GUI onboarding picked models[0] from /api/model/options, which ignores the
Nous free/paid tier — a free user could land on a paid default (e.g.
anthropic/claude-opus-4). Now the recommended default mirrors what `hermes
model` does.
- web_server.py: new GET /api/model/recommended-default?provider=<slug>. For
Nous it runs the same curation as the CLI (get_curated_nous_model_ids +
pricing + check_nous_free_tier + union_with_portal_{free,paid}_recommendations
+ partition_nous_models_by_tier) so free users get a free model and paid users
get the curated default. Other providers fall back to the first curated model.
Never 500s — returns empty model on error so onboarding degrades gracefully.
- hermes.ts: getRecommendedDefaultModel client + RecommendedDefaultModel type.
- onboarding.ts: fetchProviderDefaultModel prefers the recommended endpoint,
falls back to models[0] when unavailable.
- tests: free-tier picks free model, paid-tier picks curated default, failure
returns empty without 500.
When the GUI sets the main provider to Nous via POST /api/model/set, call
the same apply_nous_managed_defaults the CLI uses after model selection, so
GUI/onboarding users land on the Nous Tool Gateway the same way CLI users do
— no separate prompt, no duplicated logic.
Purely additive: apply_nous_managed_defaults skips any tool where the user
has a direct key (FIRECRAWL_API_KEY, FAL_KEY, etc.) or explicit config, so it
never overwrites a user's own setup. Only unconfigured tools get routed.
- web_server.py: in set_model_assignment (scope=main, provider=nous), resolve
enabled toolsets and apply managed defaults; guarded so a Portal hiccup never
blocks saving the model. Returns routed tools as gateway_tools.
- onboarding.ts: surface a 'Tool Gateway enabled' toast listing routed tools.
- types/hermes.ts: add gateway_tools to ModelAssignmentResponse.
- tests: cover nous-applies, non-nous-skips, and failure-doesnt-block-save.
Voice dictation was broken on Windows in two ways:
1. Mic access was denied. The Electron permission request handler only
granted 'media' requests whose details.mediaTypes included 'audio',
but Chromium on Windows frequently fires the mic request with an empty
mediaTypes array, so getUserMedia threw NotAllowedError. The handler
now grants audio-capture when mediaTypes includes 'audio' OR is
empty/absent, handles the 'audioCapture' permission name, and adds a
setPermissionCheckHandler (the synchronous path Chromium also consults
for getUserMedia on Windows). Video is still denied.
2. Transcripts went nowhere. The composer's insertText handler (used by
dictation and other inserts) only updated the assistant-ui composer
store via setText, never the contentEditable editor DOM. The
draft->editor sync effect only re-renders the editor when it is NOT
focused, and dictation runs while the editor has/regains focus, so the
transcript was stored but never shown and could not be sent. insertText
now renders into the editor DOM and places the caret, mirroring
appendExternalText.
Also hardens fetchJson: a 2xx response with an HTML body (or text/html
content-type) now rejects with a clear message naming the URL instead of
an opaque JSON.parse 'Unexpected token <' error.
Absolute public asset paths (/apple-touch-icon.png, /ds-assets/...) work
under the dev server but break in the packaged app, where the renderer is
loaded from file://.../index.html and a leading slash resolves to the
filesystem root -> broken onboarding provider icon and backdrop image on
macOS. Prefix these with import.meta.env.BASE_URL so they resolve next to
the bundled index.html in both dev and packaged builds.
The assistant message action bar used `hideWhenRunning`, which unmounts it
whenever the thread is streaming. Since the bar reserves vertical space in
each completed assistant message's footer (it's invisible-until-hover via
opacity, not via mount), unmounting it collapsed every prior turn by the
bar's height — then remounting on resolve grew them back, shifting the whole
conversation (visible as "padding appears above the last user message").
Drop hideWhenRunning so the footer height is constant; the bar stays
invisible during streaming via its existing opacity/pointer-events gating.
The streaming caret (::after on the running message's last child) was an
in-flow inline-block adding ~0.78em of inline width, which could wrap the
last line mid-stream; when the caret is removed on completion the line
un-wraps and reflows — the visible post-response layout shift. Net-zero its
inline advance with a compensating negative margin so it paints at the text
end without consuming layout width.
- runGit() hardcoded spawn('git'), which ENOENTs on fresh installer-driven
Windows installs (git is PortableGit under %LOCALAPPDATA%\hermes\git, never
on PATH) — so "Check for updates" failed with "Couldn't check for updates".
Add resolveGitBinary() mirroring findGitBash (PortableGit → Git-for-Windows
→ PATH) and use it in runGit.
- PageSearchShell rendered a full-width search input in the titlebar row, so
on Windows its right edge slid under the fixed top-right tools + native
window controls. Reserve that footprint via --titlebar-tools-* vars.
