The port is only half of it. Ships the skill that tells the agent the
capability exists, when reaching for it beats reading .tsx, and how not
to hurt the user's running app while using it.
Lands in skills/software-development/ next to node-inspect-debugger,
which covers the same protocol for Node/perf work — this one is the
DOM/CSS half.
Load-bearing parts: don't relaunch or kill the user's app to get a port
(a mid-serve kill nukes Chromium's socket pool and the fallout gets
blamed on the last CSS edit); never dump the whole DOM into context;
prefer the maintained SELECTORS map to invented querySelectors; and
CDP answers factual questions only — whether it *looks* right is still
the user's call.
Widening pass on top of the #38820 salvage: a full-graph audit of every
SKILL.md (bundled + optional) found 13 more references to skills that
no longer exist. Classes:
- deleted in the 38d3c49aaf bundled-skill cleanup: generative-widgets,
spotify, cloudflared-quick-tunnel, webhook-subscriptions,
debugging-hermes-tui-commands -> dropped
- native-mcp absorbed into the hermes-agent hub skill -> re-pointed
- toolset names that were never skills: browser, image_gen -> dropped
Audit now reports zero broken related_skills references.
Every SKILL.md description over 60 chars was silently truncated to
57 chars + '...' in the system-prompt skill index
(extract_skill_description, agent/skill_utils.py), destroying the
routing signal for 69 of 179 skills — some descriptions ran to
1,005 chars.
Rewrites follow the authoring standard: <=60 chars, one sentence,
ends with a period, trigger front-loaded, no marketing words, no
skill-name repetition. Excess detail already lives in each skill's
body.
Includes the touchdesigner-mcp trim from PR #32361 (credit:
@JeliTron) and aligns with the router-precision direction of PR
#48780 (@John-Lussier). Docs catalogs + per-skill pages regenerated
via website/scripts/generate-skill-docs.py.
Co-authored-by: JeliTron <287797501+JeliTron@users.noreply.github.com>
The skill-authoring guide and curator prompt both reference
descriptions as the primary discovery mechanism but never mentioned
the 57-char system prompt truncation. Add explicit guidance:
- Authoring guide: frontmatter docs, template comment, size limits,
pitfall #3 with good/bad examples, verification checklist
- Curator prompt: parenthetical noting the 57-char window when
writing umbrella skill descriptions
Claude Code's /simplify was renamed away, community-restored, and rebuilt
since our 3-agent port (v2.1.63 -> v2.1.154+). This brings simplify-code
in line with the current upstream design, re-expressed in our own wording
and layered onto our existing risk-tier/confidence machinery:
- New Reviewer 4 (Altitude): flags band-aid fixes layered on shared
infrastructure — special cases, symptom patches with unfixed sibling
sites, workaround stacks — and points at the deeper mechanism fix.
Matches our AGENTS.md 'fix the class, not the site' rubric.
- Explicit cleanup-vs-bug-hunt boundary: this skill improves working
code; correctness review stays with requesting-code-review.
- Inline single-pass fallback when delegate_task is unavailable (leaf
subagents, delegation disabled) — previously the skill just broke;
now all four angles run sequentially with honest disclosure.
- Finding format gains a concrete-cost field.
- Efficiency reviewer adds closure-capture scope-retention leaks.
- Pitfalls: fan-out cap 3 -> 4, band-aid-vs-deliberate-boundary caveat,
no-bug-hunting drift guard.
Kept our value-adds upstream lacks: SAFE/CAREFUL/RISKY tiers,
Chesterton's Fence via git blame, dry-run/focus/scope modifiers.
skills/dogfood/SKILL.md sat at the root of the bundled skills tree,
making it one of the few uncategorized skills (Discord /skill
autocomplete listed it under 'uncategorized'; hermes_cli/commands.py
cited it as the example). Move it to
skills/software-development/dogfood/ alongside the other QA/testing
skills (test-driven-development, systematic-debugging,
requesting-code-review).
- git mv skills/dogfood -> skills/software-development/dogfood
(history preserved)
- fix test fixture path in tests/tools/test_browser_console.py
- update root-level-skill docstring examples (commands.py,
generate-skill-docs.py) to cite computer-use, which is still root-level
- drop 'dogfood' from the category list in hermes-agent-skill-authoring
SKILL.md (en + zh-Hans docs mirrors)
- docs: regenerate/move the bundled page to
software-development-dogfood (en + zh-Hans), update sidebars.ts,
skills-catalog.md, and the adversarial-ux-test related-skills link
E2E validated: fresh sync_skills() copies to the new nested path;
existing installs with the old flat copy keep it untouched (manifest is
name-keyed, hash unchanged -> skipped, no duplicate);
_get_category_from_path resolves 'software-development'; docusaurus
build green.
Five targeted enhancements to the upstream simplify-code skill:
1. Risk-tiered application (SAFE/CAREFUL/RISKY) — safe changes auto-applied,
careful changes verified per-file, risky changes flagged for human review.
Prevents auto-applying N+1 restructures and public API renames.
2. Chesterton's Fence — before flagging anything for removal, reviewers run
'git blame' to understand why it exists. Low-confidence findings are
escalated rather than guessed.
