Users report that the CLI/gateway floods them with confusing retry chatter
during transient failures: a single 429 can produce 10+ "Provider/Endpoint/
Retrying in 5s..." lines before the request eventually succeeds. The same
firehose hits Telegram, Discord, Slack, etc. via _emit_status.
This patch defers all retry/fallback/compression status messages until we
know the outcome:
- if the turn ultimately succeeds (any path: primary recovers, fallback
activates, compression unsticks the request), the buffer is silently
dropped — the user sees nothing.
- if every retry and fallback exhausts and the turn fails, the buffer
is flushed at the terminal-failure return so the user sees the full
retry trace alongside the final error.
Backend logging (agent.log) is unchanged — every emission site still
writes to logger.warning/info, so post-mortem diagnosis is intact.
## What changed
run_agent.py: four new methods on AIAgent:
_buffer_status(msg) — defer an _emit_status call
_buffer_vprint(msg) — defer a _vprint(force=True) line
_clear_status_buffer() — drop pending messages on success
_flush_status_buffer() — replay pending messages on terminal failure
agent/conversation_loop.py:
- converted ~30 mid-process emit/vprint sites in the retry, fallback,
compression, empty-response, and stream-watchdog paths to the buffered
helpers
- added _flush_status_buffer() at every terminal-failure return so users
still see the trace when it actually matters
- added _clear_status_buffer() at the "non-empty assistant content"
point (NOT at "API call returned bytes" — empty responses still loop
through the empty-retry path and would otherwise lose their trace
between iterations)
- silenced the two "(´;ω;`) oops, retrying..." / "(╥_╥) error,
retrying..." spinner final-frame messages — the spinner now stops
cleanly so retries leave no visible residue
agent/chat_completion_helpers.py: same conversion for codex TTFB / stale-
stream / fallback-activation status messages.
agent/stream_diag.py: _emit_stream_drop now buffers instead of emitting
directly.
## Tests
tests/run_agent/test_retry_status_buffer.py: 7 unit tests covering
accumulate→flush, clear-on-success, mixed kinds, empty-buffer no-op,
re-buffer after flush, exception swallowing.
Updated 3 existing tests that mocked _emit_status to also mock (or use)
_buffer_status:
- tests/run_agent/test_run_agent.py::test_empty_response_emits_status_for_gateway
- tests/run_agent/test_stream_drop_logging.py (2 tests)
- tests/agent/test_codex_ttfb_watchdog.py (TTFB hint test)
## Validation
Live test: hermes chat -q against an unreachable endpoint with no fallback
exhausts retries and prints the full trace at the end. Same flow against
a working endpoint prints zero retry chatter.
`hermes skills search` rendered the Identifier column with the default
overflow behaviour, so long slugs (notably browse-sh — every browse-sh
skill ends in a `-XXXXXX` hash that's part of the identifier) were cut
to `browse-sh/weathe…`. Users copied the visible string into
`hermes skills install` and got a not-found error because the hash was
gone.
Set overflow="fold" on the Identifier column in both search tables
(`do_search` and the `_resolve_short_name` multi-match table) so long
slugs wrap onto a second line instead of getting eaten. Also add a
`--json` flag to `hermes skills search` (and the `/skills search`
slash variant) for scripting — emits a list of {name, identifier,
source, trust_level, description} objects with the full identifier,
which is the right shape for copy-paste pipelines too.
Closes#33674.
The web_crawl_tool() function was an orphan — no model schema registered
it, no skill or CLI command called it, and the agent had no way to invoke
it. PR #32608 proposed wiring it up as a model-callable tool; we've
decided not to expose crawl as a separate capability since web_search +
web_extract cover the use cases we want models to have.
Removed:
- tools/web_tools.py: web_crawl_tool() (~230 LOC)
- plugins/web/firecrawl/provider.py: supports_crawl() + crawl()
- plugins/web/tavily/provider.py: supports_crawl() + crawl()
- plugins/web/xai/provider.py: supports_crawl() override
- agent/web_search_provider.py: supports_crawl() + crawl() ABC methods
- agent/web_search_registry.py: get_active_crawl_provider() +
the 'crawl' branch in _resolve()
- agent/display.py: web_crawl tool-progress rendering
- hermes_cli/config.py: 'web_crawl' from TAVILY_API_KEY.tools
- tools/website_policy.py: stale comment reference
- Tests: removed TestWebCrawlTavily class, the two website-policy
web_crawl tests, the searxng/ddgs/brave-free crawl-error tests,
the integration test_web_crawl method, and the
test_unconfigured_crawl_emits_top_level_error test. Trimmed the
capability-flag parametrize list and the WebSearchProvider ABC
conformance tests.
- Docs: trimmed the Crawl column from capability tables in both EN
and zh-Hans, updated the developer-guide ABC table.
Net: 25 files, +115/-1067.
Closes#33762 (the schema-text bug only existed if #32608 landed).
Supersedes #32608.
When auto-threading kicked in, the broadened backfill gate ran on the
freshly-created thread — but the thread has no prior context to fetch,
and the parent-channel reference passed to _fetch_channel_context would
have leaked unrelated context (see #31467).
Skip backfill when auto_threaded_channel is set. Also teach the
_FakeTextChannel / _FakeThreadChannel test doubles to expose a no-op
history() async generator so the broadened gate doesn't trip
AttributeError → discord.Forbidden (MagicMock) → TypeError in the
existing auto-thread tests. Add a regression test that asserts
auto-threaded messages do not trigger backfill.
Discord threads where the bot has already participated bypass mention gating by default, but the backfill check was still tied to the mention-needed condition. That meant follow-up thread messages could trigger a response without providing recent thread history to the session.
Run history backfill for thread messages whenever backfill is enabled, while keeping DMs skipped and channel mention backfill behavior unchanged. Add a regression test for a known thread follow-up without an explicit mention.
Fixes#33666
Co-authored-by: Cursor <cursoragent@cursor.com>
Repeated quarantines of an unchanged corrupt kanban.db used to amplify
disk usage by N: the gateway dispatcher's 5-minute retry loop, multi-
profile fleets sharing one DB, and manual reopen attempts each produced
a fresh '.corrupt.<timestamp>.bak' copy of the same bytes. After 10
retries on a 100KB DB you had 11x the disk footprint of duplicate
corrupt data.
Derive the backup filename from a sha256 of the main DB instead of a
timestamp + collision counter. Same bytes → same filename → skip the
copy on retries. Different bytes (partial repair, further damage) →
different filename → preserve separately. Sidecar (-wal/-shm) backups
inherit the same content-addressed name.
Inspired by @hanzckernel's PR #33529, simplified down to ~30 LOC: drop
the persistent JSON marker file, drop the atomic temp+fsync+rename
helper (shutil.copy2 is fine for a quarantine-only path), drop the
gateway-side WAL/SHM fingerprint extension (the existing
(path, mtime, size) tuple still gives the 5-minute retry semantics it
needs), and drop the gateway-side helper extraction. The backup file
existing IS the marker; no separate state needed.
