the file was never modified on disk. The agent moved
on believing the edit landed when it hadn't.
Tests: added TestPatchReplacePostWriteVerification (3 cases) and
TestEscapeDriftGuard (6 cases). All pass, existing fuzzy match and
file_operations tests unaffected.
ShellFileOperations captured the terminal env's cwd at __init__ time and
used that stale value for every subsequent _exec() call. When the user
ran `cd` via the terminal tool, `env.cwd` updated but `ops.cwd` did not.
Relative paths passed to patch_replace / read_file / write_file / search
then targeted the ORIGINAL directory instead of the current one.
Observed symptom in agent sessions:
terminal: cd .worktrees/my-branch
patch hermes_cli/main.py <old> <new>
→ returns {"success": true} with a plausible unified diff
→ but `git diff` in the worktree shows nothing
→ the patch landed in the main repo's checkout of main.py instead
The diff looked legitimate because patch_replace computes it from the
IN-MEMORY content vs new_content, not by re-reading the file. The
write itself DID succeed — it just wrote to the wrong directory's copy
of the same-named file.
Fix: _exec() now resolves cwd from live sources in this order:
1. Explicit `cwd` arg (if provided by the caller)
2. Live `self.env.cwd` (tracks `cd` commands run via terminal)
3. Init-time `self.cwd` (fallback when env has no cwd attribute)
Includes a 5-test regression suite covering:
- cd followed by relative read follows live cwd
- the exact reported bug: patch_replace with relative path after cd
- explicit cwd= arg still wins over env.cwd
- env without cwd attribute falls back to init-time cwd
- patch_replace success reflects real file state (safety rail)
Co-authored-by: teknium1 <teknium@nousresearch.com>
Three improvements to file search based on user feedback:
1. Fuzzy @ completions (commands.py):
- Bare @query now does project-wide fuzzy file search instead of
prefix-only directory listing
- Uses rg --files with 5-second cache for responsive completions
- Scoring: exact name (100) > prefix (80) > substring (60) >
path contains (40) > subsequence with boundary bonus (35/25)
- Bare @ with no query shows recently modified files first
2. Mtime-sorted file search (file_operations.py):
- _search_files_rg now uses --sortr=modified (rg 13+) to surface
recently edited files first
- Falls back to unsorted on older rg versions
3. Improved file-not-found suggestions (file_operations.py):
- Replaced crude character-set overlap with ranked scoring:
same basename (90) > prefix (70) > substring (60) >
reverse substring (40) > same extension (30)
- search_files path-not-found now suggests similar directories
from the parent
- Remove unreachable `if not content_sample` branch inside the truthy
`if content_sample` block in `_is_likely_binary()` (dead code that
could never execute).
- Replace `linter_cmd.format(file=...)` with `linter_cmd.replace("{file}", ...)`
in `_check_lint()` so file paths containing curly braces (e.g.
`src/{test}.py`) no longer raise KeyError/ValueError.
- Add 16 unit tests covering both fixes and edge cases.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
- Bug 1: replace read_file(limit=10000) with read_file_raw in _apply_update,
preventing silent truncation of files >2000 lines and corruption of lines
>2000 chars; add read_file_raw to FileOperations abstract interface and
ShellFileOperations
- Bug 2: split apply_v4a_operations into validate-then-apply phases; if any
hunk fails validation, zero writes occur (was: continue after failure,
leaving filesystem partially modified)
- Bug 3: parse_v4a_patch now returns an error for begin-marker-with-no-ops,
empty file paths, and moves missing a destination (was: always returned
error=None)
- Bug 4: raise strategy 7 (block anchor) single-candidate similarity threshold
from 0.10 to 0.50, eliminating false-positive matches in repetitive code
- Bug 5: add _strategy_unicode_normalized (new strategy 7) with position
mapping via _build_orig_to_norm_map; smart quotes and em-dashes in
LLM-generated patches now match via strategies 1-6 before falling through
to fuzzy strategies
- Bug 6: extend fuzzy_find_and_replace to return 4-tuple (content, count,
error, strategy); update all 5 call sites across patch_parser.py,
file_operations.py, and skill_manager_tool.py
- Bug 7: guard in _apply_update returns error when addition-only context hint
is ambiguous (>1 occurrences); validation phase errors on both 0 and >1
- Bug 8: _apply_delete returns error (not silent success) on missing file
- Bug 9: _validate_operations checks source existence and destination absence
for MOVE operations before any write occurs
Bug fixes:
- agent/redact.py: catastrophic regex backtracking in _ENV_ASSIGN_RE — removed
re.IGNORECASE and changed [A-Z_]* to [A-Z0-9_]* to restrict matching to actual
env var name chars. Without this, the pattern backtracks exponentially on large
strings (e.g. 100K tool output), causing test_file_read_guards to time out.
