The coding-posture brief told GPT/Codex models to use patch mode='patch'
(V4A) for structured/multi-file changes but mode='replace' "for a single
small swap". That second nudge points those models at a format their
first-party harness never taught them.
Verified against openai/codex (current main): apply_patch is the ONLY file
editor in codex-rs — zero occurrences of str_replace/old_string anywhere in
the repo; the grammar (core/src/tools/handlers/apply_patch.lark) is exactly
the V4A dialect our patch_parser implements; the shipped model prompts
(gpt_5_codex, gpt-5.2-codex, gpt-5.1-codex-max + instruction templates)
explicitly say to use apply_patch "for single file edits"; and the tool is
gated per model via ModelInfo.apply_patch_tool_type, i.e. OpenAI ships
V4A-for-everything as model metadata.
The GPT-family line now steers to mode='patch' for all edits, single-file
included. The replace-family line (Claude + open-weight) is unchanged —
Claude Code's FileEdit is old_string/new_string/replace_all exact string
replacement (confirmed from Anthropic's shipped sdk-tools.d.ts, the only
file editor in its tool union), matching our mode='replace'.
The coding posture's names-only demotion of non-coding skill categories
(#44342) applied under the default auto mode, silently changing the skill
index for every user in a git repo. Index changes must be opt-in: demotion
now only fires under agent.coding_context=focus, alongside the toolset
collapse. auto/on leave the skill index untouched; focus semantics are
unchanged (demoted, never hidden; deny-list keeps coding-adjacent and
custom categories at full entries).
Real-world failure with the original index pruning: under the default auto
posture, an agent-created ops skill in a demoted category vanished from the
prompt's skill index mid-project, and the agent silently fell back to a
stale sibling skill instead. The "discovery-only" premise didn't hold —
models do not reach for skills_list to rediscover what the index stops
showing them, and agent-created skills are the model's accumulated project
memory (runbooks, pitfalls, operating rules).
Gating pruning behind the opt-in focus mode was the wrong fix too: users
opening a worktree don't know the config exists, so the index-noise win
would effectively never ship.
Instead, the coding posture now DEMOTES non-coding categories rather than
hiding them: each demoted category renders as a single names-only line
("gaming [names only]: allthemons10-ops, mc-backup") with a footer note
explaining the omitted descriptions. Every skill name stays in the prompt,
so memory-anchored recall ("load <name>") keeps working in every mode,
while the description noise is still cut. Applies in auto/on/focus alike;
the general posture demotes nothing. Deny-list semantics unchanged —
unknown/custom categories and coding-adjacent ones keep full entries.
API renamed to match the honest semantics: hidden_skill_categories →
compact_skill_categories, build_skills_system_prompt(hidden_categories=) →
compact_categories=.
* feat(agent): coding-context posture with per-model edit-format tuning
Hermes detects when it's running in a coding context — an interactive
surface (CLI, TUI, ACP, desktop) sitting in a code workspace (git repo or
recognised project root) — and shifts into a coding posture. Outside that
(chat platforms, non-workspaces) nothing changes.
The posture is modelled as a frozen RuntimeMode selected from a small
ContextProfile registry (coding/general). A profile is data: the toolset to
collapse to, the operating brief to inject, and seams for model routing and
memory. Every domain reads the same resolved object instead of re-probing
git/config on its own:
- System prompt — RuntimeMode.system_blocks(): an operating brief (gather
context before editing, edit through tools not chat, verify with terminal,
cap retry loops) plus a live git/workspace snapshot, built once and baked
into the stable prompt tier so per-conversation caching is preserved.
- Per-model edit-format tuning — the brief nudges each model family toward
the patch mode it handles best: OpenAI/Codex toward mode='patch' (V4A
multi-file diffs), Anthropic toward mode='replace' (string replacement).
The model id rides on RuntimeMode; unknown families keep neutral wording.
- Skill index — non-coding skill categories are pruned from the prompt's
skill index (discovery-only; skills_list/skill_view still reach the full
catalog, with a disclosure note).
- Toolset — only under the opt-in 'focus' mode does the posture collapse to
the coding toolset + enabled MCP servers; the default posture is
prompt-only and never overrides configured toolsets.
Activation via agent.coding_context: auto (default), focus, on, off.
Subagents inherit the posture for free via toolset inheritance + the shared
prompt builder. Detection is not memoized so a long-lived gateway/TUI
process can't pin a stale posture across working directories.
* feat(agent): cover new-file authoring in the coding edit-format nudge
The per-model edit-format guidance only addressed editing existing code
(patch mode='patch' vs 'replace'), but authoring a brand-new file —
write_file, not patch — is a large fraction of real coding work and the
nudge was silent on it. Surfaced when building a single-file artifact where
the dominant operation was write_file and the steering offered no guidance.
Both family lines now lead with "author new files with write_file; for
edits to existing code prefer ...". Tests assert write_file appears in each
family's brief; unknown families still get neutral wording.
* docs(agent): correct memoization docstring + clarify TUI config-load asymmetry
* feat(agent): sharpen the coding posture — verify-loop facts, wider edit steering, $HOME guard
Tuning pass on the coding posture from dogfooding it as a harness:
- Workspace snapshot now hands the model its verify loop up front:
detected manifests + package manager (lockfile sniff), the exact
verify commands (package.json scripts, Makefile targets,
scripts/run_tests.sh, pytest config), and which context files
(AGENTS.md / CLAUDE.md / .cursorrules) exist at the root. Marker-only
(non-git) projects get the snapshot too instead of nothing. The
"verify before claiming done" brief line was the highest-value piece
in evals — this turns it from advice into an executable loop instead
of making the model rediscover the test command every session. Still
stat-cheap, size-guarded reads, built once at prompt time.
- Edit-format steering covers the families Hermes actually serves:
Gemini and open-weight coding models (DeepSeek, Qwen, Kimi, GLM,
Grok, Hermes, Llama, Mistral, Devstral, MiniMax) steer to
mode='replace' — their RL scaffolds use str_replace-style editors.
Previously only GPT/Codex and Claude families got steering; the
models Hermes users disproportionately run all fell to neutral.
- Operating brief gains four behaviors elite harnesses encode: batch
independent reads/searches in one turn; fix root causes and the bug
class (sibling call paths), not the reported site; no drive-by
refactors/renames/reformatting; never read, print, or commit secrets.
Plus a patch-failure escalation ladder: after the same region fails
twice, rewrite the enclosing function/file with write_file instead of
a third patch attempt.
- $HOME dotfiles guard: a git repo rooted exactly at the home directory
(or a marker sitting in it, e.g. a global ~/AGENTS.md) is user config,
not a code workspace — without the guard, every session anywhere under
a dotfiles-managed home silently flipped to the coding posture. Real
projects under such a home still detect via their own markers/repos;
'on' mode bypasses the guard.