Test: tests/hermes_cli/test_kanban_db.py::test_repeated_corrupt_open_reuses_single_backup
proves 10 retries on the same corrupt bytes produce 1 backup (was 11),
and mutating the corrupt bytes produces a second backup with a
different fingerprint.
Refs #33529
Co-authored-by: hanzckernel <zhicheng.han@mathematik.uni-goettingen.de>
`hermes update` ran the webui build with `capture_output=True` and no timeout. On low-memory hosts (WSL2's 4 GB default, small VPSes, antivirus stalls) Vite goes silent for minutes; users see a frozen terminal, decide the update is hung, and reboot. The reboot lands *after* `pip install -e .` has already touched the install but *before* the build completes, leaving the `hermes` launcher in place while `hermes_cli` is no longer importable — i.e. `ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'hermes_cli'` (#33788, same class as #32384).
Changes:
- New `_run_with_idle_timeout()` helper: streams subprocess output line-by-line (so the user sees Vite progress in real time) and kills the process if no bytes appear on stdout/stderr for 180s. The existing stale-dist fallback (#23817) then serves the previous build instead of failing the update.
- `_build_web_ui()` uses the helper for `npm run build` (the actual stall site). `npm install` keeps `subprocess.run` + capture_output to preserve the existing EPERM-retry-on-Windows contract.
- Both `cmd_update` call sites print `→ Core update complete. Building dashboard (optional)...` before the webui build. The CLI is fully functional at this point; a webui-build failure only affects `hermes dashboard`. Telegraphing the boundary explicitly stops users from rebooting through the build step.
Tests:
- `tests/hermes_cli/test_run_with_idle_timeout.py` — 4 tests covering streaming success, nonzero exit, idle-kill, and missing-binary cases. Uses real `subprocess.Popen` on tiny Python scripts; isolated in its own file so per-file canonical-runner parallelism doesn't pair it with the mock-heavy tests.
- `tests/hermes_cli/test_web_ui_build.py` — updated existing tests to patch `_run_with_idle_timeout` for the build step in addition to `subprocess.run` for the install step.
- `tests/hermes_cli/test_cmd_update.py::test_update_refreshes_repo_and_tui_node_dependencies` — same update.
Full suite: `scripts/run_tests.sh tests/hermes_cli/` → 5646 passed, 0 failed.
Fixes#33788.
Extends @liuhao1024's escape-normalized fix so the patch tool also
recovers when old_string carries a real tab byte and matches via the
`exact` strategy — which is the headline reproduction in the issue and
the most common case in practice (LLMs frequently get old_string right
because they re-read the file, but still serialize new_string's tabs as
two-character `\t`).
Instead of gating on the match strategy, decide per-sequence by looking
at the *matched region of the file*: only convert `\t` -> tab and
`\r` -> CR when the file region we're replacing actually contains the
corresponding control byte. That mirrors the region-based heuristic in
`_detect_escape_drift` and keeps legitimate writes of the literal
two-character string `"\t"` (e.g. patching `sep = "\t"` in Python
source) untouched — those files have a backslash+t in the matched
region, not a real tab, so new_string passes through verbatim. `\n` is
still excluded because newlines serialize correctly through JSON and
unescaping would corrupt source escape sequences far more often than
help.
E2E verified against the live `patch` tool: tab-indented file + literal
`\t` in new_string under both `exact` (Variant 1) and `escape_normalized`
(Variant 2) strategies now produces real tab bytes; a Python source line
containing `sep = "\t"` (legitimate literal backslash-t) survives a
patch unchanged.
Tests updated to cover both strategies and the legitimate-literal case,
and to assert that `\n` is intentionally preserved.
Refs #33733
When the patch tool matches via the escape_normalized strategy, old_string
contains literal \t, \n, \r sequences that get unescaped to match real
control characters in the file. However, new_string was written as-is,
leaving literal backslash sequences in the output.
Add _unescape_common_sequences() helper and apply it to new_string when
the matching strategy is escape_normalized. This ensures LLM-generated
tab/newline sequences become real bytes in the patched file.
Fixes#33733
Sessions now survive `hermes gateway stop` / `restart` on native Windows.
Previously the gateway died on schtasks `/End` + os.kill SIGTERM without
ever running the drain loop, so the v0.13.0 session-resume feature (#21192)
silently broke on Windows: `resume_pending=True` was never written, and
the next boot started with a blank conversation history (issue #33778).
Root cause is twofold and the reporter only identified half of it:
1. `hermes_cli/gateway_windows.py::stop()` did not write the
`planned_stop_marker` before signalling. The reporter caught this.
2. The bigger reason: `asyncio.add_signal_handler` raises
NotImplementedError for SIGTERM/SIGINT on Windows, so even if the
marker had been written, the gateway's existing SIGTERM handler
(which is what calls `runner.stop()` and the `mark_resume_pending`
loop) was never invoked. Writing the marker would have been
necessary-but-insufficient.
The fix has two parts:
* gateway/run.py: new `_run_planned_stop_watcher` daemon thread polls
for the planned-stop marker file every 0.5s. When the marker appears
it `loop.call_soon_threadsafe(shutdown_signal_handler, None)` — the
same shutdown path a real SIGTERM would have driven, including the
pre-drain `mark_resume_pending` writes (run.py:5977) and graceful
drain wait. The existing signal handler already accepts
`received_signal=None` and falls through to
`consume_planned_stop_marker_for_self()`, so no handler changes
needed. Runs on every platform as cheap belt-and-suspenders.
* hermes_cli/gateway_windows.py: `stop()` now writes the marker for
the running gateway PID and waits up to `agent.restart_drain_timeout`
(default 30s) for the PID to exit cleanly. On clean drain, the kill
sweep is non-forceful; on timeout, escalates to
`kill_gateway_processes(force=True)` which routes to taskkill /T /F
per `references/windows-native-support.md`.
Validation:
* 7 new tests in tests/gateway/test_planned_stop_watcher.py covering:
marker→handler dispatch, no-marker idle, already-draining skip,
not-yet-running skip, stop_event responsiveness, fire-once
semantics, error tolerance.
* 8 new tests in tests/hermes_cli/test_gateway_windows.py covering:
marker-before-kill ordering, clean-drain skips force-kill,
drain-timeout escalates to force=True, no-pid-skips-drain,
invalid-pid handling, fast-exit success, timeout failure,
marker-write-failure tolerance.
* E2E (Linux, detached orphan): write_planned_stop_marker(pid) +
`_drain_gateway_pid(pid, 5.0)` returns True in 0.5s after the
victim sees the marker and exits. Tested with a double-forked
subprocess so the test parent isn't holding it as a zombie.
* Targeted: tests/gateway/{restart_drain,restart_resume_pending,
signal,signal_format,status,shutdown_forensics,approve_deny_commands,
planned_stop_watcher} + tests/hermes_cli/{gateway_windows,
gateway_service} → 519/519.
