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>
Surface configured MCP servers in Settings with JSON edit/save and a gateway-backed reload action so users can manage tool servers without falling back to slash commands.
Track live subagent gateway events in a desktop store, show active subagent counts in the Agents statusbar item, and replace the Agents overlay stub with a live spawn tree for the active session.
Press Enter while busy with a draft to queue it; with no draft to interrupt
and send the next queued turn. Auto-drains one queued turn each time the
session settles, same as Cursor. Queue persists across reloads so an
interrupted-and-queued turn isn't lost on refresh.
Each queued row supports edit-in-composer (with explicit Save/Cancel),
send-now (↑), and delete. Drain skips only the entry currently being
edited so the rest of the queue keeps flowing.
Queue dequeue is transactional — an entry only leaves the queue after
`prompt.submit` is accepted, so a rejected submit doesn't drop the turn.
Also shrinks the `[interrupted]` marker to a muted one-liner and drops
its assistant footer so it stops looking like a real reply.
- Add Cron and Profiles sidebar routes with full CRUD-style flows and API wiring.
- Extend Command Center with auxiliary task overrides and a Usage panel (7d/30d/90d).
- Fix titlebar geometry for WSL/Windows (native overlay width, tool spacing).
- Remove stray merge conflict markers from pyproject.toml optional deps.
Co-authored-by: Cursor <cursoragent@cursor.com>
Two related fixes for Python detection on Windows:
1. py.exe (Python launcher) is missing from per-user installs that
didn't check the launcher option, so 'py -3.X --version' alone
misses real Python installs. User-reported case: clean Win11 +
official Python.org 3.14 install -> 'where py' returned nothing,
our installer offered to install Python again. Both NSIS prereq
page and main.cjs now probe in this order:
1. py.exe launcher (when present)
2. PEP 514 registry: HKLM/HKCU\SOFTWARE\Python\PythonCore\<v>\InstallPath
3. Filesystem: %ProgramFiles%\Python<v>, %LocalAppData%\Programs\Python\Python<v>
Crucially, we never fall back to running 'python.exe' from PATH
on Windows — the WindowsApps stub at %LOCALAPPDATA%\Microsoft\
WindowsApps\python.exe is a redirector that opens the Microsoft
Store window if no Store Python is installed. Triggering that
during boot would be terrible UX. Registry/filesystem probes
never execute the binary.
2. Drop 3.14 from the supported version set. Several Hermes deps
(notably pywinpty, which carries Rust crates like
windows_x86_64_msvc) don't yet publish 3.14 wheels. With wheels
missing, 'pip install -e .' falls back to building from sdist,
which needs a Rust toolchain — users see 'could not compile
windows_x86_64_msvc build script' on first run. install.ps1
sidesteps this by pinning to 3.11 via uv; the desktop installer
doesn't yet have the same uv-managed-Python pathway, so for now
we accept 3.11/3.12/3.13 and tell winget to install 3.11 if
none of those are present. Revisit when the wheel ecosystem
catches up to 3.14 (~early 2026).
Five distinct bugs surfaced from a math-heavy stress test:
1. Adjacent code fences glued together. scrubBacktickNoise's
second-pass regex /``\s*``/g matched the LAST 2 backticks of
one fence + whitespace + FIRST 2 backticks of the next, collapsing
two blocks into one. Fixed with lookbehind/lookahead so we only
match exactly 2 backticks not part of a longer run.
2. Whitespace eaten between fences and following content.
stripPreviewTargets internally calls .trim() which strips leading/
trailing whitespace from each split-segment. For segments between
two fences this collapsed \n\n to '', gluing fence close to next
block. Fixed by capturing leading/trailing whitespace at the call
site and restoring it after the transform.
3. Currency dollar signs eaten as math. With singleDollarTextMath:true
remark-math greedy-matched any pair of $, so '$5 ... $10' became
one inline math span. Added escapeCurrencyDollars to escape $<digit>
patterns to \$<digit> in prose segments (not in code). Trade-off:
math expressions starting with a digit (rare — '$5x = 10$') get
escaped too. Mirrors the convention in ChatGPT/Claude's UIs.
4. \(...\) and \[...\] LaTeX brackets unsupported. Models often
emit these instead of $...$ / $$...$$. Added
rewriteLatexBracketDelimiters preprocessor pass.
5. ```latex / ```tex blocks were being routed to KaTeX via a
rewrite to ```math. Aligns with GitHub markdown convention:
```math = render as math; ```latex / ```tex = LaTeX/TeX
source code (syntax highlighted, not rendered). Conflating them
broke teaching/showing-source use cases. MATH_FENCE_LANGUAGES
pruned to {'math'} only.
