## Why
Hermes supports Linux, macOS, and native Windows, but the codebase grew up
POSIX-first and has accumulated patterns that silently break (or worse,
silently kill!) on Windows:
- `os.kill(pid, 0)` as a liveness probe — on Windows this maps to
CTRL_C_EVENT and broadcasts Ctrl+C to the target's entire console
process group (bpo-14484, open since 2012).
- `os.killpg` — doesn't exist on Windows at all (AttributeError).
- `os.setsid` / `os.getuid` / `os.geteuid` — same.
- `signal.SIGKILL` / `signal.SIGHUP` / `signal.SIGUSR1` — module-attr
errors at runtime on Windows.
- `open(path)` / `open(path, "r")` without explicit encoding= — inherits
the platform default, which is cp1252/mbcs on Windows (UTF-8 on POSIX),
causing mojibake round-tripping between hosts.
- `wmic` — removed from Windows 10 21H1+.
This commit does three things:
1. Makes `psutil` a core dependency and migrates critical callsites to it.
2. Adds a grep-based CI gate (`scripts/check-windows-footguns.py`) that
blocks new instances of any of the above patterns.
3. Fixes every existing instance in the codebase so the baseline is clean.
## What changed
### 1. psutil as a core dependency (pyproject.toml)
Added `psutil>=5.9.0,<8` to core deps. psutil is the canonical
cross-platform answer for "is this PID alive" and "kill this process
tree" — its `pid_exists()` uses `OpenProcess + GetExitCodeProcess` on
Windows (NOT a signal call), and its `Process.children(recursive=True)`
+ `.kill()` combo replaces `os.killpg()` portably.
### 2. `gateway/status.py::_pid_exists`
Rewrote to call `psutil.pid_exists()` first, falling back to the
hand-rolled ctypes `OpenProcess + WaitForSingleObject` dance on Windows
(and `os.kill(pid, 0)` on POSIX) only if psutil is somehow missing —
e.g. during the scaffold phase of a fresh install before pip finishes.
### 3. `os.killpg` migration to psutil (7 callsites, 5 files)
- `tools/code_execution_tool.py`
- `tools/process_registry.py`
- `tools/tts_tool.py`
- `tools/environments/local.py` (3 sites kept as-is, suppressed with
`# windows-footgun: ok` — the pgid semantics psutil can't replicate,
and the calls are already Windows-guarded at the outer branch)
- `gateway/platforms/whatsapp.py`
### 4. `scripts/check-windows-footguns.py` (NEW, 500 lines)
Grep-based checker with 11 rules covering every Windows cross-platform
footgun we've hit so far:
1. `os.kill(pid, 0)` — the silent killer
2. `os.setsid` without guard
3. `os.killpg` (recommends psutil)
4. `os.getuid` / `os.geteuid` / `os.getgid`
5. `os.fork`
6. `signal.SIGKILL`
7. `signal.SIGHUP/SIGUSR1/SIGUSR2/SIGALRM/SIGCHLD/SIGPIPE/SIGQUIT`
8. `subprocess` shebang script invocation
9. `wmic` without `shutil.which` guard
10. Hardcoded `~/Desktop` (OneDrive trap)
11. `asyncio.add_signal_handler` without try/except
12. `open()` without `encoding=` on text mode
Features:
- Triple-quoted-docstring aware (won't flag prose inside docstrings)
- Trailing-comment aware (won't flag mentions in `# os.kill(pid, 0)` comments)
- Guard-hint aware (skips lines with `hasattr(os, ...)`,
`shutil.which(...)`, `if platform.system() != 'Windows'`, etc.)
- Inline suppression with `# windows-footgun: ok — <reason>`
- `--list` to print all rules with fixes
- `--all` / `--diff <ref>` / staged-files (default) modes
- Scans 380 files in under 2 seconds
### 5. CI integration
A GitHub Actions workflow that runs the checker on every PR and push is
staged at `/tmp/hermes-stash/windows-footguns.yml` — not included in this
commit because the GH token on the push machine lacks `workflow` scope.
A maintainer with `workflow` permissions should add it as
`.github/workflows/windows-footguns.yml` in a follow-up. Content:
```yaml
name: Windows footgun check
on:
push:
branches: [main]
pull_request:
branches: [main]
jobs:
check:
runs-on: ubuntu-latest
steps:
- uses: actions/checkout@v4
- uses: actions/setup-python@v5
with: {python-version: "3.11"}
- run: python scripts/check-windows-footguns.py --all
```
### 6. CONTRIBUTING.md — "Cross-Platform Compatibility" expansion
Expanded from 5 to 16 rules, each with message, example, and fix.
Recommends psutil as the preferred API for PID / process-tree operations.