What was wrong with the reporter's claim (for future archaeology): they
described the symptom as "no `resume_pending=True` written to
`sessions.json`" — but Hermes uses `state.db` (SQLite), not
`sessions.json`, and `mark_resume_pending` is called regardless of
the marker (the marker only affects exit code 0 vs 1 for systemd
revival semantics). The real session-loss path is the missing drain
on Windows, not a missing marker. Both halves are fixed here.
Closes#33778.
api_messages is built once before the retry loop while the primary provider
is active. When a mid-conversation fallback switches to a require-side thinking
provider (DeepSeek/Kimi/MiMo), assistant turns built under a non-require primary
(e.g. Codex) go out without reasoning_content and the new provider rejects the
request with HTTP 400 ("reasoning_content must be passed back").
Re-apply the echo-back pad against the current provider immediately before
building the request kwargs. Idempotent and a no-op unless the active provider
enforces echo-back, so it covers all fallback paths without affecting normal or
reject-side operation.
Drafted by Claude (Opus 4.7) under human review while fixing a personal deployment.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
In GatewayStreamConsumer._run(), _final_content_delivered was set to True
based on the success of a mid-stream finalize edit, before the final
finalize edit was attempted. When the final edit later failed (Telegram
flood control, retry-after), _final_response_sent stayed False but
_final_content_delivered was already True, so gateway/run.py suppressed
its normal final send and the user saw a partial / fallback message
instead of the real answer.
Changes in gateway/stream_consumer.py:
- Remove the premature _final_content_delivered = True at the top of
the got_done block.
- Set _final_content_delivered = True only when the actual final send /
edit succeeds, in each finalize branch (no-finalize adapter,
_message_id finalize, no-_already_sent send).
- _send_fallback_final: don't set _final_response_sent = True when only
some chunks were delivered; the gateway should still attempt a
complete final send. Set _final_content_delivered = True alongside
_final_response_sent on the success path and short-text path.
- Cancellation handler: set _final_content_delivered = True alongside
_final_response_sent when the best-effort final edit succeeds.
Adds TestFinalContentDeliveredGuard with 3 regression tests covering
the core bug scenario, the happy path, and partial fallback.
Closes#33708Closes#25010
Refs #29200
Co-authored-by: Teknium <127238744+teknium1@users.noreply.github.com>
Three new tests in tests/hermes_cli/test_proxy.py:
- xai_adapter_retry_rotates_pool_entry_on_429 — headline #28932 case.
Two-entry pool, 429 on first entry, must rotate to second entry
AND must NOT call refresh_xai_oauth_pure (refresh is irrelevant
for rate limits).
- xai_adapter_retry_returns_none_on_429_when_pool_exhausted —
single-entry pool: 429 returns None so the rate-limit response
flows back to the client unchanged (existing behavior preserved).
- xai_adapter_retry_returns_none_for_unrelated_status — non-{401,
429} statuses must not trigger any retry path at all; guards
against the gate becoming too broad in future changes.
Each test asserts that refresh_xai_oauth_pure is never called on the
429 path — refresh is a 401-specific concern.
39/39 in tests/hermes_cli/test_proxy.py.
Condenses the substance of PRs #16453, #17453, #16451, #17600, and #13373
into a minimal generic host contract that external context engine plugins
(e.g. hermes-lcm) need to integrate cleanly. Drops scaffolding that
duplicated existing infrastructure or had marginal value.
Five concrete changes:
1. `_transition_context_engine_session()` on AIAgent — generic lifecycle
helper that fires on_session_end → on_session_reset → on_session_start
→ optional carry_over_new_session_context. Engines implement only the
hooks they need; missing hooks are skipped. Built-in compressor keeps
its existing reset-only behavior because callers default to no
metadata. `reset_session_state()` now optionally accepts
previous_messages / old_session_id / carry_over_context and delegates
to the transition helper when provided. (#16453)
2. `conversation_id` passed to `on_session_start()` — both the
agent-init call site and the compression-boundary call site now
forward `self._gateway_session_key` so plugin engines have a stable
conversation identity that survives session_id rotation (compression
splits, /new, resume). The key already existed on AIAgent; it just
wasn't reaching engines. (#16453)
3. Canonical cache buckets forwarded to engines — the usage dict passed
to `update_from_response()` now includes input_tokens, output_tokens,
cache_read_tokens, cache_write_tokens, and reasoning_tokens on top of
the legacy prompt/completion/total keys. Engines can make decisions on
cache-hit ratios and reasoning costs instead of only aggregates. ABC
docstring updated. (#17453)
4. Plugin-registered context engines visible in the picker —
`_discover_context_engines()` in plugins_cmd.py now also includes
engines registered via `ctx.register_context_engine()` from plugin
manifests, deduplicating by name so repo-shipped descriptions win on
collision. (#16451)
5. `_EngineCollector.register_command()` — context engines using the
standard `register(ctx)` pattern can now expose slash commands (e.g.
`/lcm`). Routes to the global plugin command registry with the same
conflict-rejection policy regular plugins use (no shadowing built-ins,
no clobbering other plugins). Previously these calls hit a no-op and
the slash commands silently never appeared. (#17600)
Dropped from the original 5 PRs:
- Compression boundary signal (`boundary_reason="compression"`) from
#16453 — already on main at `agent/conversation_compression.py:412-424`,
landed via the bg-review extraction.
- `discover_plugins()` before fallback in run_agent.py from #16451 —
redundant: `get_plugin_context_engine()` already routes through
`_ensure_plugins_discovered()` which is idempotent.
- Runtime identity diagnostics method + helpers from #13373 (+251 LOC) —
operators can already read engine state via `engine.get_status()`;
the diagnostics view added marginal value relative to its surface area.
- The 553-LOC slash-command machinery from #17600 — replaced with a
20-LOC `register_command` method on the collector that reuses the
existing plugin command registry instead of building a parallel one.
Net: ~215 LOC of host-contract changes + 282 LOC of focused tests, vs
~1,176 LOC across the original 5 PRs.
Co-authored-by: Tosko4 <1294707+Tosko4@users.noreply.github.com>
Closes#16453.
Closes#17453.
Closes#16451.
Closes#17600.
Closes#13373.
Related: stephenschoettler/hermes-lcm#68.
* fix(skills): pull full ClawHub catalog into the skills index
The website was showing 200 ClawHub skills out of 20k+ because
`ClawHubSource.search("")` for empty queries went straight to a single
unpaginated request. ClawHub's API caps any single page at 200 items and
returns a `nextCursor`; we grabbed page 1 and stopped, so the cached
index served from hermes-agent.nousresearch.com had a silent 99%
truncation.
End users never hit clawhub.ai directly (the index is rebuilt twice
daily by .github/workflows/skills-index.yml and served as a static JSON
on the docs site), so the cap-and-cache architecture is correct — it
just wasn't being filled.
