Completes the Windows-gating coverage for the built-in skills/ tree. Every
bundled SKILL.md now carries an explicit platforms: declaration so the
loader (agent.skill_utils.skill_matches_platform) can skip-load skills
that don't fit the current OS.
74 skills declared cross-platform (platforms: [linux, macos, windows]):
Creative (16): ascii-art, ascii-video, architecture-diagram, baoyu-comic,
baoyu-infographic, claude-design, creative-ideation, design-md,
excalidraw, humanizer, manim-video, p5js, pixel-art,
popular-web-designs, pretext, sketch, songwriting-and-ai-music,
touchdesigner-mcp
Autonomous agents: claude-code, codex, hermes-agent, opencode
Data/devops: jupyter-live-kernel, kanban-orchestrator, kanban-worker,
webhook-subscriptions, dogfood, codebase-inspection
GitHub: github-auth, github-code-review, github-issues,
github-pr-workflow, github-repo-management
Media: gif-search, heartmula, songsee, spotify, youtube-content
MCP / email / gaming / notes / smart-home: native-mcp, himalaya,
pokemon-player, obsidian, openhue
mlops (non-broken): weights-and-biases, huggingface-hub, llama-cpp,
outlines, segment-anything-model, dspy, trl-fine-tuning
Productivity: airtable, google-workspace, linear, maps, nano-pdf,
notion, ocr-and-documents, powerpoint
Red-teaming / research: godmode, arxiv, blogwatcher, llm-wiki,
polymarket
Software-dev: debugging-hermes-tui-commands, hermes-agent-skill-authoring,
node-inspect-debugger, plan, requesting-code-review, spike,
subagent-driven-development, systematic-debugging,
test-driven-development, writing-plans
Misc: yuanbao
5 skills gated from Windows (platforms: [linux, macos]):
mlops/inference/vllm (serving-llms-vllm)
vLLM is officially Linux-only; Windows requires WSL.
mlops/training/axolotl
Axolotl's flash-attn + deepspeed + bitsandbytes stack is Linux-first.
mlops/training/unsloth
Requires Triton + xformers + flash-attn — Linux only in practice.
mlops/models/audiocraft (audiocraft-audio-generation)
torchaudio ffmpeg backend + encodec dependencies are Linux-first.
mlops/inference/obliteratus
Research abliteration workflow; relies on Linux-focused pytorch
kernels and MLX — no first-class Windows path.
Same strict-over-lenient policy as the optional-skills sweep: when the
underlying tool's Windows support is rough, missing, or WSL-only, gate the
skill. Easier to un-gate after verified Windows support lands than to leak
partial support that manifests as mid-task failures.
Combined with prior commits in this branch, every bundled SKILL.md
(skills/ + optional-skills/) now has a platforms: declaration.
Hermes's skill loader (agent/skill_utils.skill_matches_platform) already honors
the 'platforms:' frontmatter field and skip-loads skills whose declared
platform list doesn't include sys.platform. Seven bundled skills are in fact
Linux/macOS-only but never declared it, so they leak into Windows skill
listings and sometimes load with broken instructions.
Audited all 160 SKILL.md files (skills/ + optional-skills/) for Windows-
hostile signals: apt-get/brew/systemd/chmod+x install flows, ptrace/proc
runtime dependencies, bash-only launcher scripts, and package dependencies
with no Windows build. The 7 below fail one or more of those tests in a way
that fundamentally can't be papered over by docs edits:
minecraft-modpack-server bash start.sh + chmod +x + apt openjdk
evaluating-llms-harness lm-eval-harness bash launcher scripts
distributed-llm-pretraining-
torchtitan bash multi-node torchrun launcher
python-debugpy remote attach relies on /proc ptrace_scope
pytorch-fsdp NCCL backend; Windows path is WSL only
tensorrt-llm NVIDIA TensorRT-LLM has no Windows build
searxng-search Docker volume flow assumes POSIX $(pwd)
All seven get 'platforms: [linux, macos]'. On Windows the loader now skips
them silently — no more phantom skill listings, no more mid-task failures
because an Apple-only path was surfaced as a suggestion.