Also flipped parseIncompleteMarkdown to true (was !isStreaming) so
the math parser can't see $ inside streaming-but-not-yet-closed code
fences. Shiki was already deferred via defer={isStreaming} so this
doesn't introduce new tokenization cost.
Test: 18/18 existing tests still pass; one test updated to expect
escaped \$ in currency-prose-with-URL case.
The noise overlay defaulted to on, which adds a busy speckle layer over
the whole window for every new user. Flip the Leva default to off; the
toggle stays in Backdrop / Noise for anyone who wants it back.
katex-memo.ts (added in 112cad59b) imports hast-util-from-html-isomorphic,
hast-util-to-text, remark-math, katex, and unist-util-visit-parents but
those were never added to apps/desktop/package.json. They were silently
resolving via @streamdown/math at the workspace root, which broke the
moment `npm i --prefix apps/desktop` ran with the per-workspace lockfile
because that install only consults apps/desktop/package.json. Add them
as direct deps, plus unified/vfile/@types/hast for the type imports.
Also delete apps/desktop/package-lock.json — root package.json declares
workspaces: ["apps/*"], so npm manages all lockfile state at the root.
The stale per-app lockfile is what made `npm i --prefix apps/desktop`
diverge from the workspace install in the first place and left an empty
apps/desktop/node_modules/@assistant-ui/ stub that Vite's dep optimizer
then tried (and failed) to open at @assistant-ui/core/dist/internal.js.
Wrap rehype-katex with a per-equation LRU cache (keyed by
displayMode + source text) and re-enable math during streaming.
Stock @streamdown/math runs rehype-katex on every markdown commit,
so each new token re-katexes every equation in the message. For
math-heavy responses (an equation derived step-by-step) that's
hundreds of ms of wasted work per token and the streaming UI
chokes. With memoization, each equation pays katex.renderToString
exactly once; subsequent tokens re-walk the tree but hit cache for
unchanged equations.
The wrapper mirrors rehype-katex's semantics exactly: same class
detection (language-math, math-inline, math-display), same
<pre>-walk-up for fenced math blocks, same parent.children.splice
replacement, same SKIP traversal, same strict-then-lenient render
strategy with VFile message reporting.
Cached children are structuredCloned on each splice so downstream
rehype plugins or toJsxRuntime can't mutate the cache.
Add @streamdown/math plugin to the chat markdown renderer.
Inline ($x^2$) and block ($$...$$) math both supported with
singleDollarTextMath enabled. Plugin is gated to non-streaming state
to match the existing pattern for syntax highlighting — math renders
when the message completes, avoiding KaTeX re-render churn during
streaming. KaTeX CSS is imported in styles.css; ~30KB CSS + ~430KB
JS added to the bundle. Smoothness improvements during streaming
deferred to a follow-up.
Hide the red setup notice when the message is the generic missing-provider guidance, since onboarding already presents provider auth actions. Centralize provider-setup matching across desktop hooks and add coverage for the matcher.
After OAuth/API-key login completes, onboarding now shows a confirmation
card with the curated default model and a Change button before dropping
the user into chat. Closes the gap where the desktop's `model.default`
was empty after first launch and the agent had to fall back to whatever
heuristic happened to fire — leaving users wondering "why am I getting
sonnet-4 when I logged into Nous Portal?"
Why
- Desktop onboarding only persisted credentials, never `model.default`.
The CLI's `hermes model` command pairs provider + model selection,
but the desktop's onboarding skipped the model step entirely.
- Result: users saw whichever model the agent's auto-fallback picked,
unpredictably and undocumented.
- For the BUILD demo we want users to land on the model they expect
for their provider, with a clear "this is what you're getting" UI
and a one-click path to change it before chatting.
How
- New `confirming_model` flow status carries the just-authenticated
provider slug, current default model, label, and a saving flag.
- `completeWithModelConfirm()` runs after credentials succeed: reloads
env, verifies runtime, fetches /api/model/options to find the curated
first-model for the provider, persists it via /api/model/set, then
transitions into `confirming_model`.
- If anything fails (no providers returned, network error), falls
through to the previous behaviour — onboarding completes without
the confirm step. Polish, not a hard requirement.
- All four credential paths (device_code OAuth, PKCE OAuth, external
CLI flow, API key) now use completeWithModelConfirm instead of
reloadAndConnect.