Changes:
- `ClawHubSource.search(query="")` now routes through the existing
`_load_catalog_index()` paginating walker instead of the unpaginated
listing fallback (non-empty queries still hit the fast catalog search).
- `_load_catalog_index()` max_pages 50 → 250 (50k-skill ceiling; live
catalog is ~20k as of May 2026, with headroom for growth).
- `build_skills_index.py`: per-source crawl limits split out — ClawHub
and LobeHub get 100k, others keep their effective caps.
- `EXPECTED_FLOORS["clawhub"]` 50 → 5000 so the next pagination
regression hard-fails the CI build instead of silently shipping a
degenerate index.
Test plan:
- New unit test `test_search_empty_query_paginates_full_catalog`
exercises the cursor-following path with three mocked pages (450
total items) and asserts all pages are walked.
- Existing 9 ClawHub tests + 127 broader skills_hub tests all pass.
- E2E against live ClawHub API: walker reached 9700+ skills across 49
pages before this commit landed, paginating well past the previous
50-page cap.
* fix(skills): raise ClawHub ceilings — live catalog is 50k, not 20k
E2E walk against live ClawHub API hit my initial 250-page cap at 49,698
skills with cursor=yes still pending. The catalog is roughly 2.5x larger
than the docstring estimate.
- max_pages 250 → 750 (150k ceiling, walks terminate on cursor=None
well before this in practice)
- SOURCE_LIMITS['clawhub'] 100k → 200k
- EXPECTED_FLOORS['clawhub'] 5000 → 20000
#33164 made _save_codex_tokens sync the singleton-seeded `device_code`
pool entry on Codex OAuth re-auth. That fixed the #33000 path but missed
`manual:device_code` entries created by `hermes auth add openai-codex`
(the recommended workaround for users who hit #33000 before #33164
landed).
Every subsequent re-auth would refresh the device_code entry but leave
the manual:device_code entry holding the consumed refresh token plus
stale last_error_* markers — immediately recreating the 401
token_invalidated symptom on the next request, exactly as reported in
#33538.
Extend the refreshable source set to include `manual:device_code`.
Completing the device-code OAuth flow proves the user owns the ChatGPT
account, so it is safe to refresh every device-code-backed entry. Keep
`manual:api_key` and other non-device-code manual sources untouched —
those represent independent credentials.
Closes#33538.
Adds first-class `client_cert` / `client_key` config keys so MCP servers
behind mTLS work without an external TLS-terminating proxy. Resolves
inbound community question (Jeremy W.).
Schema (per `mcp_servers.<name>`, HTTP/SSE only):
- `client_cert: "/path/to/combined.pem"` — single PEM with cert + key
- `client_cert: "/path/to/cert"` + `client_key: "/path/to/key"` — separate
- `client_cert: [cert, key]` or `[cert, key, password]` — list form,
with optional passphrase for encrypted keys
Paths support `~` expansion. Missing files raise a server-scoped
`FileNotFoundError` at connect time rather than failing later with an
opaque TLS handshake error.
Wiring:
- New SDK HTTP path (mcp >= 1.24): `cert=` on the user-owned
`httpx.AsyncClient` alongside the existing `verify=` handling.
- SSE path: routed through an `httpx_client_factory` that wraps the
SDK's defaults (follow_redirects=True) and layers `verify` + `cert`
on top. The factory is only injected when needed, so the SDK's
built-in `create_mcp_http_client` keeps being used in the default
case.
- Deprecated mcp<1.24 path left untouched — that SDK's
`streamablehttp_client` signature doesn't expose `cert`, and adding
it would be dead code.
Also documents the previously-undocumented `ssl_verify` key (bool or
CA bundle path) in the MCP config reference.
Tests:
- `tests/tools/test_mcp_client_cert.py` (new, 19 tests):
- `_resolve_client_cert` helper: all three input forms, `~` expansion,
missing-file and validation errors.
- HTTP transport: `cert=` forwarded into `httpx.AsyncClient` for
string and tuple forms; absent when unset; missing-file error
propagates.
- SSE transport: factory only injected when cert or non-default
verify is set; factory applies cert, custom CA bundle, and
preserves `follow_redirects=True` + forwarded headers/auth.
- Existing tests: 200/200 in `test_mcp_tool.py` + `test_mcp_sse_transport.py`
still pass.
Two unrelated transient failures on PR #33661's initial CI run, both
pre-existing on main and recovered on rerun. Hardening:
1. tests/cron/test_scheduler.py::TestRunJobConfigLogging — added mocks for
resolve_runtime_provider() and discover_mcp_tools(). The yaml-warning
tests intend to exercise only the warning-log path, but
_run_job_impl continues into provider resolution and MCP discovery
after the warning. Both can spawn subprocesses / hit the network and
pushed the test over its 30s budget under GHA load.
2. tests/tools/test_browser_supervisor.py — wrapped Chrome teardown
against the stdlib subprocess._wait() race (bpo-38630). When SIGCHLD
arrives during proc.wait(), _try_wait(WNOHANG) can return a foreign
pid and the 'assert pid == self.pid or pid == 0' fires. Fixture now
catches AssertionError/TimeoutExpired, force-kills, and always reaps
so no zombie escapes. Same hardening applied to the early-skip branch.
The regression-guard test
`test_cmd_update_on_git_install_does_not_print_docker_message` mocked
`is_managed` and `detect_install_method` but not `subprocess.run`, so
once `cmd_update(check=True)` decided this was a git install it shelled
out to a real `git fetch upstream` / `git fetch origin`. On CI runners
the worktree has no `upstream` remote configured and the fetch hung
past the 30s pytest-timeout — test (4) slice failed in #33659 CI.
Fix: stub `subprocess.run` with a successful CompletedProcess-shaped
object whose stdout is `"0\n"`, so:
- no real git command is ever invoked
- the rev-list parsing later in the flow (`int(stdout.strip())`)
succeeds rather than `ValueError`-ing through the test's
SystemExit catch
- the flow proceeds far enough to confirm the docker banner is
absent (the actual assertion)
Also broaden the except clause to `(SystemExit, Exception)`: the only
assertion in this test is the negative-banner check on captured stdout;
any further failure in the rest of the update flow is irrelevant to
that contract.
Verified locally: all 7 tests in
`tests/hermes_cli/test_cmd_update_docker.py` pass in 0.39s (previously
the regression-guard test alone consumed 30s+ and got SIGTERM'd).
Inside the published Docker image, `hermes update` was hitting the
".git missing → reinstall via curl" fallback:
✗ Not a git repository. Please reinstall:
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/.../install.sh | bash
That message is wrong on two counts:
1. It tells the user to run the host-side installer, which would
install a *new* Hermes on the host — not update the running
container.
2. It doesn't mention `docker pull` at all, leaving Docker users
to figure out the right action from scratch.
`hermes update --check` was worse: it bailed with "Not a git
repository — cannot check for updates." and nothing else.