The first-launch install overlay showed a static "Installing" with no
motion, so long steps (notably the repo clone) looked frozen. Stamp each
stage's start time on the running transition and tick once a second so the
active step shows live elapsed (e.g. "Installing · 1:23"), plus elapsed on
the overall current-step line. Completed steps keep their final duration.
- Feature Nous Portal as the primary onboarding card (Recommended tag,
app logo, single pitch line); collapse other OAuth providers behind an
"Other providers" disclosure whose open/closed state persists.
- Surface OpenRouter as a one-click API-key option inside the disclosure;
move "I have an API key" to a quiet bottom-right link.
- Treat "no provider configured" as a normal onboarding state, not a red
error banner (provider-setup-errors copy match).
- Fix setup.runtime_check: it reported ready when the resolved runtime had
an empty credential or only implicit Bedrock/IAM, so fresh installs never
saw onboarding. Now requires a usable credential.
- Auto-wire Windows fonts for WSL2 users so the renderer renders real
Segoe UI instead of the DejaVu fallback; make WSL detection env-independent
via the /proc kernel marker.
A user who installed via the CLI (irm|iex / install.sh) then ran
`hermes desktop` has no staged hermes-setup.exe, so clicking Update
in-app hit resolveUpdaterBinary()=null and showed a misleading error
('re-run the Hermes installer') with a Try-again button that could
never succeed — a dead loop for a perfectly valid install.
Treat the no-updater case as an intentional outcome, not a failure:
- main.cjs applyUpdates returns { ok:true, manual:true, command:'hermes update' }
(no throw, no 'error' stage) when no updater binary exists.
- New 'manual' update stage + apply-state.command thread the command to the UI.
- updates-overlay ManualView: a polished terminal-native card with the
exact command and a copy button, framed as the correct path for a CLI
user rather than an error.
GUI-installer users are unaffected — hermes-setup.exe present => seamless
auto-update runs as before. Zero new process orchestration; can't fail
the update demo.
Converge update on the same principle as bootstrap: one driver owns all
repo mutation. The desktop becomes a pure consumer that hands off to
Hermes-Setup.exe --update instead of re-implementing git/pip in Electron.
- hermes desktop --build-only: build without launching, so the installer
owns the post-update launch (CLI keeps build logic single-sourced).
- Installer AppMode {Install,Update} from argv; get_mode exposed to the UI.
- Installer self-copies to HERMES_HOME/hermes-setup.exe on install success
(no-op guard during --update re-invocation to avoid the locked-exe copy).
- Installer --update flow (update.rs): wait for the desktop to release the
venv shim, run 'hermes update --yes --gateway' (branch on exit 0/2/other),
then 'hermes desktop --build-only', then launch the rebuilt desktop. Reuses
the bootstrap event channel + progress UI via a synthetic two-stage manifest.
- Desktop applyUpdates() gutted (~105 lines of git/stash/pull/pyproject/pip
removed) -> thin handoff: spawn updater, app.quit() to free the shim.
Detection (checkUpdates, commit changelog, behind-count) kept intact.
- install.ps1 creates Start Menu + Desktop shortcuts to the packed Hermes.exe
(never bare 'hermes desktop', which would rebuild every launch).
Streamdown's per-Block parse cost grows with the live tail's length and
is unavoidable inside the block-memo pattern (industry standard, see
findings doc). The fix is to stop having that work block the main thread.
`<DeferStreamingText>` is a 12-line wrapper that reads message-part state
via `useMessagePartText`, runs it through `useDeferredValue`, and
re-publishes via assistant-ui's `<TextMessagePartProvider>`. The inner
`<StreamdownTextPrimitive>` reads the deferred value through the normal
`useMessagePartText` hook — no fork, no internal-path imports, fully on
assistant-ui's public API. React's concurrent scheduler then:
- abandons in-flight deferred renders when a newer token arrives, so
intermediate states get skipped under fast streams
- deprioritises the markdown render when the main thread has urgent
work (typing, scroll), so input stays responsive even while a
100ms parse is queued
Streamdown already uses `useTransition` for its block-array setState;
this lifts the deferral up to the consumer boundary so it covers the
whole pipeline (preprocess → split → repair → parse → render).
A/B on the 34 MB session, 300 tokens at 50 tok/sec, markdown chunks
(four trials each, with the 33ms flush throttle on for both):
| | avgFps | p99 frame | LTs/5s | max LT | typing-while-stream p95 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| pre | 54.3 | 41 ms | 1.7 | 110 ms | ~17 ms |
| post | 58.5 | 31 ms | 2.0 | 117 ms | 14-18 ms |
Longtask count + max LT unchanged — useDeferredValue doesn't reduce
CPU, only its priority. The avgFps lift and p99 frame drop are the
proof that the existing CPU is no longer blocking 60 fps cadence. One
clean run logged MUTATIONS=0 — React skipped every intermediate text
state and only committed the final one (textbook deferred-value
behaviour).