- tools/file_operations.py: over-escaped newline in find -printf format string
produced literal backslash-n instead of a real newline, breaking file search
result parsing (total_count always 1, paths concatenated).
Test fixes:
- Remove stale pytestmark.skip from 4 test modules that were blanket-skipped as
'Hangs in non-interactive environments' but actually run fine:
- test_413_compression.py (12 tests, 25s)
- test_file_tools_live.py (71 tests, 24s)
- test_code_execution.py (61 tests, 99s)
- test_agent_loop_tool_calling.py (has proper OPENROUTER_API_KEY skip already)
- test_413_compression.py: fix threshold values in 2 preflight compression tests
where context_length was too small for the compressed output to fit in one pass.
- test_mcp_probe.py: add missing _MCP_AVAILABLE mock so tests work without MCP SDK.
- test_mcp_tool_issue_948.py: inject MCP symbols (StdioServerParameters etc.) when
SDK is not installed so patch() targets exist.
- test_approve_deny_commands.py: replace time.sleep(0.3) with deterministic polling
of _gateway_queues — fixes race condition where resolve fires before threads
register their approval entries, causing the test to hang indefinitely.
Net effect: +256 tests recovered from skip, 8 real failures fixed.
The write-deny list in file_operations.py hardcoded ~/.hermes/.env,
which misses the actual .env in custom HERMES_HOME or profile setups.
Use get_hermes_home() for profile-safe path resolution.
Salvaged from PR #3232 by @erhnysr.
Co-authored-by: Erhnysr <erhnysr@users.noreply.github.com>
echo was called with the full unquoted path (~username/suffix), allowing
command substitution in the suffix (e.g. ~user/$(malicious)) to execute
arbitrary shell commands. The fix expands only the validated ~username
portion via the shell and concatenates the suffix as a plain string.
Co-authored-by: Gutslabs <gutslabsxyz@gmail.com>
Cast path to str() before os.path.expanduser() to handle pathlib.Path
inputs safely.
Based on PR #1051 by JackTheGit.
Co-authored-by: JackTheGit <JackTheGit@users.noreply.github.com>
search_files(target='files') now uses rg --files -g instead of find.
Ripgrep respects .gitignore, excludes hidden dirs by default, and has
parallel directory traversal — ~200x faster on wide trees (0.14s vs 34s
benchmarked on 164-repo tree).
Falls back to find when rg is unavailable, preserving hidden-dir
exclusion and BSD find compatibility.
Salvaged from PR #1464 by @light-merlin-dark (Merlin) — adapted to
preserve hidden-dir exclusion added since the original PR.
* fix(security): harden terminal safety and sandbox file writes
Two security improvements:
1. Dangerous command detection: expand shell -c pattern to catch
combined flags (bash -lc, bash -ic, ksh -c) that were previously
undetected. Pattern changed from matching only 'bash -c' to
matching any shell invocation with -c anywhere in the flags.
2. File write sandboxing: add HERMES_WRITE_SAFE_ROOT env var that
constrains all write_file/patch operations to a configured directory
tree. Opt-in — when unset, behavior is unchanged. Useful for
gateway/messaging deployments that should only touch a workspace.
Based on PR #1085 by ismoilh.
* fix: correct "POSIDEON" typo to "POSEIDON" in banner ASCII art
The poseidon skin's banner_logo had the E and I letters swapped,
spelling "POSIDEON-AGENT" instead of "POSEIDON-AGENT".
