The background write guard decided ownership from `isinstance(usage_rec, dict)`,
so a local skill with NO usage record passed. That successful write called
bump_patch(), which created a `created_by: null` record — and the identical
write was refused from then on. "Allowed exactly once, then never" is a race
with our own bookkeeping, not a policy. Reproduced on main: patch #1 succeeds,
patch #2 with the same arguments is refused.
Option B from the issue. Option A (split `session_review` from
`scheduled_curator` and let the session fork patch user-owned skills it
consulted) would widen autonomous write permission onto skills the user owns
with no user present to consent — wrong direction for a no-user-present actor.
- skill_manager_tool: missing and explicit-null records now resolve
IDENTICALLY, both fail closed. The refusal names the reason and points at
`hermes curator adopt <name>`.
- background_review: both review prompts told the reviewer to patch any skill
consulted in the session and claimed pinned skills could be improved, while
enforcement refused both. Prompts now list pinned, external, and user-owned
skills as protected, and tell the reviewer to RECOMMEND adoption instead of
attempting a write that will be refused.
- skill_usage: document that `created_by` is a curator-management policy flag,
not a provenance claim, and add `is_curator_managed()` so call sites read as
the question they ask. Field name retained — it is on disk in every
`.usage.json` and renaming would strand those records.
- curator CLI: `hermes curator list-unmanaged` itemizes unmanaged skills with
the reason each is unmanaged (completes the #67139 spec).
Foreground writes are untouched: a user-directed edit to a user-owned skill
still works, including on pinned skills.
Sibling tests: 9 failures in test_skill_manager_tool.py were fixtures that
created record-less skills to exercise OTHER guards (consolidation-delete,
read-before-write) and relied on ownership falling through. Fixed at the
fixture, since the real curator only ever operates on managed sediment. One
test asserted the old "manually authored" wording; rewritten to assert the
behavior contract instead of the string.
Validation: 274 targeted tests + all 7 background-review files (60 tests) pass.
E2E on a temp HERMES_HOME (30 checks) covers the flip, foreground writes,
adoption unblocking, pin semantics, prompt/enforcement parity, and the new verb.
Each new test sabotage-verified: revert the fix, confirm it goes red.
Fixes#67140
`hermes curator status` reported only the skills it manages, staying silent
about curation-eligible skills it can never touch. On a 237-skill library that
meant 112 skills were invisible to every automatic transition with no signal
anywhere — the curator looked broken when it was working as designed.
A skill becomes curator-managed only when `created_by: agent` lands on its
usage record, and only the background review fork writes that marker. Two
populations therefore never qualify: records written before the marker existed
(no key at all, authorship unknowable) and every foreground
`skill_manage(create)` (unset by design — those skills belong to the user).
- skill_usage: `list_unmanaged_skill_names()` / `unmanaged_report()` enumerate
the blind spot, tagging each row with `has_provenance_key` so the two causes
are distinguishable. `adopt_skill()` writes the marker on user declaration
and refuses bundled, hub-installed, external, and protected built-ins.
Adoption never resets the inactivity clock.
- curator CLI: status prints an `unmanaged (no provenance marker)` block on
BOTH the managed and no-managed-skills paths; new `adopt` verb takes names or
`--all-unmanaged`, with `--dry-run` and a confirmation prompt on bulk.
- skills_sync: `_backfill_optional_provenance()` matched candidates by
repo-derived path only, so a skill installed at `mlops/chroma` that upstream
later moved to `mlops/vector-databases/chroma` was skipped forever and
`hermes skills repair-optional` could not fix it. Falls back to an
unambiguous name match, still gated on identical content, and records the
ACTUAL install path.
Provenance stays a declaration, never an inference: a high patch count proves
the agent MAINTAINS a skill, not that it authored one, since Hermes edits
user-written skills on the user's behalf routinely. An "looks agent-made"
heuristic would eventually archive hand-written work.
