Setup wizard now always writes dialecticCadence=2 on new configs and
surfaces the reasoning level as an explicit step with all five options
(minimal / low / medium / high / max), always writing
dialecticReasoningLevel.
Code keeps a backwards-compat fallback of 1 when dialecticCadence is
unset so existing honcho.json configs that predate the setting keep
firing every turn on upgrade. New setups via the wizard get 2
explicitly; docs show 2 as the default.
Also scrubs editorial lines from code and docs ("max is reserved for
explicit tool-path selection", "Unset → every turn; wizard pre-fills 2",
and similar process-exposing phrasing) and adds an inline link to
app.honcho.dev where the server-side observation sync is mentioned in
honcho.md. Recommended cadence range updated to 1-5 across docs and
wizard copy.
- cli: setup wizard pre-fills dialecticCadence=2 (code default stays 1
so unset → every turn)
- honcho.md: fix stale dialecticCadence default in tables, add
Session-Start Prewarm subsection (depth runs at init), add
Query-Adaptive Reasoning Level subsection, expand Observation
section with directional vs unified semantics and per-peer patterns
- memory-providers.md: fix stale default, rename Multi-agent/Profiles
to Multi-peer setup, add concrete walkthrough for new profiles and
sync, document observation toggles + presets, link to honcho.md
- SKILL.md: fix stale defaults, add Depth at session start callout
- Revert website/docs and SKILL.md changes; docs unification handled separately
- Scrub commit/PR refs and process narration from code comments and test
docstrings (no behavior change)
Several correctness and cost-safety fixes to the Honcho dialectic path
after a multi-turn investigation surfaced a chain of silent failures:
- dialecticCadence default flipped 3 → 1. PR #10619 changed this from 1 to
3 for cost, but existing installs with no explicit config silently went
from per-turn dialectic to every-3-turns on upgrade. Restores pre-#10619
behavior; 3+ remains available for cost-conscious setups. Docs + wizard
+ status output updated to match.
- Session-start prewarm now consumed. Previously fired a .chat() on init
whose result landed in HonchoSessionManager._dialectic_cache and was
never read — pop_dialectic_result had zero call sites. Turn 1 paid for
a duplicate synchronous dialectic. Prewarm now writes directly to the
plugin's _prefetch_result via _prefetch_lock so turn 1 consumes it with
no extra call.
- Prewarm is now dialecticDepth-aware. A single-pass prewarm can return
weak output on cold peers; the multi-pass audit/reconcile cycle is
exactly the case dialecticDepth was built for. Prewarm now runs the
full configured depth in the background.
- Silent dialectic failure no longer burns the cadence window.
_last_dialectic_turn now advances only when the result is non-empty.
Empty result → next eligible turn retries immediately instead of
waiting the full cadence gap.
- Thread pile-up guard. queue_prefetch skips when a prior dialectic
thread is still in-flight, preventing stacked races on _prefetch_result.
- First-turn sync timeout is recoverable. Previously on timeout the
background thread's result was stored in a dead local list. Now the
thread writes into _prefetch_result under lock so the next turn
picks it up.
- Cadence gate applies uniformly. At cadence=1 the old "cadence > 1"
guard let first-turn sync + same-turn queue_prefetch both fire.
Gate now always applies.
- Restored query-length reasoning-level scaling, dropped in 9a0ab34c.
Scales dialecticReasoningLevel up on longer queries (+1 at ≥120 chars,
+2 at ≥400), clamped at reasoningLevelCap. Two new config keys:
`reasoningHeuristic` (bool, default true) and `reasoningLevelCap`
(string, default "high"; previously parsed but never enforced).
Respects dialecticDepthLevels and proportional lighter-early passes.
- Restored short-prompt skip, dropped in ef7f3156. One-word
acknowledgements ("ok", "y", "thanks") and slash commands bypass
both injection and dialectic fire.
- Purged dead code in session.py: prefetch_dialectic, _dialectic_cache,
set_dialectic_result, pop_dialectic_result — all unused after prewarm
refactor.
Tests: 542 passed across honcho_plugin/, agent/test_memory_provider.py,
and run_agent/test_run_agent.py. New coverage:
- TestTrivialPromptHeuristic (classifier + prefetch/queue skip)
- TestDialecticCadenceAdvancesOnSuccess (empty-result retry, pile-up guard)
- TestSessionStartDialecticPrewarm (prewarm consumed, sync fallback)
- TestReasoningHeuristic (length bumps, cap clamp, interaction with depth)
- TestDialecticLifecycleSmoke (end-to-end 8-turn session walk)
Add 'optional-skills/' directory for official skills that ship with the repo
but are not copied to ~/.hermes/skills/ during setup. They are:
- NOT shown to the model in the system prompt
- NOT copied during hermes setup/update
- Discoverable via 'hermes skills search' labeled as 'official'
- Installable via 'hermes skills install' with builtin trust (no third-party warning)
- Auto-categorized on install based on directory structure
Implementation:
- OptionalSkillSource adapter in tools/skills_hub.py (search/fetch/inspect)
- Added to create_source_router() as first source (highest priority)
- Trust level 'builtin' for official skills in skills_guard.py
- Friendly install message for official skills (no third-party warning)
- 'official' label in cyan in search results and skill list
First optional skill: Blackbox CLI (autonomous-ai-agents/blackbox)
- Multi-model coding agent with built-in judge/Chairman pattern
- Delegates to Claude, Codex, Gemini, and Blackbox models
- Open-source CLI (GPL-3.0, TypeScript, forked from Gemini CLI)
- Requires paid Blackbox AI API key
Refs: #475