UI
- `ConfirmingModelPanel` shows: green "<provider> connected" banner,
card with "Default model: <name>" + Change button, and a "Start
chatting" CTA that finalises onboarding.
- Reuses the existing `ModelPickerDialog` (the same picker available
from the chat shell) for the change-model UX. Search, filtering,
multi-provider listing — all already built.
- Stacking: ModelPickerDialog defaults to z-130, which renders UNDER
the onboarding overlay (z-1300) and breaks pointer events. Added
optional `contentClassName` prop to ModelPickerDialog so callers
can override; onboarding passes `z-[1310]`.
Provider-slug matching
- For OAuth flows: pass `provider.id` directly as the preferred slug.
- For API-key flows: `OPENROUTER_API_KEY` → "openrouter" via env-key
prefix strip. Also includes the user-visible label as a fallback
candidate.
- fetchProviderDefaultModel falls back to the first authenticated
provider in the response if no preferred slug matches — so even a
miss still surfaces a reasonable default.
Files
- apps/desktop/src/store/onboarding.ts:
+ new `confirming_model` flow variant
+ fetchProviderDefaultModel + completeWithModelConfirm helpers
+ setOnboardingModel (optimistic update + revert on failure)
+ confirmOnboardingModel (finalises onboarding from the card)
- reloadAndConnect (replaced; the four call sites now go through
completeWithModelConfirm)
- apps/desktop/src/components/desktop-onboarding-overlay.tsx:
+ ConfirmingModelPanel component
+ new branch in FlowPanel for status `confirming_model`
+ ModelPickerDialog usage with z-[1310] content class
- apps/desktop/src/components/model-picker.tsx:
+ optional `contentClassName` prop on ModelPickerDialog so the
dialog can be stacked on top of other fixed overlays
Tested
- `npm run type-check` passes
- `npx eslint` clean on touched files
- Live test in `npm run dev`: cleared onboarding cache, walked
through Nous device-code flow, saw confirm card with curated
default, clicked Change → ModelPickerDialog rendered above the
onboarding overlay with working pointer events, picked a different
model, "Start chatting" persisted to ~/.hermes/config.yaml.
Add ripgrep as a third (recommended) prereq alongside Python and Git in
the NSIS prereq detection page, and clean up the page layout based on
on-VM testing.
Why ripgrep
- Hermes' search_files tool calls `rg` directly for content + filename
search (tools/file_operations.py:1382). Falls back to grep/find from
Git Bash when missing — works but slower and noisier (no .gitignore
awareness).
- ~5MB winget install via `BurntSushi.ripgrep.MSVC --scope user` — no
UAC prompt, parallel to how Python installs.
- scripts/install.ps1 already installs ripgrep as part of
Install-SystemPackages; this brings the desktop installer to parity.
Why "recommended" not "required"
- Python and Git are hard requirements: without them the agent runtime
or terminal tool refuses to start. The bootstrapper preflight throws.
- ripgrep is a performance enhancement: missing it just means slower
searches. Page wording reflects this; failure to install is logged
but doesn't show a MessageBox or block.
Layout polish (response to on-VM screenshot review)
- Wizard header now correctly reads "System Requirements" instead of
the leftover "Choose Install Location" from the previous page. Set
via `GetDlgItem $HWNDPARENT 1037/1038` + WM_SETTEXT — the standard
NSIS pattern for overriding the page header on a custom Page.
- Removed redundant in-body title + verbose intro paragraph; the
wizard header IS the title now. Body has one short intro line.
- Group boxes tightened to 26u with content positioned just below the
groupbox title (not top-anchored status + bottom-anchored checkbox
with empty space in the middle). All three panels + footer fit
comfortably in 126u, well under the 140u page limit.
- Checkbox labels simplified: dropped "(per-user, no admin prompt)"
and "(administrator approval required)" suffixes. The footer note
still calls out UAC for Git when relevant.
- Footer text trimmed to fit cleanly without clipping.
Install order (in customInstall macro)
- Python → ripgrep → Git
- Python and ripgrep are silent and run first; Git's UAC prompt comes
last so the user's approval interaction isn't interrupted by silent
activity afterwards.