Validation: 347 targeted tests pass. Each new test verified via sabotage run
(revert the fix, confirm the test goes red) — one initially passed for the
wrong reason because the fixture pinned `prune_builtins` off, masking the guard
under test; fixed to force the shipped default on.
The curator now defaults to prune-only: the deterministic inactivity pass
(mark stale / archive long-unused skills) still runs whenever the curator is
enabled, but the opinionated LLM umbrella-building consolidation fork is OFF
by default.
- agent/curator.py: add DEFAULT_CONSOLIDATE=False + get_consolidate(); gate
the forked aux-model review in run_curator_review behind it (new consolidate
param, None=read config). When off, the LLM pass is skipped entirely (no
aux-model cost); the run is still recorded and reported.
- config.py: add curator.consolidate (default false); v29->v30 migration seeds
the key for existing installs without clobbering a user-set value.
- hermes_cli/curator.py: 'hermes curator run --consolidate' override; status
shows consolidate state; prune-only notice on run.
- docs + tests.
The curator's idle-archival path (apply_automatic_transitions under
prune_builtins) could archive the bundled `plan` skill, killing the
/plan slash command silently — typing /plan then returned 'Unknown
command' with no signal that a skill had vanished. The archived skill's
hash stays in .bundled_manifest, so 'hermes update' wouldn't re-seed it.
Add PROTECTED_BUILTIN_SKILLS ({plan}) enforced at the master gate
is_curation_eligible() (covers archive_skill + the transition walk) and
in the candidate enumerator (so the LLM consolidation pass never sees
them). Immune to prune_builtins, pin state, and LLM judgment.
The curator docs stated that any skill not bundled/hub-installed was
'agent-created' and subject to curation — including foreground-created
skills and hand-written ones. Since PR #19621 (May 2026), the curator
requires an explicit marker in .usage.json, which
only the background self-improvement review fork sets.
Changes:
- Rewrite 'What agent-created means' to document the 3-step eligibility
check (not bundled + not hub + created_by=agent marker)
- Explain that foreground skill_manage(create) does NOT mark skills as
agent-created (user-directed by design)
- Warn that hand-written skills are NOT curated
- Add note in Per-run reports explaining the '(not resolved)' display
when no candidates exist (LLM pass skipped, not a config error)
- Link to skill_provenance.py for the write-origin ContextVar
Ref: PR #19621, tools/skill_provenance.py, tools/skill_manager_tool.py
The locale switcher appeared broken because hardcoded markdown links
(`](/docs/X)`) got double-prefixed by Docusaurus to `/docs/<locale>/docs/X`
(404) in non-English locales, and the MDX hero `<a href>` on the index
page escaped locale routing entirely.
Changes:
- Rewrite 922 `](/docs/X)` -> `](/X)` across 166 docs files (strip trailing
.md too). Docusaurus prepends locale + baseUrl itself.
- docs/index.md -> index.mdx; hero "Get Started" anchor -> Docusaurus
<Link> so it stays inside the active locale.
- Drop `ko` locale entirely from docusaurus.config.ts + delete i18n/ko/
(4 stale auto-translated kanban pages, <2% coverage, misleading).
Verified `npm run build` succeeds for both en and zh-Hans; `build/zh-Hans/
index.html` has no /docs/zh-Hans/docs/... double-prefixed paths.
PR2 will translate the 335 English docs into i18n/zh-Hans/.
Follow-up to the previous commit which flipped 'hermes curator run'
default from async to sync. Updates the curator.md feature page and
cli-commands.md reference to show --background as the opt-in async
flag and note that the default now blocks until the LLM pass finishes.
Previously, pinning a skill blocked every skill_manage write action
(edit, patch, delete, write_file, remove_file). The 'hard fence'
design conflated two concerns:
1. Pin as deletion protection — don't let the curator archive
or the agent delete a stable skill.
2. Pin as content freeze — don't let the agent rewrite it mid-conversation.
In practice (1) is what users pin for: they want a skill to survive
curator passes. (2) created friction — agents finding a new pitfall
in a pinned skill had to ask the user to unpin, then the agent
patches, then the user re-pins. The dance discouraged skill
maintenance and pinned skills went stale.
