Builds on @kshitijk4poor's CLI handoff stub. The original PR's flow
deferred everything to whenever a real user happened to message the
target platform; this rewrites it so the gateway picks up handoffs
immediately and the destination chat just starts working.
State machine on sessions table replaces the boolean flag:
None -> 'pending' -> 'running' -> ('completed' | 'failed')
plus handoff_error for failure reasons. CLI request_handoff /
get_handoff_state / list_pending_handoffs / claim_handoff /
complete_handoff / fail_handoff helpers wrap the transitions.
CLI side (cli.py): /handoff <platform> validates the platform's home
channel via load_gateway_config, refuses if the agent is mid-turn,
flips the row to 'pending', and poll-blocks (60s) on terminal state.
On 'completed' it prints the /resume hint and exits the CLI like
/quit. On 'failed' or timeout it surfaces the reason and the CLI
session stays intact.
Gateway side (gateway/run.py): new _handoff_watcher background task
scans state.db every 2s, atomically claims pending rows, and runs
_process_handoff for each. _process_handoff:
1. Resolves the platform's home channel.
2. Asks the adapter for a fresh thread via the new
create_handoff_thread(parent_chat_id, name) capability so the
handed-off conversation gets its own scrollback. Adapters that
don't support threads (or fail) return None and the watcher
falls back to the home channel directly.
3. Constructs a SessionSource keyed as 'thread' when a thread was
created, 'dm' otherwise, then session_store.switch_session
re-binds the destination key to the CLI session_id. The full
role-aware transcript replays via load_transcript on the next
turn (no flat-text injection into context_prompt).
4. Forges a synthetic MessageEvent(internal=True) with the handoff
notice and dispatches through _handle_message; the agent runs
against the loaded transcript and adapter.send delivers the
reply.
5. Marks the row 'completed' on success, 'failed' (+error) on any
exception.
Adapter capability (gateway/platforms/base.py): create_handoff_thread
default returns None. Three overrides:
- Telegram (gateway/platforms/telegram.py): wraps _create_dm_topic
so DM topics (Bot API 9.4+) and forum supergroups both work.
- Discord (gateway/platforms/discord.py): parent.create_thread on
text channels with a seed-message + message.create_thread
fallback for permission edge cases. Skips DMs and other
non-thread-capable parents.
- Slack (gateway/platforms/slack.py): posts a seed message and
returns its ts as the thread anchor — Slack threads are
message-anchored.
In thread mode, build_session_key keys the destination without
user_id (thread_sessions_per_user defaults to False) so the synthetic
turn and any later real-user message in the thread share the same
session_key — seamless takeover without race.
CommandDef stays cli_only=True (handoff is initiated from the CLI;
gateway exposes /resume for the reverse direction).
Removed the original PR's _handle_message_with_agent handoff hook
(transcript-as-text injection into context_prompt) and the
send_message_tool notification — both replaced by the watcher path.
Tests rewritten around the new state machine: 13/13 pass.
E2E-validated thread + no-thread paths and the failure path against
real worktree imports with mocked adapters.
Adds /handoff <platform> CLI command that queues the current session for
resume on the configured home channel of any messaging platform.
CLI side:
- /handoff telegram — marks session in shared DB, sends summary to
the Telegram home channel via send_message
- /handoff discord — same for Discord
- Supports telegram, discord, slack, whatsapp, signal, matrix
Gateway side:
- On new session creation, checks for pending handoffs for the
incoming message's platform
- If found, loads the CLI session's full conversation history and
injects it into the context prompt as a handoff transcript
- Agent continues the conversation seamlessly
Files:
- hermes_state.py: handoff_pending, handoff_platform columns + helpers
- cli.py: _handle_handoff_command dispatch + handler
- hermes_cli/commands.py: CommandDef entry
- gateway/run.py: handoff detection in _handle_message_with_agent
- tests/hermes_cli/test_session_handoff.py: 8 tests