Skip behavior unchanged
- All three detected → page auto-skips via Abort
- Silent install (/S) → customInstall winget block skips
- User unchecks all → page advances without running winget
Files
- apps/desktop/installer/prereq-check.nsh: ripgrep detection block,
ripgrep page panel + checkbox, ripgrep customInstall block,
GetDlgItem header override, layout reflow
- apps/desktop/README.md: Runtime prerequisites section updated to
list ripgrep as recommended, with manual winget command
- chat-messages: match tool rows by overlapping query/context/preview values
so preview-first `tool.progress` rows reliably adopt later stable-id
`tool.start` payloads instead of spawning ghost rows or mis-merging
parallel same-name calls; preserve prior args/result across phases.
- tui_gateway: emit full args + parsed result on `tool.start` / `tool.complete`,
drop redundant `tool.started` re-emit from `tool.progress`.
- electron/main: prefer SOURCE_REPO_ROOT before PATH `hermes` in dev so
local backend edits actually run; split hardening helpers into
`electron/hardening.cjs` with tests.
- thread/tool UI: one-shot enter animation keyed by stable ids, braille
spinner for running rows, Cursor-like disclosure rows, drill-down +
duration/count formatting via new tool-fallback-model.
- composer: extract `text-utils`, drop liquid-glass overrides.
- right-rail: split preview-pane into preview-console / preview-file.
- runtime: incremental external-store runtime + runtime-readiness gate;
onboarding store + tests; route-resume hook test.
- regression tests for live tool reconciliation (parallel tools, id-less
progress, preview-first rows, structured args/results).
Previous attempt tried to break the dataflow by reconstructing the
close-fence regex from a literal char + marker.length, but CodeQL still
traced marker.length back to input and kept flagging the test-fixture
URLs as hostname-regex sources (js/incomplete-hostname-regexp).
Replace `new RegExp(...)` + `closeRe.test(body)` with a string-only
hasCloseFenceLine() helper that splits on '\n' and uses ===. No regex
on this path now, so input data can no longer reach a RegExp source.
Behavior preserved: matches lines that are (whitespace + marker +
whitespace), which is what the original `\n[ \t]*${marker}[ \t]*(?=\n|$)`
matched. All 12 markdown-text tests still pass.
CodeQL's dataflow doesn't follow the helper-function guard inside
`safeSet`, so it kept flagging Object.defineProperty as prototype-
polluting. Inline the literal `__proto__`/`constructor`/`prototype`
check at the assignment site to break the dataflow.
Behavior unchanged — same set of disallowed keys, same throw.
- settings/helpers.ts: harden setNested against prototype pollution.
POLLUTING_PATH_PARTS check is now applied at every assignment site
(loop + leaf) and uses Object.defineProperty so CodeQL can see the
guard inline rather than via a helper function call.
- lib/markdown-preprocess.ts: rebuild the dangling-fence close regex
from a fence-char + length instead of marker.replace(...). The marker
is captured by `(`{3,}|~{3,})` so it can only be backticks or tildes,
but CodeQL was tracing tainted input text into the RegExp source and
flagging hostname dots from input as part of the pattern (false
positive js/incomplete-hostname-regexp on the test fixture URLs).
Reconstructing from a literal char breaks the dataflow.
- scripts/notarize-artifact.cjs: drop args from the run() rejection
message. Args carry --key-id / --issuer / key file path; the existing
outer catch already squashes errors to a generic line, but CodeQL was
flagging the args.join(' ') as clear-text logging of APPLE_API_KEY_ID.
Composer DOM-text-as-HTML alerts (composer/index.tsx:379, :547) are
already addressed in 4dd9732a9 — innerHTML assignment was replaced with
renderComposerContents which builds DOM via replaceChildren / append
text nodes (no HTML interpretation).
- Hoist todo to first-class widget (shadcn checkboxes, brand colors, no
tool-accordion). Header derives label from active task; non-active rows fade.
- Replace raw JSON dumps with structured key/value summaries via
formatToolResultSummary; nested error extraction for clearer failures.
- Fix loaded-session grouping: stitch interleaved assistant/tool iterations
into one bubble instead of orphaned synthetic messages.
- Stable tool/thinking timers via keyed registry so unmount/scroll doesn't
reset elapsed counts; gate "running" on real live thread state.
- Reorganize chat-only assistant-ui components under components/chat/.
The packaged Windows installer now detects Python 3.11+ and Git for Windows
at install time and offers to install missing prereqs via winget. Mirrors
the prereq logic scripts/install.ps1 already runs for CLI installs, so
desktop installer users get the same out-of-the-box experience as
install.ps1 users.
Why
- Hermes' terminal tool calls bash.exe directly (tools/environments/
local.py); on Windows that's Git Bash from Git for Windows. Without it,
the agent fails on the first terminal() call.
