The per-turn file-mutation verifier footer rendered failed-write paths as
bare absolute paths in the user-facing response. The gateway's
extract_local_files() scans response text for bare paths ending in a
deliverable extension (.yaml/.json/etc.), validates os.path.isfile(), and
auto-attaches matches as native uploads — so a denied write to
~/.hermes/config.yaml surfaced the path in the footer and got the
credential file silently uploaded to the messaging channel.
The gateway denylist (validate_media_delivery_path) already blocks the
config.yaml case after #35634. This is defense-in-depth at the source:
backtick-wrap every path the footer emits — both the bullet path and any
path echoed inside the tool's error preview (the protected-file denial
message embeds the path in single quotes, which do NOT block the
extractor regex). extract_local_files skips paths inside inline-code
spans, so wrapping defeats auto-attachment for ANY protected file while
keeping the path human-readable.
- run_agent.py: _format_file_mutation_failure_footer wraps bullet paths;
new _neutralize_footer_paths backticks any remaining bare path (covers
the preview echo). staticmethod -> classmethod (caller unaffected).
- tests: backtick-wrap assertion + end-to-end extract_local_files leak test.
Detect when write_file / patch calls fail during a turn and are never
superseded by a successful write to the same path. When the final
text response is delivered, append an advisory footer listing the
files that did NOT change — so models that over-claim 'patched 5 files'
after 4 silent failures can't hide the lie.
Catches the failure mode reported in Ben Eng's llm-wiki session:
grok-4.1-fast issued batches of parallel patches, half failed with
'Could not find old_string', and the agent summarised the turn
claiming every file was edited. The user had to manually run
'git status' each turn to catch it.
The verifier is a pure post-hoc check on tool results — no new LLM
calls, no synthetic messages injected into history (prompt cache
preserved), no changes to tool argument dispatch. Per-turn state is
keyed by path; a later successful write to the same path clears the
failure entry so single-file retry recovery is not flagged.
Wired into both _execute_tool_calls_concurrent and
_execute_tool_calls_sequential, so batched parallel patches and one-at-
a-time edits are both covered. Footer emission happens after the
agent loop exits, before transform_llm_output / post_llm_call plugin
hooks run, so plugins still see (and can modify) the augmented text.
Config: display.file_mutation_verifier (bool, default true) +
HERMES_FILE_MUTATION_VERIFIER env override.
31 unit tests in tests/run_agent/test_file_mutation_verifier.py cover
target extraction (write_file, patch-replace, patch-v4a single and
multi-file), error-preview extraction (JSON .error field and plain
string), per-turn state transitions (first-error-wins on repeated
failure, success supersedes failure), footer rendering (truncation
at 10 entries, user-actionable hint), and env/config precedence.
Companion docs updated: user-guide/configuration.md +
reference/environment-variables.md.