The actually-reduce-CPU path is replacing the parser with a state
machine like Flowdown — left for a future PR; see
`apps/desktop/scripts/profile-typing-lag.md` for the full investigation.
`scheduleDeltaFlush` previously coalesced via `requestAnimationFrame`
only. The "at most one flush per frame" guarantee that gives you is fine
for fast streams (>~80 tok/sec) where multiple tokens arrive within a
single frame, but breaks down at typical LLM token rates (30-80 tok/sec)
where each token arrives slower than the rAF cadence and triggers its
own React commit + Streamdown markdown re-parse.
Track `lastFlushAt` and require at least 33 ms between two flushes.
React 18+ auto-batching probabilistically already collapsed some of
these, but the floor makes it deterministic.
A/B on the 34 MB session, 300 tokens at 50 tok/sec (markdown chunks):
| | avgFps | p99 frame | LTs / 5 s | max LT |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| no floor (current rAF) | 54.0 | 38 ms | 2.0 | 145 ms |
| 33 ms floor (this PR) | 54.3 | 41 ms | 1.7 | 110 ms |
`inter-mutation` p50 also tightens from 22-28 ms to a clean 33 ms,
which is the expected signature of a deterministic floor. Doesn't fully
solve the user's perceived hitches — Streamdown's per-Block parse cost
when the last block grows past ~2 k chars is still the elephant — but
it consistently shaves the worst-case longtask and makes the streaming
cadence visibly steadier.
Also threads a matching `flushMinMs` option through the synthetic
stream driver in `perf-probe.tsx` + `scripts/measure-synthetic-stream.mjs`
so the harness can A/B both regimes without spending LLM credits.
See `scripts/profile-typing-lag.md` for the full investigation.
The inline `plugins={{ math: mathPlugin, ...(isStreaming ? {} : { code }) }}`
on `<StreamdownTextPrimitive>` constructed a new object literal on every
parent render. That broke `<Streamdown>`'s outer memo and forced its
internal `rehypePlugins` / `remarkPlugins` array useMemos to rebuild,
which propagates a new identity into every `<Block>` and defeats Block's
memoization for stable historical blocks.
After memoizing on `[isStreaming]` (the only real dimension of variance),
CPU profile during a 5 s synthetic stream on the 34 MB session shows
`parser` self-time dropping out of the top 10, `compile` cut roughly in
half, and `bn$1` / `m$1` (micromark internals) leaving the top entries.
Doesn't move the visible longtask count on its own — Streamdown's
per-Block parse cost still dominates whenever the last block's content
changes — but it removes a class of unnecessary re-parses for historical
blocks during streaming. See `scripts/profile-typing-lag.md` for the
full investigation.
FadeText is used 110+ times inside `tool-fallback.tsx` on a tool-heavy
thread. During streaming each parent re-render previously triggered the
component's `useEffect([children])`, which forced a `scrollWidth` layout
read even when the title text was unchanged. The `useResizeObserver` was
already covering the genuine resize case, so that effect was strictly
redundant work.
Drops the effect and wraps the component in `React.memo` with a custom
comparator that field-compares `className`, `fadeWidth`, and `style`,
plus identity-compares `children` (scalar fast-path; correct for JSX
nodes too since a new node should force a re-render).
Verified via temporary render counter on the 34 MB
`session_20260514_215353_fe0ac8` thread (110 FadeText instances): a
2 s synthetic stream went from ~11k FadeText render calls to 122 —
roughly one render per truly-new instance instead of one per parent
commit per instance.
Doesn't move the longtask needle on its own (Streamdown's markdown
re-parse dwarfs it) but eliminates a steady CPU floor and a class of
forced layouts during streaming. Profile-typing-lag.md documents the
full investigation, including the remaining Streamdown cost as the
real source of the perceived "5 fps moment" hitches.
Drops the React `<Profiler>` approach (no-op because Vite is currently
serving the production React build) in favor of an externally-observable
measurement stack: rAF frame intervals, `PerformanceObserver({entryTypes:
['longtask']})`, and a `MutationObserver` on the live streaming message.
Adds a synthetic stream driver — `window.__PERF_DRIVE__.stream({...})` —
that pushes tokens through the live `$messages` atom at a controlled rate,
so the assistant-ui runtime, incremental repository, and Streamdown
markdown pipeline see the same workload they'd see during a real LLM
stream, without the LLM cost.
The driver lives in `src/app/chat/perf-probe.tsx`; `main.tsx` side-imports
it under `import.meta.env.MODE !== 'production'` so it tree-shakes out of
prod builds. (Using `MODE` rather than `DEV` because our Vite setup
currently reports `DEV=false` even under `vite dev` — see the dev-build
note in `profile-typing-lag.md`.)
