Expand the airtable skill from bare CRUD to a full Hermes-shaped
cookbook matching the linear/notion neighbors, and trim the
description to fit the 60-char system-prompt cutoff.
Hermes-specific additions:
- Explicit 'use the terminal tool with curl — not web_extract or
browser_navigate' guidance, matching the same note in linear.
- Note that AIRTABLE_API_KEY flows from ~/.hermes/.env into the
subprocess automatically via env_passthrough, so curl calls don't
need to re-export it.
- Prefer 'python3 -m json.tool' (always present) over jq (optional)
for pretty-printing, with -s on every curl to keep output clean.
- Read-before-write workflow that resolves record IDs via
filterByFormula instead of guessing.
Cookbook expansion (new vs original):
- Field-type reference table (text, select, multi-select, attachment,
linked record, user) with the exact write-shape Airtable expects.
- typecast flag for auto-coercing values / auto-creating select options.
- performUpsert PATCH for idempotent sync by merge field.
- Batch create/delete endpoints (10-record cap per call).
- Sort + fields query params with URL-encoding (%5B / %5D).
- Named-view query that applies saved filter/sort server-side.
- Full pagination loop template (while loop with offset).
- Common filterByFormula patterns (exact match, contains, AND/OR,
date comparison, NOT empty).
- Rate-limit backoff guidance (Retry-After header, per-base budget).
- Airtable error-code reference (AUTHENTICATION_REQUIRED,
INVALID_PERMISSIONS, MODEL_ID_NOT_FOUND,
INVALID_MULTIPLE_CHOICE_OPTIONS) so the agent can map failures to
user-actionable fixes instead of just retrying.
Also: description trimmed from 183 chars (truncated to 60 in system
prompt, losing 'filter/upsert/delete' trigger terms) down to 59 chars
that render whole: 'Airtable REST API via curl. Records CRUD, filters,
upserts.' Catalog row updated to match.
SKILL.md grew from 115 to 228 lines — still under the 500-line soft
cap and below the linear skill (297 lines) which serves the same
role for GraphQL.
Convert the airtable skill from 'skills.config.airtable.api_key'
(config.yaml, wrong bucket for a secret) to 'prerequisites.env_vars:
[AIRTABLE_API_KEY]' (~/.hermes/.env), matching every other bundled
skill that authenticates with an API token.
Why the original shape was wrong:
- metadata.hermes.config is for non-secret skill settings (paths,
preferences) per references/skill-config-interface.md. Storing a
bearer token under skills.config.* also triggered the documented
'hermes config migrate' nag-on-every-run problem.
- The Quick Reference's 'AIRTABLE_API_KEY=...' bash line couldn't
read skills.config.airtable.api_key anyway — it's a yaml path, not
an env var.
Follow-up polish on the same pass:
- Added version/author/license frontmatter to match notion/linear.
- Added prerequisites.commands: [curl].
- Setup section now specifies the PAT format (pat...) that replaced
legacy 'key...' API keys in Feb 2024, plus the three required scopes
(data.records:read/write, schema.bases:read) and the per-base Access
list requirement.
- Clarified PATCH vs PUT and pagination (100 records/page cap).
- Swapped verification from 'hermes -q ...' (non-deterministic) to a
curl /v0/meta/bases call that returns a verifiable HTTP status code.