Cross-platform skills that merely CONTAIN signals in examples or
install-instructions (brew install as one of several paths, /tmp/ in a code
snippet, etc.) are NOT touched by this commit. A broader audit that
declares the ~140 cross-platform skills as 'platforms: [linux, macos,
windows]' can follow as a separate change once each has been verified
working on Windows.
The installed user copies under ~/AppData/Local/hermes/skills/ (when they
exist) are also patched so the running session reflects the gating
immediately, but only the in-repo files are committed here.
Target: every skill's description fits in a one-line gateway menu and
leads with trigger keywords an agent would match on. Drops filler like
'Use this skill to', 'A skill for', 'This skill provides'.
Before: max description length was 791 chars (architecture-diagram),
74 of 81 built-in skills were >60 chars.
After: max 60, mean 54, all 81 built-in skills <=60.
Rewritten with double-quoted YAML scalars to preserve Chinese/arrow
glyphs (baoyu-comic, yuanbao, youtube-content).
Was user-local in ~/.hermes/skills/. Ported into skills/software-development/
so other Hermes users get it and so the related_skills links from
node-inspect-debugger and python-debugpy resolve in-repo.
Frontmatter upgraded to match repo convention (version/author/license/
metadata.hermes.{tags,related_skills}, description rewritten as "Use when ...").
Body expanded with debugging-tactics section pointing at the two new
debugger skills, and additional common-issues / pitfalls entries.
Two new skills under skills/software-development/ for real breakpoint-driven
debugging from the terminal:
- node-inspect-debugger: node --inspect / --inspect-brk, node inspect REPL,
CDP scripting via chrome-remote-interface, attaching to running Node
processes (SIGUSR1), ui-tui-specific recipes, Vitest under debugger,
CPU profiles + heap snapshots.
- python-debugpy: pdb quick reference, breakpoint() workflow, pytest --pdb
(with xdist caveat for scripts/run_tests.sh), post-mortem, debugpy for
remote/attach, remote-pdb as the agent-friendly alternative to DAP,
recipes for tui_gateway/_SlashWorker/subprocess debugging.
Improvements to all 5 skills adapted from obra/superpowers:
- Restored anti-rationalization tables and red flags from originals
(key behavioral guardrails that prevent LLMs from taking shortcuts)
- Restored 'Rule of Three' for debugging (3+ failed fixes = question
architecture, not keep fixing)
- Restored Pattern Analysis and Hypothesis Testing phases in debugging
- Restored 'Why Order Matters' rebuttals and verification checklist in TDD
- Added proper Hermes delegate_task integration with real parameter examples
and toolset specifications throughout
- Added Hermes tool usage (search_files, read_file, terminal) for
investigation and verification steps
- Removed references to non-existent skills (brainstorming,
finishing-a-development-branch, executing-plans, using-git-worktrees)
- Removed generic language-specific sections (Go, Rust, Jest) that
added bulk without agent value
- Tightened prose — cut ~430 lines while adding more actionable content
- Added execution handoff section to writing-plans
- Consistent cross-references between the 5 skills
Add 5 new skills for professional software development workflows,
adapted from the Superpowers project ( obra/superpowers ):
- test-driven-development: RED-GREEN-REFACTOR cycle enforcement
- systematic-debugging: 4-phase root cause investigation
- subagent-driven-development: Structured delegation with two-stage review
- writing-plans: Comprehensive implementation planning
- requesting-code-review: Systematic code review process
These skills provide structured development workflows that transform
Hermes from a general assistant into a professional software engineer
with defined processes for quality assurance.
Skills are organized under software-development category and follow
Hermes skill format with proper frontmatter, examples, and integration
guidance with existing skills.
