Tighten the provenance semantics added in #19618: skills a user asks a
foreground agent to write via skill_manage(create) now stay invisible to
the curator. Only skills the background self-improvement review fork
sediments through skill_manage get the created_by=agent marker.
- tools/skill_provenance.py — new ContextVar module mirroring the
_approval_session_key pattern: set_current_write_origin / reset /
get / is_background_review. Default origin is 'foreground'; the
review fork sets 'background_review'.
- run_agent.py — run_conversation() binds the ContextVar from
self._memory_write_origin at the top of each call. The review fork
runs on its own thread (fresh context), so foreground and review
contexts never cross-contaminate.
- tools/skill_manager_tool.py — skill_manage(action='create') now
only calls mark_agent_created() when is_background_review(). All
other cases (foreground create, patch, edit, write_file, delete)
continue as before.
- tests: test_skill_provenance.py (6 tests covering the ContextVar
surface), split test_full_create_via_dispatcher into foreground
vs. review-fork variants, curator status tests now mark-first.
Why: the agent routinely edits existing user skills on the user's
behalf; those writes must never flip provenance. And when a user
explicitly asks the foreground agent to create a skill, that skill
belongs to the user. The curator should only be cleaning up after
its own autonomous sediment from the review nudge loop.
Alongside the existing 'least recently used' section, surface two more
rankings so users can see which of their agent-created skills actually
get exercised:
- 'most used (top 5)' — sorted by use_count descending. Hidden when every
skill has use_count=0 (noise suppression on fresh installs).
- 'least used (top 5)' — sorted by use_count ascending. Always shown
when the catalog is non-empty.
use_count started tracking real agent skill activation in PR #17932
(bump_use wired into skill_view tool + slash invocation + --skill
preload), so these rankings are now meaningful.
Tests: 3 new in tests/hermes_cli/test_curator_status.py — happy path
with mixed use_counts, zero-use suppression of the most-used section,
and the no-skills clean-empty case.
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.