Scripts:
- measure-synthetic-stream.mjs drive synthetic + record frame/longtask/mutation
- profile-synth-stream.mjs CPU profile + top self-time during synthetic
- measure-real-stream.mjs same harness, real LLM stream
- profile-real-stream.mjs CPU profile bracketing the real stream window
- eval.mjs / reload.mjs small CDP helpers
A real-LLM measurement on Cloud Shadows (gpt-4o-mini, 39 s window) showed
12 longtasks in the same 75-127 ms range the synthetic predicted, so the
synthetic is a faithful proxy.
Replace composerPlainText() call inside refreshTrigger's no-trigger
fast-bail with a textContent check. textContent is a browser-native
flat traversal; composerPlainText walks recursively with chip-aware
logic. We only need to know if @ or / appears; either way the trigger
char will be in textContent because chips contain @ in their refText.
Profile shows composerPlainText was ~18ms self over a 12s typing-during-
stream window, called from refreshTrigger on every keystroke. Most of
that was the precondition check (the trigger detection path is the
slow path but only runs when a trigger char is present).
Follow-up to the Enter-jump fix. The first version did a synchronous
re-pin loop inside the on-scroll handler when the browser clamped our
`scrollTop = scrollHeight` write short of the new bottom; that gave a
tight 4 px visible jump on Enter, but during streaming the
ResizeObserver fires many times per second as content grows, and each
RO callback re-entered the pin loop. CPU profile showed
`Virtualizer.getMaxScrollOffset` climbing to 22 ms self over a typing-
during-streaming window — the sync re-pin path was paying tanstack-
virtual's recompute cost ~3× per token.
Re-architect:
- RO callback coalesces to one pin per animation frame. Streaming-rate
RO bursts now cost the same as a single per-frame pin.
- The on-scroll programmatic-counter guard remains (it's what prevents
the false-disarm bug when the browser clamps a write). It no longer
does sync re-pins; the next RO/rAF will catch up.
- The useLayoutEffect on groupCount (the path that fires on user
submit / new turn arrival) ALSO schedules one rAF pin in addition to
the synchronous pin. This catches the case where React mounts the
new message in a second commit (after our layout effect ran), which
grows scrollHeight again. Two pins instead of a tight loop, paid only
once per turn change.
Net effect on the Cloud Shadows long thread:
enter-jump transient: 12–20 px for 1 frame (was 49 px permanent)
CPU during stream+type: `getMaxScrollOffset` dropped out of top-5
self-time list
typing-during-stream: p50 ~10 ms paint, p99 ~20 ms (1 frame),
occasional 40 ms+ outliers during burst
token arrivals
Also adds scripts/profile-long-stream.mjs: 20-second streaming profile
with per-500ms FPS histogram + content-length tracking, so we can see
whether streaming render cost grows with message length (it doesn't —
sustained 60 fps).
User reported: after pressing Enter on a long thread, the view jumps up
— the just-submitted message disappears below the fold. Confirmed via
apps/desktop/scripts/measure-jump.mjs:
before: distFromBottom 0 → 49.5px, sticks there permanently
after: distFromBottom 0 → ~0 (worst case 4px for one frame)
Root cause in useThreadScrollAnchor (thread-virtualizer.tsx):
1. The sticky-bottom logic disarmed on any scroll event where
`scrollTop < lastTopRef.current`. That check can't distinguish a
user scrolling up from a programmatic `pinToBottom` write that
the browser clamped short of bottom (because content also grew in
the same frame, so `scrollTop = scrollHeight` lands at
`scrollHeight - clientHeight` for the OLD scrollHeight, which is
now below the NEW scrollHeight). Result: sticky-bottom disarmed
permanently on the user's first submit.
2. There was no synchronous pin tied to React's commit phase. By the
time the ResizeObserver fired and re-pinned, the user had already
seen ~50ms of "message below the fold" — visually that reads as the
view jumping up.
Fix:
- `programmaticScrollPendingRef` counter tracks scroll events we
expect to be ours (one per `pinToBottom` write). The scroll handler
skips the disarm check when consuming a pending tick, keeps the
arm bit true, and re-pins synchronously if the browser clamped us
short of bottom. A depth cap (8) breaks runaway loops in
pathological streaming-burst layouts.
- `useLayoutEffect` on `groupCount` increase pins BEFORE the browser
paints, eliminating the visible ~50ms window between optimistic
user-message insert and the RO/scroll-event chain firing.
Verified on the long Cloud Shadows thread (7-8 turns, ~11k px tall):
all three repro runs now hold within 0–4 px of bottom across the
post-Enter transition. Submit latency unchanged (paint 77–107 ms),
streaming-typing latency unchanged.
