Treat skill views and edits as activity when curator reports and applies lifecycle transitions, so recently loaded or patched skills are not displayed or transitioned as never used.\n\nAdds regression tests for activity derivation, automatic transitions, and CLI status output.
restore_skill() in tools/skill_usage.py used archive_root.iterdir(), which
only walked the top level of .archive/. Skills archived under nested layouts
(e.g. .archive/openclaw-imports/<skill>/ from older archive paths or
external imports) were invisible to both the exact-match and prefix-match
candidate scans, surfacing as a misleading "skill '<name>' not found in
archive" error even though the directory existed on disk.
Switch both candidate scans to archive_root.rglob('*') so the lookup
descends into category subdirectories.
Fixes#17942
Previous invariants only gated the primary entry points
(apply_automatic_transitions, archive_skill, CLI pin). Several paths
were unprotected:
- bump_view / bump_use / bump_patch / set_state / set_pinned wrote
usage records unconditionally, which is confusing noise in
.usage.json even though the review list filtered them out
- restore_skill did not check whether a bundled skill now shadows
the archived name
- CLI unpin was asymmetric with CLI pin — it had no gate
Fixes:
- _mutate() (the shared counter / state writer) now drops silently
when the skill is not agent-created. .usage.json never gains a
record for a bundled or hub-installed skill.
- restore_skill() refuses to restore under a name that is now
bundled or hub-installed (would shadow upstream).
- CLI unpin gate matches CLI pin.
New tests:
- 5 provenance-guard tests on skill_usage (one per mutator)
- 1 end-to-end test that hammers every mutator at a bundled skill
and a hub skill, asserts both are untouched on disk, and asserts
the sidecar stays clean
- 2 CLI tests proving pin/unpin refuse bundled skills symmetrically
64/64 tests passing (29 skill_usage + 27 curator + 8 new guards).
Adds the Curator — an auxiliary-model background task that periodically
reviews AGENT-CREATED skills and keeps the collection tidy: tracks usage,
transitions unused skills through active → stale → archived, and spawns
a forked AIAgent to consolidate overlaps and patch drift.
Default: enabled, inactivity-triggered (no cron daemon). Runs on CLI
startup and gateway boot when the last run is older than interval_hours
(default 24) AND the agent has been idle for min_idle_hours (default 2).
Invariants (all load-bearing):
- Never touches bundled or hub-installed skills (.bundled_manifest +
.hub/lock.json double-filter)
- Never auto-deletes — archive only. Archives are recoverable
via `hermes curator restore <skill>`
- Pinned skills bypass all auto-transitions
- Uses the aux client; never touches the main session's prompt cache
New files:
- tools/skill_usage.py — sidecar .usage.json telemetry, atomic writes,
provenance filter
- agent/curator.py — orchestrator: config, idle gating, state-machine
transitions (pure, no LLM), forked-agent review prompt
- hermes_cli/curator.py — `hermes curator {status,run,pause,resume,
pin,unpin,restore}` subcommand
- tests/tools/test_skill_usage.py — 29 tests
- tests/agent/test_curator.py — 25 tests
Modified files (surgical patches):
- tools/skills_tool.py — bump view_count on successful skill_view
- tools/skill_manager_tool.py — bump patch_count on skill_manage
patch/edit/write_file/remove_file; forget record on delete
- hermes_cli/config.py — add curator: section to DEFAULT_CONFIG
- hermes_cli/commands.py — add /curator CommandDef with subcommands
- hermes_cli/main.py — register `hermes curator` subparser via
register_cli() from hermes_cli.curator
- cli.py — /curator slash-command dispatch + startup hook
- gateway/run.py — gateway-boot hook (mirrors CLI)
Validation:
- 54 new tests across skill_usage + curator, all passing in 3s
- 346 tests across all touched files' neighbors green
- 2783 tests across hermes_cli/ + gateway/test_run_progress_topics.py green
- CLI smoke: `hermes curator status/pause/resume` work end-to-end
Companion to PR #16026 (class-first skill review prompt) — together
they form a loop: the review prompt stops near-duplicate skill creation
at the source, and the curator prunes/consolidates what still accumulates.
Refs #7816.