- Hermes' Python runtime needs 3.11+. Without it, the desktop bootstrapper
errors out at venv creation.
- Both gaps surfaced on a fresh Windows 11 VM smoke test: VM had Python
pre-installed but no Git, so the agent's first terminal call failed
with "Git Bash isn't installed."
- install.ps1 has had Install-Git + Install-Uv functions for ages. The
desktop installer was the asymmetric outlier.
How — NSIS prereq page
- New file: apps/desktop/installer/prereq-check.nsh (plugged into
electron-builder via build.nsis.include)
- Real Wizard page using nsDialogs, inserted via customPageAfterChangeDir
hook (between the Directory page and InstFiles).
- Group boxes for Python and Git, each showing detection status.
- Pre-checked install checkboxes when winget is available.
- Auto-skips silently if both prereqs are already installed.
- Falls back to manual download URLs when winget itself is missing.
- Detection:
- Python: probes `py -3.11`/`-3.12`/`-3.13`/`-3.14` via the Python
launcher. Microsoft Store "Python stub" (no py.exe) is correctly
classified as not-installed.
- Git: `where git`.
- winget: `where winget` (Win10 1809+ / Win11 with App Installer).
- Install execution (in customInstall macro):
- Python: nsExec::ExecToLog with `--scope user --silent`. Per-user
install, no UAC prompt, output streams to install log.
- Git: ExecShellWait via Windows ShellExecute. Critical because Git
always installs per-machine and triggers UAC; ShellExecute preserves
the foreground focus chain across non-elevated → elevated process
spawns, so UAC actually comes to the foreground. nsExec::ExecToLog
breaks the chain because winget runs hidden.
- Both pass `--disable-interactivity --accept-package-agreements
--accept-source-agreements` to suppress winget's own dialogs.
- Verification: probes Git's standard install locations via FileExists
rather than `where git`. NSIS's process inherits PATH at startup, so
a freshly-installed Git won't be visible to `where` until restart.
- Silent installs (/S) skip the prompts; managed deploys handle prereqs
out-of-band via Group Policy / Intune.
How — Electron-side safety net
- New findGitBash() in main.cjs, parallel to findSystemPython(). Probes
the same locations as tools/environments/local.py:_find_bash() so a
positive result here means the agent's terminal tool will work.
- ensureRuntime now throws a clear, actionable error on Windows when Git
Bash isn't found, matching the existing "Python 3.11+ is required"
error path.
- Catches users the NSIS page doesn't: .msi installer users (NSIS prereq
page doesn't run for MSI), `npm run dev` users, manual installers,
anyone who unchecked the install boxes on the NSIS prereq page.
- All gated on `IS_WINDOWS`; macOS / Linux unaffected.
NSIS build issue (resolved)
- electron-builder defaults to `-WX` (warnings as errors). NSIS optimizer
emits "warning 6010: function not referenced" for our page functions
because Page custom directives don't count as references in its
static-analysis pass. The functions ARE called at runtime when NSIS
invokes the page; the optimizer just can't see it statically.
- Set `build.nsis.warningsAsErrors=false` in package.json so this
spurious warning doesn't fail the build. (Documented option from
electron-builder's nsisOptions.)
Out of scope (filed for future work)
- MSI prereq detection: Windows Installer custom actions are a different
mechanism. Enterprise deploys typically handle prereqs via GP/Intune.
- Bundle PortableGit + python-build-standalone in extraResources for
zero-network installs. ~80MB increase.
- Mac / Linux GUI prereq flows (different installer formats; Xcode CLT
covers most macOS prereqs already; Linux is per-distro hard).
Files
- apps/desktop/installer/prereq-check.nsh (new, ~290 lines NSIS)
- apps/desktop/package.json (build.nsis.include +
warningsAsErrors)
- apps/desktop/electron/main.cjs (findGitBash + preflight)
- apps/desktop/README.md (Runtime prerequisites
section)
Cross-platform impact
- macOS / Linux builds (dist:mac, dist:mac:dmg, dist:mac:zip): nsis
config is ignored entirely; .nsh is dormant.
- npm run dev: .nsh dormant; main.cjs preflight gated on IS_WINDOWS.
- scripts/install.ps1, scripts/install.sh: no reference to any new
files; CLI install paths untouched.
- Hermes CLI / dashboard / gateway: no reference; runtime untouched.
- All checks: node --check on main.cjs and test-desktop.mjs pass;
npm run test:desktop:platforms 4/4 passing; node --test green.