Also adds three debug harnesses:
- measure-jump.mjs — sample thread scroll across Enter
- probe-thread.mjs — dump current thread / scroll state
- diag-jump.mjs — intercept scrollTop + RO + mutations across Enter
The slowest user-felt path is typing into the composer while the
assistant is streaming. Profile (scripts/profile-under-stream.mjs):
FadeText measureOverflow self time: 35.8 ms → 18.1 ms (-50%)
total active CPU during 7s window: ~150 ms → ~50 ms
Two changes in src/components/ui/fade-text.tsx:
1. Drop the `useEffect([children])` that re-ran `measureOverflow`
(reads scrollWidth + clientWidth — forced layout) on every parent
re-render. `useResizeObserver` already fires the same callback on
mount and whenever the host span's box size changes; that covers
the only case where overflow state can legitimately change. The
previous explicit useEffect was a forced-layout flush on every
parent render, which during streaming meant every token tick.
2. Wrap the component in `memo` with a custom comparator that
short-circuits the entire render when scalar string `children` and
the className/fadeWidth/style props are unchanged. The hot path
was tool-fallback's title chips being re-rendered by parent
streaming updates even though their text was stable; memo+
comparator skips that.
Also adds two harness scripts under apps/desktop/scripts/:
- latency-under-stream.mjs (key→paint latency while a turn streams)
- profile-under-stream.mjs (CPU profile while a turn streams)
Updates profile-typing-lag.md with the streaming numbers and confirms
the Enter→paint submit path is already fast (≤320ms on the populated
session; the 2s "stall after Enter" the user noticed once was a
one-time cold-start, not reproducible at the UI layer).
I'd guess the felt jank in real use is fast-burst typing during a
long-form streaming reply (code blocks + markdown lists multiply the
per-token render cost). The CPU savings here scale linearly with
token volume.
Empirical work via CDP harnesses under apps/desktop/scripts/ (see
profile-typing-lag.md):
jsListeners growth (per round of 200 chars + GC):
before: +35 (verified leak — listeners stuck after 1st trigger popover use)
after: +0
Four narrow edits in src/app/chat/composer/index.tsx:
1. Drop the per-keystroke `editorRef.current.scrollHeight` read used to
decide composer expansion. Replace with `draft.length > 60` heuristic;
the existing ResizeObserver still catches edge cases. `scrollHeight`
is a forced-layout call and was firing on every char until the first
wrap.
2. Bucket measured composer height to 8px before writing
`--composer-measured-height` / `--composer-surface-measured-height`
on `documentElement`. Without this, the editor grows ~1px per char,
setProperty fires every keystroke, computed style is invalidated tree-
wide.
3. Remove the dead `$composerDraft` two-way sync. Nothing outside the
composer subscribed to that atom (verified via grep). Two useEffects
on `[draft]` were pushing draft→atom and atom→aui per keystroke for
no consumer. Also drop the per-keystroke
`reconcileComposerTerminalSelections` call; it was pruning stale
labels for `terminalContextBlocksFromDraft`, but that helper already
ignores labels not in the current submitted text, so pruning per
keystroke was just bookkeeping.
4. `refreshTrigger` fast-bails when the draft contains neither `@` nor
`/`. Previously `textBeforeCaret(editor)` ran on every input/keyup
regardless; `range.toString()` inside is O(n) over draft length.
Synthetic typing latency p50/p90/p99 is similar before vs after on a
freshly-loaded session (Blink can already handle ~30cps typing into a
contentEditable on its own); the real win is the listener leak being
gone and the global computed-style invalidations dropping ~8× when the
composer is sitting at a fixed height row.
The `Enter → stall` follow-up (see profile-typing-lag.md §"Submit /
TTFT stall") is unmeasured here — needs a throwaway session because
the harness fires a real prompt. Not blocking this commit.
Adds a VSCode-style "focus terminal" toggle to the right sidebar's Terminal
tab that takes over the chat pane area without unmounting the shell. The
xterm host is mounted once at the layout root and CSS-overlayed onto
whichever <TerminalSlot /> is currently active, so the PTY session,
scrollback, selection, focus, and WebGL renderer survive every toggle.
Also:
- WebGL renderer (matching dashboard ChatPage) so Hermes' TUI skins paint
faithfully instead of muting through xterm's default DOM renderer
- File drag/drop from the project tree or OS into xterm — paths are
shell-quoted (zsh/bash/pwsh/cmd) and written straight into the PTY
- Solarized dark canvas with brights promoted to real accent variants
(Schoonover's UI-gray brights washed out every TUI accent)
- Strip NO_COLOR/FORCE_COLOR/COLORFGBG/TERM=dumb leaking from non-tty
parents (CI runners, Cursor's agent shell) so the embedded shell gets
truecolor regardless of how Electron was launched
- rAF-debounced ResizeObserver — running fit.fit() synchronously during
sibling pane transitions crashed the WebGL texture-atlas rebuild
Converges the Windows packaged desktop installer onto a single canonical
install topology: drop the Electron shell only (~80MB instead of ~500MB),
clone Hermes Agent at a build-time-pinned commit on first launch via
install.ps1's stage protocol, and treat the resulting git checkout at
%LOCALAPPDATA%\hermes\hermes-agent\ as the canonical install location
(same path the CLI installer uses). Future updates flow through the
existing applyUpdates() git-pull path.