Fix: detect the Docker install method (already stamped by
`docker/stage2-hook.sh` and surfaced by `detect_install_method()`)
in both update entry points and print a long-form message that
covers:
- The right command: `docker pull nousresearch/hermes-agent:latest`
- Restart guidance (`docker compose up -d --force-recreate` /
re-run `docker run`)
- How to verify the new version after restart
- Tag-pinning caveat (`:latest` doesn't move a pinned tag)
- Config persistence across upgrades (state under `HERMES_HOME` /
`/opt/data` is bind-mounted and survives)
- Fork escape hatch (build your own image with the repo's Dockerfile)
Exit code is 1 (matches `managed_error` semantic for "tried to
update but can't update this way").
Plumbing:
- hermes_cli/config.py: new `format_docker_update_message()` helper
sits next to the existing `_NIX_UPDATE_MSG` /
`format_managed_message()` family so the wording lives in one
place and both call sites (apply path + check path) consume it.
- hermes_cli/main.py:
* `cmd_update()`: bail right after the `is_managed()` gate, before
any of the apply-path branches.
* `_cmd_update_check()`: bail at the top of the function, before
the existing `method == "pip"` branch.
Neither path touches subprocess.run / git when method == "docker".
Coverage:
- 7 new tests in `tests/hermes_cli/test_cmd_update_docker.py`:
* `hermes update` in Docker → message + exit 1, no git calls
* `hermes update --check` (via cmd_update) → same
* `--yes` / `--force` don't bypass (intentional)
* `_cmd_update_check` called directly → bails too
* git/pip installs still take their normal paths (regression guards)
* `format_docker_update_message` content-lock test pinning the
five user-actionable bits the message must contain
- Existing test_cmd_update.py (21 tests) + test_managed_installs.py
(5 tests) still pass — no regression on the source-install path.
- Verified end-to-end in a real container: `docker run ... update`
and `docker run ... update --check` both render the message and
exit 1.
Snapshot review_agent._session_messages before teardown so close() can
clean per-session state without dropping the user-visible
self-improvement summary. Adds two regressions:
- bg-review summarizer receives captured review-agent tool messages
after review_agent.close() runs
- context-compressor protected-head handoff rehydration populates
_previous_summary and keeps the old handoff out of newly summarized
turns
Salvaged from PR #26039 onto current main after agent/background_review.py
extraction. Original commit 63eaf6055; bg-review test updated to patch
the module-level summarize_background_review_actions in
agent.background_review instead of the now-forwarder
AIAgent._summarize_background_review_actions.
`hermes dump` and the startup banner both call `git rev-parse HEAD` to
report the running commit, but `.dockerignore` line 2 excludes `.git` —
so inside the published image `hermes dump` shows
`version: ... [(unknown)]` and the banner drops its `· upstream <sha>`
suffix entirely. That makes support triage from container bug reports
impossible: we can't tell which commit the user is actually running.
Fix: thread the build-time SHA through as a Docker build-arg, write it
to `/opt/hermes/.hermes_build_sha` in the image, and have a new
`hermes_cli/build_info.get_build_sha()` read it as a fallback after the
existing live-git lookup fails. Output format is unchanged in both
callsites — same 8-char short SHA whether resolved live or baked.
Wiring:
- Dockerfile: `ARG HERMES_GIT_SHA=` + write-file step after the source
copy. Empty/missing arg → no file written → callers fall through to
live git (so local `docker build` without --build-arg is unchanged).
- docker-publish.yml: passes `HERMES_GIT_SHA=${{ github.sha }}` on all
four build-push-action steps (amd64/arm64, smoke-test + final push).
- dump.py:_get_git_commit() / banner.py:get_git_banner_state(): try
live git first, fall back to baked SHA, then to legacy `(unknown)`
/ None. Banner returns `upstream == local, ahead=0` because a built
image is by definition pinned to one commit.
Coverage:
- Unit tests cover build_info (file present/absent/empty/error,
truncation, whitespace), dump (live-git wins, both fallbacks,
identical output-format regression guard), and banner (no-repo +
baked, no-repo + no-sha, shallow-clone fallback).
- tests/docker/test_dump_build_sha.py is an integration regression
guard that runs against the real image, reads
`/opt/hermes/.hermes_build_sha`, and asserts `hermes dump` surfaces
its content (or stays at `(unknown)` if no file).
- Verified end-to-end: `docker build --build-arg HERMES_GIT_SHA=abc...`
→ `docker run ... dump` reports `[abc12345]`; without the build-arg
it reports `[(unknown)]` as before.
`sqlite3.Connection.__exit__` commits/rollbacks but does NOT close the
underlying FD. `with kb.connect() as conn:` in long-lived processes
(gateway `run_slash`, dashboard `decompose_task_endpoint`) therefore
leaks one FD to `kanban.db` per call. After enough operations the
gateway dies with `[Errno 24] Too many open files` (~4 days uptime
in the production report — #33159).
Fix: add a `connect_closing()` context manager in `hermes_cli/kanban_db`
that wraps `connect()` with a real `try/finally: conn.close()`. Switch
the 42 leak-prone call sites in `hermes_cli/kanban.py` (35),
`hermes_cli/kanban_decompose.py` (4), and `hermes_cli/kanban_specify.py`
(3) over to it.
`kanban.py` matters because `run_slash` (called from the gateway for
every `/kanban` slash command) parses argparse and dispatches to those
`_cmd_*` functions in-process — each one was leaking one FD per
invocation.
Tests inside `tests/` are untouched: short-lived processes where OS
cleanup masks the leak. Regression tests added in
`test_kanban_db.py` cover both happy-path and exception-path closure,
plus an explicit assertion that bare `with kb.connect()` still does
NOT close (documenting the upstream sqlite3 behaviour we're working
around).
Closes#33159.
When operators ran `docker exec <c> hermes login` (or anything else
that wrote under $HERMES_HOME) they defaulted to root, leaving
/opt/data/auth.json root:root mode 0600. The supervised gateway
(UID 10000) then couldn't read its own credentials and returned
"Provider authentication failed: Hermes is not logged into Nous
Portal" on every Telegram/Discord/etc. message — even though
`docker exec <c> hermes chat -q ping` (also root) succeeded because
root could read its own root-owned file. _load_auth_store swallowed
PermissionError as a parse failure and copied the file aside as
auth.json.corrupt, making the diagnostic more misleading.
Fix: install a privilege-drop shim at /opt/hermes/bin/hermes,
prepended ahead of the venv on PATH. When invoked as root the shim
exec's the real venv binary via `s6-setuidgid hermes` — so any file
the docker-exec session writes is uid-aligned with the supervised
processes. Non-root callers (the supervised processes themselves,
`docker exec --user hermes`, kanban subagents, anything inside the
container that's not coming through docker-exec) hit a single exec
to the absolute venv path with no privilege change.