This narrows the _pinned_guard to skill_manage(action='delete') only.
Patches, edits, and supporting-file writes go through on pinned
skills so the agent can keep improving them. The curator's own
pinned-skip behavior (agent/curator.py:271 for auto-archive,
line 349 for the LLM review prompt) is unchanged — curator still
never touches pinned skills.
Changes:
- tools/skill_manager_tool.py: remove _pinned_guard calls from
_edit_skill, _patch_skill, _write_file, _remove_file; keep on
_delete_skill. Updated _pinned_guard docstring and error message.
- tools/skill_manager_tool.py: updated skill_manage model-facing tool
description to reflect the new semantic.
- website/docs/user-guide/features/curator.md: updated pinning
section.
- tests/tools/test_skill_manager_tool.py: flipped refuses-pinned
tests for edit/patch/write_file/remove_file into allowed-when-pinned;
kept test_delete_refuses_pinned (strengthened assertion to check the
'cannot be deleted' wording).
Closes#18354
* fix(curator): defer first run and add --dry-run preview (#18373)
Curator was meant to run 7 days after install, not on the very first
gateway tick. On a fresh install (no .curator_state), should_run_now()
returned True immediately because last_run_at was None — so the gateway
cron ticker fired Curator against a fresh skill library moments after
'hermes update'. Combined with the binary 'agent-created' provenance
model (anything not bundled and not hub-installed), this consolidated
hand-authored user workflow skills without consent.
Changes:
- should_run_now(): first observation seeds last_run_at='now' and returns
False. The next real pass fires one full interval_hours later (7 days
by default), matching the original design intent.
- hermes curator run --dry-run: produces the same review report without
applying automatic transitions OR permitting the LLM to call
skill_manage / terminal mv. A DRY-RUN banner is prepended to the
prompt and the caller skips apply_automatic_transitions. State is
NOT advanced so a preview doesn't defer the next scheduled real pass.
- hermes update: prints a one-liner on fresh installs pointing at
--dry-run, pause, and the docs. Silent on steady state.
- Docs: curator.md and cli-commands.md explain the deferred first-run
behavior and warn that hand-written SKILL.md files share the
'agent-created' bucket, with guidance to pin or preview before the
first pass.
Tests:
- test_first_run_defers replaces the old 'first run always eligible'
assertion — same fixture, inverted expectation.
- test_maybe_run_curator_defers_on_fresh_install covers the gateway tick
path end-to-end.
- Three new dry-run tests cover state-advance suppression, prompt
banner injection, and apply_automatic_transitions skipping.
Fixes#18373.
* feat(curator): pre-run backup + rollback (#18373)
Every real curator pass now snapshots ~/.hermes/skills/ into
~/.hermes/skills/.curator_backups/<utc-iso>/skills.tar.gz before calling
apply_automatic_transitions or the LLM review. If a run consolidates or
archives something the user didn't want touched, 'hermes curator
rollback' restores the tree in one command. Dry-run is skipped — no
mutation means no snapshot needed.
Changes:
- agent/curator_backup.py (new): tar.gz snapshot + safe rollback. The
snapshot excludes .curator_backups/ (would recurse) and .hub/ (managed
by the skills hub). Extract refuses absolute paths and .. components,
and uses tarfile's filter='data' on Python 3.12+. Rollback takes a
pre-rollback safety snapshot FIRST, stages the current tree into
.rollback-staging-<ts>/ so the extract lands in an empty dir, and
cleans the staging dir on success. A failed extract restores the
staged contents.
- agent/curator.py: run_curator_review() calls curator_backup.
snapshot_skills(reason='pre-curator-run') before apply_automatic_
transitions. Best-effort — a failed snapshot logs at debug and the
run continues (a transient disk issue shouldn't silently disable
curator forever).
- hermes_cli/curator.py: new 'hermes curator backup' and 'hermes curator
rollback' subcommands. rollback supports --list, --id <ts>, -y.