Replaces the previous fat-installer architecture where the .exe bundled
a pre-staged hermes-agent source tree under resources/hermes-agent/ that
was then sync'd into ACTIVE_HERMES_ROOT at launch -- a complicated
factory-vs-active dance with several footguns (FACTORY_HERMES_ROOT
mismatch on path resolve, isGitCheckout guard regressions, pyproject
hash drift detection inside the sync loop).
Architecture overview
---------------------
Build time
apps/desktop/scripts/write-build-stamp.cjs writes
apps/desktop/build/install-stamp.json with {commit, branch, builtAt,
dirty}. Honours $GITHUB_SHA / $GITHUB_REF_NAME in CI, falls back to
`git rev-parse HEAD` locally.
apps/desktop/scripts/stage-native-deps.cjs copies the runtime subset
of @homebridge/node-pty-prebuilt-multiarch from the workspace-root
node_modules into apps/desktop/build/native-deps/. Workspace dedup
hoists this dep to the root, out of reach of electron-builder's
`files:`-restricted collector; staging gives us a deterministic
path to extraResources.
electron-builder ships both into resources/install-stamp.json and
resources/native-deps/ respectively.
Boot resolver (electron/main.cjs)
Resolver order:
1. HERMES_DESKTOP_HERMES_ROOT override
2. SOURCE_REPO_ROOT (dev mode)
3. ACTIVE_HERMES_ROOT git checkout WITH .hermes-bootstrap-complete
marker -- the post-install fast path
4. `hermes` on PATH (CLI-installed user adding the desktop)
5. pip-installed hermes_cli via system Python
6. bootstrap-needed sentinel -> hand off to runBootstrap
Deletes the entire FACTORY_HERMES_ROOT / RUNTIME_MARKER /
syncTreeExcludingVenv machinery (-200 lines). The isGitCheckout
guard that bit us in the install.ps1 PR is gone.
First-launch bootstrap (electron/bootstrap-runner.cjs)
1. Resolve install.ps1: prefer SOURCE_REPO_ROOT/scripts (dev), else
download from GitHub raw at INSTALL_STAMP.commit (cached at
HERMES_HOME\bootstrap-cache\install-<sha>.ps1).
2. Fetch the stage manifest via install.ps1 -Manifest -Commit X
-Branch Y.
3. Iterate stages: install.ps1 -Stage <name> -NonInteractive -Json
-Commit X -Branch Y per stage.
4. On all stages green: write the .hermes-bootstrap-complete
marker with {schemaVersion, pinnedCommit, pinnedBranch,
completedAt, desktopVersion}.
Per-run log to HERMES_HOME\logs\bootstrap-<ts>.log. Cancellation
via AbortSignal. Manifest cache so retries don't re-download.
Install overlay (src/components/desktop-install-overlay.tsx)
Mounted alongside the existing onboarding overlay; flexbox card
with header (static) + middle (scrollable) + footer (failure-only,
static). Subscribes to hermes:bootstrap:event IPC + resyncs from
hermes:bootstrap:get on mount/reload. Renders:
- 14-stage checklist with per-stage state icons
- Overall progress bar + current-stage spotlight
- Auto-expanded installer-output panel on failure
- "Copy output" button (full ring buffer + error to clipboard)
- "Reload and retry" wired through hermes:bootstrap:reset to
clear main.cjs's latched failure
Synthetic empty-manifest event from main.cjs flips the overlay to
'active' immediately so the slow install.ps1 download doesn't
leave the user staring at the generic Preparing splash.
Failure latching (main.cjs)
bootstrapFailure module-scope variable holds the rejection after
install.ps1 fails. startHermes() throws the latched error
immediately when set, bypassing the entire ensureRuntime +
runBootstrap chain. Without this, the renderer's ensureGatewayOpen
retries would re-run install.ps1 in a 5-10 min hot loop while the
user was still reading the failure overlay. Cleared via
hermes:bootstrap:reset on user-driven retry.
Unsupported-platform overlay (1F)
macOS / Linux packaged builds (no install.sh stage protocol yet)
emit an unsupported-platform event with a copy-pasteable install
command + docs URL. Dedicated overlay branch with "Copy command"
+ "I've run it -- retry" buttons.
install.ps1 additions (Phase 1F.3 + 1F.5)
-----------------------------------------
New -Commit and -Tag string params. Precedence Commit > Tag >
Branch. Honoured by all three code paths (update / fresh clone /
ZIP fallback), with archive URL selection that handles each
ref-type variant. Detached-HEAD checkouts intentionally -- they're
pins, not branches the user pulls into.
EAP=Continue wrap around the new pin-step git invocations. `git
fetch origin <commit>` writes the routine 'From <url>' info line to
stderr; under the script's global EAP=Stop that terminates the
script even though fetch+checkout succeed. Matches the established
pattern in Install-Uv, Test-Python, _Run-NpmInstall.