Recursion is impossible: the shim exec's the venv binary by
absolute path (/opt/hermes/.venv/bin/hermes), so the second hop
cannot re-enter the shim regardless of PATH state. No sentinel env
var needed (unlike #33583's gateway-run redirect which DOES need
HERMES_S6_SUPERVISED_CHILD because there's no absolute-path
equivalent for the s6 dispatch).
Opt-out: `docker exec -e HERMES_DOCKER_EXEC_AS_ROOT=1 …` for
diagnostic sessions where the operator deliberately wants root.
Strict truthiness (1/true/yes case-insensitive); typos like `=0`
do not silently opt out, mirroring HERMES_GATEWAY_NO_SUPERVISE in
#33583.
If `s6-setuidgid` is missing (someone stripped s6-overlay in a
downstream fork), the shim exits 126 with a remediation message
pointing at `--user hermes` and the opt-out — never silently runs
as root.
Test plan:
- tests/docker/test_docker_exec_privilege_drop.py — 11 tests
- shim drops root to hermes uid (file ownership check)
- shim short-circuits for non-root docker exec
- HERMES_DOCKER_EXEC_AS_ROOT=1 keeps root
- strict-truthiness parametrization (5 falsy values reject)
- main CMD path unaffected (recursion guard)
- E2E: every file written by docker-exec is readable by uid 10000
- Full tests/docker/ harness: 32/32 pass against fresh image build
- shellcheck --severity=error: clean
- hadolint: clean
- Manual: reproduced the original symptom (root-owned auth.json)
by bypassing the shim; confirmed default docker-exec produces
hermes-owned files; confirmed opt-out env keeps root semantics.
Known follow-up: this prevents NEW instances of the bug. Volumes
that already have root:root /opt/data/auth.json from a pre-shim
image need a one-time `chown hermes:hermes` before rebooting onto
the new image. A stage2-hook chown sweep can self-heal that, but
is deferred per scope decision.
Follow-up to #33583 (the gateway-run-supervised redirect).
Before this fix, the supervised gateway's stdout (most visibly the
"Hermes Gateway Starting…" rich-console banner) was swallowed by
`s6-log` into the rotated file at
`${HERMES_HOME}/logs/gateways/<profile>/current` and never reached
`docker logs`. Operational signal lived in two places:
* **docker logs** — saw stderr (Python `logging` defaults to
stderr), so warnings/errors were visible.
* **the rotated file** — saw stdout (rich banners, `print()`
output, third-party libs that wrote to fd 1).
This was surprising for users coming from the pre-s6 image, where
`docker run … gateway run` produced a single unified stream in
`docker logs`. They'd see partial output, conclude something was
broken, and dig around for the missing pieces.
Fix: add the `1` s6-log action directive before the file destination
so each line is forwarded to s6-log's stdout — which propagates up
the s6-supervise pipeline to /init's stdout = container stdout =
`docker logs`. The file destination is preserved as a second
destination, so the rotated log (with ISO 8601 timestamps) still
exists for `hermes logs` and for survival across container restarts.
Trade-off considered: timestamps. Putting `T` between `1` and the
file destination (not before `1`) means:
* docker logs sees raw lines — Python's logging formatter has its
own timestamps, and `docker logs --timestamps` adds another
layer when desired. No double-stamping in the common reading
path.
* The persisted file gets s6-log's ISO 8601 timestamp so even
output that lacked a Python-logger timestamp (rich banners,
third-party raw prints) is correlatable in `current`.
Verification:
* New unit-test assertion in `test_service_manager.py` locks the
`s6-log 1` directive into the rendered run-script. Mutation-
tested by reverting to the pre-fix script (no `1`); the assert
catches it cleanly.
* New docker-harness test `test_supervised_gateway_stdout_reaches_docker_logs`
builds the image, runs `docker run … gateway run`, and asserts
the unique `⚕` banner glyph reaches `docker logs`. Also verifies
the rotated file still contains the banner (no regression on
the existing file destination). Mutation-tested end-to-end: built
a deliberately-broken image without the `1` directive and the
test failed exactly as designed, citing the banner present in
`current` but absent from `docker logs`.
* `website/docs/user-guide/docker.md` gains a new `:::note Where
gateway logs go` admonition documenting both destinations and
the audit-log file at `${HERMES_HOME}/logs/container-boot.log`.
Existing functionality preserved: every other docker-harness test
still passes against the new image. Unit-test sweep across
`tests/hermes_cli/` (5561 tests) is green.
* fix(tui): suppress mouse-residue leaks during Python launcher startup
`hermes --tui …` spends ~100–300ms inside the Python launcher (lazy
imports, arg parsing, session resolution) before exec'ing the Node TUI
binary. During that window stdin is still in cooked + echo mode. If a
prior session left DEC mouse tracking asserted (or the user spammed
mouse movement while the previous session was opening), the terminal
keeps emitting `\\x1b[<…M` SGR motion reports that get echoed straight
back into the user's shell scrollback as literal `^[[<…M` text and
sit there above the TUI banner until the next clear.
The Node side already calls `resetTerminalModes()` in `entry.tsx`, but
by then the race is already lost — the bytes echoed during the Python
warmup window were committed to the scrollback before Node started.
Fix: write the mouse-tracking disable sequence at the very top of
`hermes_cli.main`, before every heavy import. The terminal stops
emitting motion events as soon as the bytes hit the wire (one TTY
round-trip), shrinking the race window from hundreds of milliseconds
to a few. `HERMES_TUI_NO_EARLY_DISABLE=1` opts out for diagnostics.
* test(tui): drop dead _reload_main, hoist import out of patch context
Addresses Copilot review on PR #31213.
The tests used to import `hermes_cli.main` inside the `patch("os.write")`
context, which Copilot pointed out is order-dependent: if the module
is already loaded (e.g. imported by a prior test in the same process),
the import is a no-op and the patch only sees the explicit
`_suppress_mouse_residue_early()` call. Either way the assertion can
flake when run alongside other tests.
Move the import to module scope — every subprocess gets a fresh
`hermes_cli.main`, whose module-level invocation is a no-op under
pytest argv. Tests then exercise `_suppress_mouse_residue_early()`
directly inside their own patch context. Also drop the unused
`_reload_main` helper.
* fix(tui): skip early mouse-disable when stdout is not a TTY
Addresses Copilot review on PR #31213.
`hermes --tui … >log` or CI capture pipes fd 1 away from the terminal.
The disable bytes can't reach the terminal in that case but would
still get written into the log file as raw CSI sequences. Guard with
`os.isatty(1)` inside the existing `try/except OSError` block so the
'never break startup' contract holds.
* docs(tui): rephrase 'raw cooked mode' as 'cooked + echo mode'
Copilot review nit on PR #31213 — the original wording was self-
contradictory. Pre-TUI stdin state is cooked + echo (kernel TTY
discipline still owns the line buffer and echoes input back). The
TUI switches it to raw mode later when Ink mounts.