---------
Co-authored-by: ismoilh <ismoilh@users.noreply.github.com>
Co-authored-by: unmodeled-tyler <unmodeled.tyler@proton.me>
The primary injection vector in #1558 was search_files discovering
catalog cache files in .hub/index-cache/ via find or grep, which
don't skip hidden directories like ripgrep does by default.
Three-layer fix:
1. _search_files (find): add -not -path '*/.*' to exclude hidden
directories, matching ripgrep's default behavior.
2. _search_with_grep: add --exclude-dir='.*' to skip hidden
directories in the grep fallback path.
3. _write_index_cache: write a .ignore file to .hub/ so ripgrep
also skips it even when invoked with --hidden (belt-and-suspenders).
This makes all three search backends (rg, grep, find) consistently
exclude hidden directories, preventing the agent from discovering
and reading unvetted community content in hub cache files.
Authored by Himess. Replaces split(':', 2) with regex that optionally
captures Windows drive-letter prefix in rg/grep output parsing. Fixes
search_files returning zero results on Windows where paths like
C:\path\file.py:42:content were misparsed by naive colon splitting.
No behavior change on Unix/Mac.
Validate that the username portion of ~username paths contains only
valid characters (alphanumeric, dot, hyphen, underscore) before passing
to shell echo for expansion. Previously, paths like '~; rm -rf /'
would be passed unquoted to self._exec(f'echo {path}'), allowing
arbitrary command execution.
The approach validates the username rather than using shlex.quote(),
which would prevent tilde expansion from working at all since
echo '~user' outputs the literal string instead of expanding it.
Added tests for injection blocking and valid ~username/path expansion.
Credit to @alireza78a for reporting (PR #442, issue #442).
Previously, search_files would silently return 0 results when the
search path didn't exist (e.g., /root/.hermes/... when HOME is
/home/user). The path was passed to rg/grep/find which would fail
silently, and the empty stdout was parsed as 'no matches found'.
Changes:
- Add path existence check at the top of search() using test -e.
Returns SearchResult with a clear error message when path doesn't exist.
- Add exit code 2 checks in _search_with_rg() and _search_with_grep()
as secondary safety net for other error types (bad regex, permissions).
- Add 4 new tests covering: nonexistent path (content mode), nonexistent
path (files mode), existing path proceeds normally, rg error exit code.
Tests: 37 → 41 in test_file_operations.py, full suite 2330 passed.
The ripgrep/grep output parser uses `split(':', 2)` to extract
file:lineno:content from match lines. On Windows, absolute paths
contain a drive letter colon (e.g. `C:\Users\foo\bar.py:42:content`),
so `split(':', 2)` produces `["C", "\Users\...", "42:content"]`.
`int(parts[1])` then raises ValueError and the match is silently
dropped. All search results are lost on Windows.
Same category as #390 — string-based path parsing that fails on
Windows. Replace `split()` with a regex that optionally captures
the drive letter prefix: `^([A-Za-z]:)?(.*?):(\d+):(.*)$`.
Applied to both `_search_with_rg` and `_search_with_grep`.
- Wrap commands with unique fence markers (printf FENCE; cmd; printf FENCE)
to isolate real output from shell init/exit noise (oh-my-zsh, macOS
session restore/save, docker plugin errors, etc.)
- Expand _clean_shell_noise to cover zsh/macOS patterns and strip from
both beginning and end (fallback when fences are missing)
- Fix BSD find compatibility: fallback to simple find when -printf
produces empty output (macOS)
- Fix test_terminal_disk_usage: use sys.modules to get the real module
instead of the shadowed function from tools/__init__.py
- Add 13 new unit tests for fence extraction and zsh noise patterns
On macOS, /etc is a symlink to /private/etc. The _is_write_denied()
function resolves the input path with os.path.realpath() but the deny
list entries were stored as literal strings ("/etc/shadow"). This meant
the resolved path "/private/etc/shadow" never matched, allowing writes
to sensitive system files on macOS.
Fix: Apply os.path.realpath() to deny list entries at module load time
so both sides of the comparison use resolved paths.
Adds 19 regression tests in tests/tools/test_write_deny.py.
The security scanner (skills_guard.py) was only wired into the hub install path.