Backend fix (hermes_cli/web_server.py)
--------------------------------------
CORS allow_origin_regex now accepts Origin: 'null'. Packaged
Electron loads index.html via file://; Chromium sets the WebSocket
upgrade Origin header to the opaque origin 'null', which the old
regex rejected with HTTP 403 before gateway_ws() ever ran. This
failure mode was masked in the older FACTORY_HERMES_ROOT
architecture because the resolver often found an existing hermes
on PATH with different binding behavior.
Security maintained: localhost-only bind keeps cross-machine pages
out; per-process session token still gates every authenticated
/api/ endpoint regardless of Origin.
Desktop QoL
-----------
DevTools is now enabled in packaged builds (F12 / Cmd+Opt+I).
Field-debugging trade-off: tiny attack surface increase versus
a much better support story when CSP / WS / theme issues surface.
NSIS prereq-check page deleted (-767 lines). The standard
Welcome -> License -> Directory -> InstallFiles -> Finish wizard
now installs without custom Python/Git/ripgrep detection -- those
prereqs are install.ps1's job at first launch.
Test infrastructure (Phase 1G)
------------------------------
apps/desktop/scripts/test-desktop.mjs rewritten as a cross-platform
bundle validator (was darwin-only and asserted on dead factory-
payload paths):
NEGATIVE: hermes_cli/main.py is NOT shipped (regression guard)
POSITIVE: install-stamp.json carries a real commit + branch
POSITIVE: node-pty native deps shipped under resources/native-deps
POSITIVE: renderer dist/index.html reachable (asar or unpacked)
New nsis mode and npm run test:desktop:nsis script.
Validated end-to-end on clean Win10 VM
--------------------------------------
Confirmed: NSIS installer drops Electron shell, app launches,
install overlay shows progress, install.ps1 clones the pinned
commit, 14 stages run to completion, marker written, backend
spawns, WebSocket connects, onboarding overlay asks for API key,
main UI loads, integrated terminal works.
Failures handled: bootstrap stays failed (no hot-loop retry),
"Copy output" gives actionable transcript, "Reload and retry"
explicitly re-runs install.ps1.
What's deferred
---------------
- MSIX wrapping (Phase 2): same Electron .exe under MSIX manifest
with runFullTrust, signed and submitted to Microsoft Store.
- install.sh stage protocol parity (Phase 2): once shipped, the
unsupported-platform overlay becomes drive-it-yourself and
macOS/Linux packaged installers gain feature parity with Windows.
Replaces `use-stick-to-bottom` and per-row session rendering with
`@tanstack/react-virtual`, matching what Cursor uses.
Chat thread (`thread-virtualizer.tsx`):
- Natural-flow virtualization (padding spacers, not absolute items) so
`position: sticky` on the human bubble still resolves cleanly against
the scroller.
- Custom at-bottom anchor: pins when armed, disarms on user-driven
upward scroll, re-arms at bottom, jumps on session switch +
`thread.runStart`.
- Loading indicator and `--thread-last-message-clearance` move to a
real `[data-slot=aui_composer-clearance]` node; drops the brittle
`:nth-last-child(1 of …)` rule that can't fire reliably under
virtualization.
Sidebar (`virtual-session-list.tsx`):
- Flat agents list virtualizes at >=25 rows; pinned and
workspace-grouped paths stay direct-render.
- `SortableContext` keeps all IDs; only the window mounts; dnd-kit's
`setNodeRef` is merged with `virtualizer.measureElement` so rows
participate in both DnD hit-testing and TanStack measurement.
Drops `use-stick-to-bottom`. Streaming test gets a global
`offsetWidth/offsetHeight` stub so the virtualizer's viewport sizing
works in jsdom; the scroll-up-doesn't-pull-back invariant still passes.
xterm's default ANSI 16 is tuned for dark and reads candy-bright on the
light glass surface (vivid cyans/greens). Ship the canonical Solarized
palette (Schoonover) for both modes — same 16 accents either way, only
fg/cursor swap between `base00/01` (light) and `base0/1` (dark), so a
prompt's colors look uniform across a Shift+X toggle.
Background stays transparent in both modes — Solarized's cream/slate
backgrounds would fight the glass.
- Wire right-click on session rows to open the same actions menu;
suppresses the OS-native context menu so Windows stops looking awful.
- Share dropdown + context menu items via useSessionActions() driving
a single declarative ItemSpec[]; render polymorphic over MenuItem.
- New shadcn ContextMenu primitive mirroring DropdownMenu styling.
- Restore drag-and-drop reordering for Agents (lost during the cwd
cleanup) and add reordering of workspace groups via a right-side
grab handle. Pinned reorder unchanged.
- Generic orderByIds<T> replaces the duplicated session/group orderers;
useSortableBindings() hook collapses the two Sortable wrappers.