Pre-s6, `docker run nousresearch/hermes-agent gateway run` was the
standard invocation: gateway ran as the container's main process,
tini reaped zombies, container exit code matched gateway exit code,
no supervision. With s6-overlay as PID 1, the same invocation now
auto-upgrades to supervised semantics — auto-restart on crash,
dashboard supervised alongside (when HERMES_DASHBOARD=1 is set),
multiple profile gateways under the same /init.
Users get the new behavior with zero changes to their docker run
command. A loud one-line breadcrumb on stderr explains the upgrade
and points at the opt-out for users who genuinely want pre-s6
foreground semantics.
How it works:
1. `_gateway_command_inner` (the `gateway run` handler) checks if
we're inside a container with s6 as PID 1.
2. If yes, dispatches `start` to the s6 service manager (registers
and starts gateway-default), then `exec sleep infinity` to keep
the CMD process alive without binding container lifetime to
gateway PID lifetime. The supervised gateway can flap freely;
`docker stop` still tears everything down via /init stage 3.
3. If no, falls through to the existing foreground code path
unchanged. Host runs of `hermes gateway run` are unaffected.
Three gates make the redirect inert outside the intended scope:
* `detect_service_manager() != "s6"` — host/non-s6-container runs.
* `HERMES_S6_SUPERVISED_CHILD=1` env var (recursion guard) —
exported by `S6ServiceManager._render_run_script` for the
s6-supervised invocation itself. Without this guard, the
supervised `gateway run --replace` would re-enter the redirect
and recurse (run → start → run → start → ...) infinitely.
* `--no-supervise` CLI flag OR `HERMES_GATEWAY_NO_SUPERVISE=1` env
var — explicit user opt-out for CI smoke tests, debugging the
foreground startup path, or any case wanting "CMD exit =
container exit" semantics. Strict truthiness (1/true/yes,
case-insensitive); typos like `=0` do NOT silently opt out.
Tests:
* Unit tests in tests/hermes_cli/test_gateway_s6_dispatch.py
cover all five paths (host no-op, supervised fire, sentinel
recursion guard, CLI flag, env var truthy + falsy). The two
load-bearing gates (sentinel + opt-out) were mutation-tested
by removing each gate in isolation and confirming the dedicated
test fails with the expected error.
* Docker harness tests in tests/docker/test_gateway_run_supervised.py
cover the round trips end-to-end against a built image: redirect
fires (sleep-infinity heartbeat + supervised gateway-default
slot + breadcrumb), --no-supervise opt-out (foreground gateway,
no want-up on the slot), HERMES_GATEWAY_NO_SUPERVISE env var
works identically, recursion is impossible (≤1 supervised
python gateway-run + exactly 1 sleep-infinity parented to the
CMD wrapper), and HERMES_DASHBOARD=1 produces both supervised
gateway and supervised dashboard.
Docs:
* Added a `:::tip Gateway runs supervised` admonition near the
main docker.md example explaining the upgrade and pointing at
the opt-out. Pre-s6 (tini-based) images still run gateway run
as the foreground main process, so the note is scoped to the
s6 image only.
Trade-off documented in the helper docstring: container exit code
under the redirect is sleep's exit code (always 0 on SIGTERM), not
the gateway's. That was an explicit design call — the supervised
gateway is allowed to flap without taking the container with it,
which is what "supervision" means. CI users who want exit-code
forwarding can pass --no-supervise.
Two pre-existing test failures on main, both pointing at code that
was hardened recently — not behaviour bugs, test expectations that
fell out of date.
1. tests/tools/test_kanban_tools.py::test_worker_complete_rejects_stale_run_id
c002668ff ("fix(kanban): add grace period to detect_crashed_workers")
gates each running task behind a launch-window grace period so
freshly-spawned workers whose PID isn't yet visible on /proc don't
get reclaimed. The test creates a worker_env fixture moments before
asserting reclamation, so the default 30s grace skips the liveness
check and detect_crashed_workers returns []. Fix: set
HERMES_KANBAN_CRASH_GRACE_SECONDS=0 in the test so we get the
immediate-reclaim semantics the assertion expects.
2. tests/tools/test_windows_native_support.py::
TestKanbanWaitpidWindowsGuard::test_source_gates_waitpid_loop
ffdc937c1 ("fix(kanban): hoist zombie reaper out of dispatch_once")
reshaped reap_worker_zombies to use an early-return Windows guard
(\`if os.name == "nt": return []\`) instead of an inverted gate
(\`if os.name != "nt":\`). Both correctly keep the waitpid loop off
Windows — the early-return form is stronger because the rest of the
function never runs. Fix: accept either gate pattern in the source
scan.
Both failures reproduce verbatim on \`origin/main\` in a clean env;
neither relates to in-flight work on #33564 (the FD-leak fix). Filing
this as a separate fix-it PR per green-CI-policy so the kanban CI
shard stays green for downstream PRs.
The reaper hoist in the prior commit adds an extra
`asyncio.to_thread(_kb.reap_worker_zombies)` call at the top of every
dispatcher tick (before the per-board work). The existing
`test_gateway_dispatcher_disables_corrupt_board_without_traceback`
mocks `to_thread` with a 4-call cap that previously matched 2 full
dispatch ticks. With the reaper hoist each tick is now 3
`to_thread` calls instead of 2, so the cap is raised to 6 to preserve
the same number of dispatch ticks. The `connect == 5` assertion is
unchanged.
Also add the contributor's `steveonjava@gmail.com` to AUTHOR_MAP
alongside `steve@steveonjava.com` so contributor-audit passes for
both identities used across the salvaged commits.
Salvage follow-up for PR #32857.
apply_wal_with_fallback() issued PRAGMA journal_mode=WAL on every call,
including connections to DBs already in WAL mode. This triggered the WAL
init code path, causing SQLite to acquire EXCLUSIVE, checkpoint, and unlink
kanban.db-{wal,shm}. Other open connections received (deleted) FDs and
raised sqlite3.OperationalError: disk I/O error.
Add a cheap read probe (PRAGMA journal_mode, no flock/checkpoint/unlink)
before the set-pragma path. If already wal, return early. The set-pragma
and DELETE fallback paths are unchanged.
Closes#31158. Addresses root cause that PRs #32226 and #32322 attempted
via connection-sharing/caching approaches.
Reaper now runs at the top of every dispatcher tick regardless of per-board connect() failures. Previously the reaper sat inside dispatch_once after the kanban_db.connect() call — any EIO during connect would skip reaping for that tick, accumulating zombie workers and stale claim_lock rows.
Also: reap_worker_zombies now returns the list of reaped pids (the dispatcher logs them) and a test indentation fix.
Squashes three sibling commits from PR #32301 into one logical change for batch review.
Reads header bytes 28-31 after every COMMIT and compares against actual file size. Raises sqlite3.DatabaseError on torn-extend (actual_pages < page_count). Also sets PRAGMA wal_autocheckpoint=100 in connect().