All other write paths to persistent state — skills created by the agent, memory
entries, cron prompts, and context files — bypassed it entirely. This closes
those gaps:
- file_operations: deny-list blocks writes to ~/.ssh, ~/.aws, ~/.hermes/.env, etc.
- code_execution_tool: filter secret env vars from sandbox child process
- skill_manager_tool: wire scan_skill() into create/edit/patch/write_file with rollback
- skills_guard: add "agent-created" trust level (same policy as community)
- memory_tool: scan content for injection/exfil before system prompt injection
- prompt_builder: scan AGENTS.md, .cursorrules, SOUL.md for prompt injection
- cronjob_tools: scan cron prompts for critical threats before scheduling
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>
- Implemented functionality to load ephemeral prefill messages from a JSON file, enhancing few-shot priming capabilities for the agent.
- Introduced a mechanism to load an ephemeral system prompt from environment variables or configuration files, ensuring dynamic prompt adjustments at API-call time.
- Updated the CLI and agent initialization to utilize the new prefill messages and system prompt, improving the overall interaction experience.
- Enhanced configuration options with new environment variables for prefill messages and system prompts, allowing for greater customization without persistence.
- Updated the file glob and include filters in the ShellFileOperations class to escape shell arguments, preventing unintended shell expansion.
- Added comments to clarify the necessity of quoting for file glob patterns.
- Updated the `_search_with_rg` and `_search_with_grep` methods to include filename in the output and improve result handling.
- Adjusted result fetching to account for context lines, ensuring accurate total counts and pagination.
- Enhanced parsing logic for matches and context lines, improving the accuracy of search results.
- Refactored result slicing to maintain consistency across output modes, ensuring users receive the correct number of results.
- Modified the `_exec` method in `ShellFileOperations` to accept `stdin_data`, allowing large content to be piped directly to commands, bypassing ARG_MAX limitations.
- Updated the `execute` method in various environment classes (`_LocalEnvironment`, `_SingularityEnvironment`, `_SSHEnvironment`, `_DockerEnvironment`) to support `stdin_data`, improving command execution flexibility.
- Removed the unique marker generation for heredoc in favor of direct stdin piping, simplifying file writing operations and enhancing performance for large files.
When using Modal, Docker, SSH, or Singularity as the terminal backend
from the CLI, the agent resolved cwd: "." to the host machine's local
path (e.g. /Users/rewbs/code/hermes-agent) and passed it to the remote
sandbox, where it doesn't exist. All commands failed with "No such file
or directory".
Root cause: cli.py unconditionally resolved "." to os.getcwd() and wrote
it to TERMINAL_CWD regardless of backend type. Every tool then used that
host-local path as the working directory inside the remote environment.
Fixes:
- cli.py: only resolve "." to os.getcwd() for the local backend. For all
remote backends (ssh, docker, modal, singularity), leave TERMINAL_CWD
unset so the tool layer uses per-backend defaults (/root, /, ~, etc.)
- terminal_tool.py: added sanity check -- if TERMINAL_CWD contains a
host-local prefix (/Users/, /home/, C:\) for a non-local backend, log
a warning and fall back to the backend's default
- terminal_tool.py: SSH default CWD is now ~ instead of os.getcwd()
- file_operations.py: last-resort CWD fallback changed from os.getcwd()
to "/" so host paths never leak into remote file operations
- Changed the default LLM model in the setup wizard and example environment file to 'anthropic/claude-opus-4.6'.
- Updated terminal working directory settings in CLI and related files to use the current directory ('.') instead of '/tmp'.
- Enhanced documentation comments for clarity on terminal configuration and working directory behavior.
- Introduced file manipulation capabilities in `model_tools.py`, including functions for reading, writing, patching, and searching files.
- Added a new `file` toolset in `toolsets.py` and updated distributions to include file tools.
- Enhanced `setup-hermes.sh` and `install.sh` scripts to check for and optionally install `ripgrep` for faster file searching.
- Implemented a new `file_operations.py` module to encapsulate file operations using shell commands.
- Updated `doctor.py` and `install.ps1` to check for `ripgrep` and provide installation guidance if not found.
- Added fuzzy matching and patch parsing capabilities to improve file manipulation accuracy and flexibility.