### 7. Baseline cleanup (91 → 0 findings)
- 14 `open()` sites → added `encoding='utf-8'` (internal logs/caches) or
`encoding='utf-8-sig'` (user-editable files that Notepad may BOM)
- 23 POSIX-only callsites in systemd helpers, pty_bridge, and plugin
tool subprocess management → annotated with
`# windows-footgun: ok — <reason>`
- 7 `os.killpg` sites → migrated to psutil (see §3 above)
## Verification
```
$ python scripts/check-windows-footguns.py --all
✓ No Windows footguns found (380 file(s) scanned).
$ python -c "from gateway.status import _pid_exists; import os
> print('self:', _pid_exists(os.getpid())); print('bogus:', _pid_exists(999999))"
self: True
bogus: False
```
Proof-of-repro that `os.kill(pid, 0)` was actually killing processes
before this fix — see commit `1cbe39914` and bpo-14484. This commit
removes the last hand-rolled ctypes path from the hot liveness-check
path and defers to the best-maintained cross-platform answer.
Extract the islink/realpath guard from the 16743 fix into a single
atomic_replace() helper in utils.py, then migrate every os.replace()
call site in the codebase to use it.
The original PR #16777 correctly identified and fixed the bug, but
only patched 9 of ~24 call sites. The same bug class (managed
deployments that symlink state files silently losing the link on
every write) still existed at auth.json, sessions file, gateway
config, env_loader, webhook subscriptions, debug store, model
catalog, pairing, google OAuth, nous rate guard, and more.
Rather than add another 10+ copies of the same three-line guard,
consolidate into atomic_replace(tmp, target) which:
- resolves symlinks via os.path.realpath before os.replace
- returns the resolved real path so callers can re-apply permissions
- is a drop-in replacement for os.replace at the use sites
Changes:
- utils.py: new atomic_replace() helper + atomic_json_write /
atomic_yaml_write now call it instead of inlining the guard
- 16 files: all os.replace() call sites migrated to atomic_replace()
- agent/{google_oauth, nous_rate_guard, shell_hooks}.py
- cron/jobs.py
- gateway/{pairing, session, platforms/telegram}.py
- hermes_cli/{auth, config, debug, env_loader, model_catalog, webhook}.py
- tools/{memory_tool, skill_manager_tool, skills_sync}.py
Tests: tests/test_atomic_replace_symlinks.py pins the invariant for
atomic_replace + atomic_json_write + atomic_yaml_write, covers plain
files, first-time creates, broken symlinks, and permission preservation.
Refs #16743
Builds on #16777 by @vominh1919.
Load-time sanitizer silently removed non-ASCII codepoints from any
env var ending in _API_KEY / _TOKEN / _SECRET / _KEY, turning
copy-paste artifacts (Unicode lookalikes, ZWSP, NBSP) into opaque
provider-side API_KEY_INVALID errors.
Warn once per key to stderr with the offending codepoints (U+XXXX)
and guidance to re-copy from the provider dashboard.
API keys containing Unicode lookalike characters (e.g. ʋ U+028B instead
of v) cause UnicodeEncodeError when httpx encodes the Authorization
header as ASCII. This commonly happens when users copy-paste keys from
PDFs, rich-text editors, or web pages with decorative fonts.
Three layers of defense:
1. **Save-time validation** (hermes_cli/config.py):
_check_non_ascii_credential() strips non-ASCII from credential values
when saving to .env, with a clear warning explaining the issue.
2. **Load-time sanitization** (hermes_cli/env_loader.py):
_sanitize_loaded_credentials() strips non-ASCII from credential env
vars (those ending in _API_KEY, _TOKEN, _SECRET, _KEY) after dotenv
loads them, so the rest of the codebase never sees non-ASCII keys.
3. **Runtime recovery** (run_agent.py):
The UnicodeEncodeError recovery block now also sanitizes self.api_key
and self._client_kwargs['api_key'], fixing the gap where message/tool
sanitization succeeded but the API key still caused httpx to fail on
the Authorization header.
Also: hermes_logging.py RotatingFileHandler now explicitly sets
encoding='utf-8' instead of relying on locale default (defensive
hardening for ASCII-locale systems).
When .env files become corrupted (e.g. concatenated KEY=VALUE pairs on
a single line due to concurrent writes or encoding issues), both
python-dotenv and load_env() would parse the entire concatenated string
as a single value. This caused bot tokens to appear duplicated up to 8×,
triggering InvalidToken errors from the Telegram API.
Root cause: _sanitize_env_lines() — which correctly splits concatenated
lines — was only called during save_env_value() writes, not during reads.
Fix:
- load_env() now calls _sanitize_env_lines() before parsing
- env_loader.load_hermes_dotenv() sanitizes the .env file on disk
before python-dotenv reads it, so os.getenv() also returns clean values
- Added tests reproducing the exact corruption pattern from #8908Closes#8908
Hermes startup entrypoints now load ~/.hermes/.env and project fallback env files with user config taking precedence over stale shell-exported values. This makes model/provider/base URL changes in .env actually take effect after restarting Hermes. Adds a shared env loader plus regression coverage, and reproduces the original bug case where OPENAI_BASE_URL and HERMES_INFERENCE_PROVIDER remained stuck on old shell values before import.