- cursor-pointer on every actionable element; cursor-grab on handles.
- KISS pass: baseName() helper, AGE_TICKS table, single WORKSPACE_PAGE
constant, flatter SidebarSessionsSection render.
The right-sidebar terminal hardcoded a light palette, which read poorly
on the dark glass surface. Subscribe to `useTheme().resolvedMode` and
hot-swap `term.options.theme` so Shift+X (and any other mode change)
updates the terminal in place without tearing down the PTY session.
Dark mode uses xterm's built-in defaults (white fg/cursor + vivid ANSI
16) with just a transparent background so the glass shows through;
light mode keeps the existing hand-tuned overrides for legibility on a
bright surface.
- Detect provider failure text arriving via message.complete
(HTTP 4xx, "API call failed after N retries", Provider/Gateway
error: ...) and persist as an inline assistant error instead of
regular completion text, blocking the hydrate that was wiping it.
- preserveLocalAssistantErrors: merge by id so same-id hydrated
messages keep their local error, and preserve the optimistic
user+error pair as a unit (with tail-user dedupe).
- Hook all hydrate/resume writers (use-session-actions resume +
fallback, hydrateFromStoredSession, syncSessionStateToView) into
the merge so stale snapshots can't clobber a failed turn.
- Add error to chatMessagesEquivalent so the resume diff actually
sees error-only changes and paints them.
- editMessage on a failed turn now submits a plain resend (no
truncate_before_user_ordinal) and retries plainly on the
"no longer in session history" race.
Style polish on touched files:
- Inline error: text-only treatment (no card).
- User stop / edit-composer send: shared Tabler IconPlayerStopFilled
glyph + shared icon-button class slot for parity.
Resolve the Command Center import conflict by keeping the Usage panel icon and dropping the unused haptics import from the base branch.
Co-authored-by: Cursor <cursoragent@cursor.com>
Activity rail and History stub were both noise. Strip the split layout,
sidebar, route enum, and the rail/stub helpers — the overlay is now just
the spawn tree, centered in a max-w-3xl column so it stops claiming the
whole screen for one section's worth of content.
Pull the agents view closer to how chat tool blocks render:
- statusGlyph() returns the same lucide BrailleSpinner / CheckCircle2 /
AlertCircle vocabulary as tool-fallback's statusGlyph
- Stream lines fade-in via useEnterAnimation (one-shot WAAPI), keyed per
entry so streamed deltas settle in instead of popping
- Subagent rows fade in too, and pick up the existing data-slot=tool-block
spacing rules between blocks
- Active stream line trails a BrailleSpinner instead of a hand-rolled
pulsing rectangle
- Goal text drops FadeText (which forces nowrap); keep FadeText only for
the single-line meta subtitle
- Running rows shimmer the title — same affordance the chat thinking row
uses
When a tool returns nothing useful, the row should be silent — the title
("Search Files", etc.) already tells the user what happened. Counting the
fields in an opaque payload is engineer-noise.
`formatToolResultSummary` and `minimalValueSummary` now return '' for
empty arrays / records / unrecognized values; tool-fallback already hides
the detail section when its body is empty.
The pill was getting clipped at the overlay edge anyway. Just use the
status glyph (●/✓/✗/■/○) — the delegation header already conveys
"3 workers, 3 active", and order in the list implies which step you're
looking at.
Lift the keyboard handler into the shared OverlayView so Agents, Settings,
Command Center — and anything we build on top of it later — all dismiss on
Esc by default. Nested Radix dialogs stop propagation themselves, so a
modal opened inside an overlay (e.g. model picker inside Settings) still
closes the modal first, not the overlay underneath.
Drop the now-redundant Esc handlers in Settings (kept Cmd/Ctrl+P) and
Command Center.
Strip the card chrome and rewire /agents to feel like peeking into the
child agent's stream:
- subagents store: single `stream` of typed entries (thinking/tool/progress/
summary) replaces the parallel notes/thinking/tools arrays. Drop unused
fields (toolsets, depth, apiCalls, reasoningTokens, sessionId).
- agents view: no OverlayCards, no boxed stream, no per-row borders. Goal +
status pill + indented stream lines, full row width.
- Group root spawns into "Delegation N" sections when batch shape + spawn
time match — hides task-index interleaving and makes hierarchy obvious.
- Sort tree by spawn time, then task_index. Step indicator is one colored
pill (primary while running, emerald when done) inside the row, not a
trailing pill that wrapped under the chevron.
- Tree picks up `subagent.start` (not only `spawn_requested`) and prunes
delegate-tool fallback rows once native subagent events land for the
session — fixes duplicate "Delegated task" rows alongside the real ones.
Keep Cron and Profiles available through lower-prominence chrome entry points so the workspace sidebar stays focused on core chat navigation.
Co-authored-by: Cursor <cursoragent@cursor.com>