Refs: #31208 (Bug E - same file, coordinate), #30973 (wal_autocheckpoint)
Refs: #30445, #30896, #30908 (corruption reports)
`detect_crashed_workers` calls `_pid_alive` on every `running` task whose
claim is held by this host. The check can transiently return False for a
freshly-spawned worker (fork → /proc-visibility lag, or reap-race
between SIGCHLD and parent reaping). When a second dispatcher ticks
inside that window it reclaims the task and spawns a duplicate worker.
Add `DEFAULT_CRASH_GRACE_SECONDS = 30` and an
`HERMES_KANBAN_CRASH_GRACE_SECONDS` env-var override.
`detect_crashed_workers` skips the liveness check when
`time.time() - started_at < grace`. The existing 15-minute claim TTL
still reclaims genuinely-crashed workers; grace only suppresses the
launch-window false positive.
`HERMES_KANBAN_CRASH_GRACE_SECONDS=0` is set on the `kanban_home`
fixture in `test_kanban_core_functionality.py` so existing tests that
assert immediate reclaim retain pre-fix semantics.
Companion to merged PR #23442 (`release_stale_claims`, closes#23025),
which addressed the same multi-dispatcher race in the stale-claim path.
Related: #20015 (`_pid_alive` false-negative behaviour),
When code inside a write_txn block raises an OperationalError that SQLite
has already auto-rolled-back (typical for disk I/O error,
database is locked, and database disk image is malformed), the
explicit ROLLBACK in write_txn.__exit__ itself raises
cannot rollback - no transaction is active and the secondary exception
replaces the original in the traceback. Operators see a misleading error
and lose the diagnostic information they need.
Swallow the rollback-time OperationalError so the caller always sees the
original cause.
Confirmed reproducer: tests/hermes_cli/test_kanban_db.py::
test_write_txn_preserves_original_exception_when_rollback_fails
apply_wal_with_fallback() treated "disk i/o error" as a permanent
WAL-incompatibility marker, identical to "locking protocol" (NFS) and
"not authorized" (FUSE). But EIO during PRAGMA journal_mode=WAL is
typically TRANSIENT — page-cache pressure, brief lock contention,
recoverable storage hiccups — not a permanent filesystem property.
Treating transient EIO as a permanent downgrade signal produces the
mixed-journal-mode-across-processes corruption pattern:
1. Process A opens kanban.db, hits transient EIO on the WAL pragma,
silently downgrades to journal_mode=DELETE.
2. Process B (no EIO) opens the same file moments later and
successfully sets journal_mode=WAL.
3. A writes rollback-journal frames while B writes WAL frames. SQLite
documents this as unsupported and corrupts the file:
https://www.sqlite.org/wal.html ("all connections to the same
database must use the same locking protocol").
This was the root cause of repeated kanban.db corruption on hosts with
multiple gateway processes plus CLI invocations against the same DB
(observed pattern: corruption shortly after gateway startup, after the
process logged "WAL journal_mode unsupported on this filesystem (disk
I/O error) — falling back to journal_mode=DELETE"). The fallback
warning told the truth — fallback DID happen — but the premise
("unsupported on this filesystem") was wrong; the EIO was a one-shot
event and sibling processes successfully used WAL.
Fix has two layers:
1. Remove "disk i/o error" from _WAL_INCOMPAT_MARKERS. EIO now re-raises
so callers can retry instead of silently corrupting the DB. The two
remaining markers ("locking protocol", "not authorized") are
deterministic per filesystem so they remain safe permanent-downgrade
signals.
2. Belt-and-suspenders: before downgrading on ANY marker match, peek the
on-disk journal mode. If the header says WAL, refuse to downgrade and
re-raise the original error. This guards against any future addition
to _WAL_INCOMPAT_MARKERS turning out to be transient in some
environment we haven't yet seen.
Tests:
- tests/test_hermes_state_wal_fallback.py:
* Flipped test_falls_back_on_disk_io_error → test_reraises_on_disk_io_error
asserting EIO is re-raised, not silently swallowed.
* Added test_does_not_downgrade_when_disk_says_wal covering the
on-disk-header safety guard for the existing legitimate markers.
- tests/hermes_cli/test_kanban_db.py:
* test_connect_falls_back_to_delete_on_locking_protocol now uses a
truly-fresh DB (instead of the kanban_home fixture which pre-inits
in WAL). On NFS the very first process touching the file legitimately
downgrades; on a file already in WAL the new guard correctly refuses.
A standalone reproducer lives at /tmp/kanban-stress/repro_bugD_eio_wal_downgrade.py
(not committed): without fix the DB silently flips from WAL to DELETE
mid-process; with fix the EIO surfaces and the file stays WAL.
Refs: Bug D in the kanban-corruption investigation series (Bugs A and C
shipped in ebe7374f3 and e02147d5e respectively). Bug D explains every
corruption incident this week including those that survived A's
single-dispatcher mitigation, because every CLI invocation is a
separate process whose WAL pragma can transiently fail.
Production corruption #6 left b-tree pages with zeroed headers but intact old cell content — the Bug E pattern. This fix applies three pragma calls on every connect():
- synchronous=FULL (was NORMAL): closes the WAL-checkpoint reordering window where a crash between WAL commit and main-DB write leaves a partially-written b-tree page header. Cost is <1ms per commit on local SSD; negligible at kanban write volume.
- secure_delete=ON: forces SQLite to zero freed page bytes on disk. If a torn write or hardware fault later corrupts a page, the underlying cell content is zero, so corruption is detectable and no stale rows can resurface as live data.
- cell_size_check=ON: adds a read-side guard so corrupt cells surface as errors at read time rather than as silent wrong-data returns.
All three are connection-scoped and re-applied on every connect(). secure_delete also writes a persistent flag into the DB header on the first call against a fresh DB, making the protection durable across processes for new DBs.
Tests added for all four required cases: each pragma active on a fresh connection, and all three re-applied after close+reopen. Also adds the required negative test (migration path does not reset pragmas).
Self-review follow-ups on the salvage of #22494:
W2 — Added encoding="utf-8" to read_text() calls. scripts/install.sh
contains 48 em-dash ("—") characters and ~1500 non-ASCII bytes total;
on Windows with cp1252 default locale, bare read_text() would raise
UnicodeDecodeError. Project-wide cleanup of the other 11 similar sites
across 5 install_sh test files is deferred to a separate follow-up.
W3 — Bound the branch-containment check by the function body (head
"resolve_install_layout() {" / tail "\n}\n") instead of by "next
`return 0` after the marker". scripts/install.sh has 5 additional
`return 0` statements between resolve_install_layout's first one and
EOF; if a future maintainer hoists the export above another conditional
with its own early-return or inserts an early-return between the marker
and the export, the old assertion still passes while the export is
unreachable. The body-bounded slice makes that class of regression
visible.
Also added more specific assertion messages and a guard for the body
extraction to fail loudly if the function signature ever changes.