- hermes_cli/config.py: curator.backup.{enabled, keep} config block
with sane defaults (enabled=true, keep=5).
- Docs: curator.md gets a 'Backups and rollback' section; cli-commands
.md table gets the new rows.
Tests (new file tests/agent/test_curator_backup.py, 16 cases):
- snapshot creates tarball + manifest with correct counts
- snapshot excludes .curator_backups/ (recursion guard) and .hub/
- snapshot disabled via config returns None without creating anything
- snapshot uniquifies ids within the same second (-01 suffix)
- prune honors keep count, newest-first
- list_backups + _resolve_backup cover newest-default and unknown-id
- rollback restores a deleted skill with content intact
- rollback is itself undoable — safety snapshot shows up in list_backups
- rollback with no snapshots returns an error
- rollback refuses tarballs with absolute paths or .. components
- real curator runs take a 'pre-curator-run' snapshot; dry-runs do not
All curator tests: 210 passing locally.
Voscko reported curator.auxiliary.provider/model was advertised in the
docs but ignored — the review fork read only model.provider/default. The
narrow fix would wire the one-off key through, but that leaves curator
as a parallel system: not in `hermes model` → auxiliary picker, not in
the dashboard Models tab, missing per-task base_url/api_key/timeout/
extra_body.
Unify curator with the rest of the aux task system so `hermes model`
and the dashboard configure it like every other aux task.
Four sources of truth updated:
- hermes_cli/config.py — add 'curator' slot to DEFAULT_CONFIG.auxiliary
(timeout=600 since reviews run long), drop the one-off curator.auxiliary
block from DEFAULT_CONFIG.curator.
- hermes_cli/main.py — add ('curator', 'Curator', 'skill-usage review pass')
to _AUX_TASKS so the CLI picker offers it.
- hermes_cli/web_server.py — add 'curator' to _AUX_TASK_SLOTS so the
dashboard REST endpoint accepts it.
- web/src/pages/ModelsPage.tsx — add Curator entry so the dashboard
Models tab renders the task.
agent/curator.py _resolve_review_model() now reads auxiliary.curator
first (canonical), falls back to legacy curator.auxiliary (with an info
log asking users to migrate), then falls back to the main chat model.
Pre-unification users keep working.
Docs updated: docs/user-guide/features/curator.md now points at
`hermes model` → auxiliary → Curator and the dashboard Models tab.
Tests: 6 unit tests on _resolve_review_model (auto default, canonical
slot honored, partial override fallback, legacy fallback with
deprecation log assertion, new-wins-over-legacy, empty-config safety)
plus a cross-registry test that curator is wired into all four sources
of truth. test_aux_tasks_keys_all_exist_in_default_config already
covers the DEFAULT_CONFIG ↔ _AUX_TASKS invariant.
Reported by Voscko on Discord.
Add a dedicated 'Pinning a skill' section that covers both gating
layers — curator auto-transitions AND the agent's skill_manage tool
— so users know what the flag actually protects against after
PR #17562. Updates the one-line claim in 'How it runs' to cross-link
the new section instead of only mentioning auto-transitions.
Skill catalog pages (bundled/optional) were drowning out real user-guide
and reference docs in search results. There are ~3100 of them and they
match on almost every generic term.
- Add `ignoreFiles` regexes to docusaurus-search-local for
`user-guide/skills/bundled/` and `user-guide/skills/optional/`.
The two human-written catalog indexes (`reference/skills-catalog`,
`reference/optional-skills-catalog`) remain indexed.
- Add a new feature page `user-guide/features/curator.md` covering the
curator subsystem merged in #16049 and refined in #17307 (per-run
reports): how it runs, config, CLI (`hermes curator status/run/pin/
restore/...`), `.usage.json` telemetry, archival semantics, and
recovery. Slotted into the Core features sidebar next to Skills.
Search index size dropped from 5822 docs to 2704 in the main section;
`user-guide/features/curator` is indexed.