Tested
- npm run dist:win produces signed .exe and .msi without errors.
- Fresh Win11 VM (Python pre-installed, no Git): prereq page renders,
Python check shows detected, Git checkbox pre-checked. Click Next →
Git installs via winget with UAC prompt in foreground.
- After install completes, Hermes launches and the agent's terminal
tool can run bash commands. Verified Git Bash is detected at
`C:\Program Files\Git\bin\bash.exe` by ensureRuntime's preflight.
Make the desktop app's runtime layout match what scripts/install.ps1 and
scripts/install.sh produce, so a desktop-only user and a CLI-only user end
up with the same files in the same places and can share one install.
Layout
- ACTIVE_HERMES_ROOT = HERMES_HOME/hermes-agent (was: process.resourcesPath/hermes-agent, read-only)
- VENV_ROOT = HERMES_HOME/hermes-agent/venv (was: userData/hermes-runtime)
- desktop.log = HERMES_HOME/logs/desktop.log (was: userData/desktop.log)
- HERMES_HOME default: %LOCALAPPDATA%\hermes on Windows, ~/.hermes elsewhere
The packaged .app/.exe still ships a read-only payload at
process.resourcesPath/hermes-agent (FACTORY_HERMES_ROOT). On first launch
or after an installer-driven upgrade we sync factory -> active, then
provision the venv and run pip install -e . against the active root.
Key behaviors
- Pin HERMES_HOME in the spawned Python's env so get_hermes_home() resolves
to the same path resolveHermesHome() picked. Without this, Python falls
back to ~/.hermes on every platform - fine on mac/linux, a split-state
bug on Windows where our default is %LOCALAPPDATA%\hermes.
- Detect developer installs by .git presence at ACTIVE; never overwrite
a user's checkout via factory sync.
- Marker at ACTIVE/.hermes-desktop-runtime.json (schema v4) tracks
pyproject hash + factory version + runtime schema version. depsFresh
fast-paths when nothing changed.
- Dev (npm run dev) prefers SOURCE_REPO_ROOT over ACTIVE so devs run
their local edits, not whatever's under HERMES_HOME.
- Better error messages distinguish "no payload" from "no Python".
- Preserve a legacy ~/.hermes on Windows when no %LOCALAPPDATA%\hermes
exists, so users with prior pip/manual installs aren't orphaned.
pyproject.toml
- Promote fastapi, uvicorn[standard], ptyprocess (non-Windows), and
pywinpty (Windows) to main dependencies. The dashboard backend
(hermes dashboard) needs them at runtime; the previous lazy-import
fallback was a footgun for fresh installs.
- Empty the [pty] optional-extra; kept as a no-op back-compat alias for
any existing pip install hermes-agent[pty] invocations.
Drops the hardcoded BUNDLED_RUNTIME_REQUIREMENTS list in main.cjs - the
desktop now installs whatever pyproject.toml says, single source of truth.
Files
- apps/desktop/electron/main.cjs: runtime layout, HERMES_HOME pin,
factory->active sync, marker v4
- apps/desktop/scripts/test-desktop.mjs: track new venv location
- apps/desktop/README.md: new Setup, Runtime Bootstrap, and
Debugging sections
- pyproject.toml: fastapi/uvicorn/pty backends in main
dependencies; [pty] extra emptied
Tested locally on Windows: npm run dev boots cleanly, sessions land at
the new location, type-check + lint + test:desktop:platforms all pass.
Verified end-to-end on a fresh Win11 VM via dist:win installer.
Known gaps (filed as follow-ups, not in this PR):
- Skills not seeded on packaged installs (sync_skills only runs in
cmd_chat, not cmd_dashboard). Need to move to shared pre-dispatch.
- Git Bash not bundled or detected; agent's terminal tool errors out
with a useful message but desktop bootstrapper should pre-flight it.
- install.ps1 / install.sh should be decomposed into composable phase
libraries so the desktop bootstrapper can reuse them as a single
source of truth across all install surfaces.
The composer rendered {input} inside two different parent fragments
depending on `stacked`. When auto-expand flipped `stacked` (e.g. the
moment typed text wrapped past two lines), React reconciled the two
branches as different positions and unmounted/remounted the
contenteditable. The fresh mount started empty, so any in-flight
characters — most reliably reproduced by holding a key — were lost.
Replace the conditional with a single CSS Grid whose template-areas
swap on `stacked`. The three children (menu, input, controls) keep
stable identities across the toggle; only their grid placement
changes, which the browser handles without React tearing down the
editor.