3. AI slop detection — Quality reviewer now catches: extra comments restating
obvious code, unnecessary defensive null-checks on validated inputs, 'as any'
casts, and patterns inconsistent with the rest of the file.
4. Silent failure detection — Efficiency reviewer now catches: empty catch
blocks, ignored error returns, except:pass, .catch(()=>{}) with no handling,
and error propagation gaps.
5. Structured reviewer output with confidence+risk tags — reviewers report in
'file:line → problem → fix | confidence: H/M/L | risk: SAFE/CAREFUL/RISKY'
format, enabling the orchestrator to tier the application.
Plus 3 new pitfalls: over-trusting dead code tools, public contract awareness,
and preserving intentional error handling.
Total: +45/-8 lines. Keeps the 212-line compact spirit.
Ref: #379
* feat(skills): add html-artifact skill, fold in sketch + architecture-diagram + concept-diagrams
Adds a unified `html-artifact` creative skill that produces self-contained,
single-file HTML artifacts — concept explainers, implementation plans,
status/incident reports, code-review walkthroughs, technical + educational
SVG diagrams, multi-variant design comparisons, and throwaway editors that
export their state back to the clipboard. Grounded in Anthropic's
html-effectiveness gallery (MIT); the house style (token block, serif/sans/
mono split, hand-rolled diffs, inline-SVG diagrams, graceful degradation) is
distilled from reading all 20 reference files.
Supersedes and removes three overlapping skills, folding their unique value in:
- sketch -> the fidelity dial (throwaway vs presentation) + the
multi-variant comparison layouts + the browser-vision
verify loop (references/fidelity-and-verify.md)
- architecture-diagram-> the dark "infra" token variant + double-rect masking +
semantic component palette (references/dark-tech.md,
templates/diagram.html infra mode)
- concept-diagrams -> the 9-ramp educational color system + the concept
archetype library (references/concept-archetypes.md,
the light design system in templates/diagram.html)
Structure:
- SKILL.md (description exactly 60 chars), 6 references, 3 templates
- templates verified by headless-Chrome render + vision inspection
- editor export logic (file://-safe clipboard, Promise-normalized) verified in node
Cross-references updated in claude-design (new disambiguation table row drawing
the design-taste vs information-artifact boundary), design-md, pretext, spike,
and kanban-video-orchestrator. Website skill docs + catalogs regenerated;
stale EN/zh-Hans per-skill pages pruned and i18n cross-refs fixed.
Not folded (intentionally orthogonal): excalidraw (.excalidraw JSON), p5js
(generative canvas), claude-design / popular-web-designs / design-md (visual
design taste / brand vocab / token spec).
* feat(skills): ship html-effectiveness gallery as fetched reference examples
Add scripts/fetch-examples.sh (idempotent clone/pull of Anthropic's MIT
html-effectiveness gallery) + references/examples.md mapping each of the 20
example files to a mode so the agent reads the right worked example. The clone
lands in references/examples/ and is gitignored (it's a 384KB upstream repo,
not vendored). SKILL.md workflow + reference list now point at it; falls back to
the distilled pattern references when offline.
* feat(skills): make reading a gallery example a required authoring step
Reading the matching html-effectiveness example is now workflow step 2 (was an
optional aside in step 3): fetch the gallery, read_file the file for your mode,
mirror its structure. Models skip optional steps; the examples are the ground
truth, so consulting one is mandatory. Added an 'Example' column to the
mode->build quick-reference table and a 'don't skip the example' pitfall.
Also dogfooded the skill: read 03-code-review-pr.html and 13-flowchart-diagram.html
raw and reconciled the distilled references against source — aligned diff-row tint
opacity to the source's 0.15 (was 0.18) and added the .ctx/.hunk rows in
house-style.md + base.html so they match 03-code-review-pr.html verbatim.
* docs(skills): explain the consolidation + bundled-vs-optional rationale
The supersession note only stated *what* was folded, not *why* the prune is
sound. Expand SKILL.md's intro into a 'Why this skill exists' section: the three
former skills emitted the same artifact and overlapped, so consolidating removes
which-one-do-I-load ambiguity; and the optional->bundled promotion of
concept-diagrams is footprint-safe because this skill has zero deps (only cost is
the 60-char description; everything else is progressive-disclosure). States the
bundling dividing line explicitly: zero install cost + broadly useful gets
bundled, real install cost (hyperframes: Node+FFmpeg+Chromium) stays optional.
Regenerated website per-skill page to match.
Inspired by Claude Code's /simplify. A bundled skill that captures recent
changes via git diff, fans out three focused reviewers (reuse, quality,
efficiency) via delegate_task batch mode, then aggregates findings and
applies the fixes worth applying.
Zero core changes — orchestrates existing tools (terminal/git, search_files,
delegate_task). Supports focus, dry-run, and scoped-diff modifiers.
Closes#379.
Phase 5 of the s6-overlay supervision plan. Documentation + small
diagnostic cleanups; no behavior changes.
website/docs/user-guide/docker.md:
- Replace the old 'entrypoint script does the bootstrap' section
with the s6-overlay boot flow (cont-init.d/01-hermes-setup,
cont-init.d/02-reconcile-profiles, static main-hermes + dashboard
services, ENTRYPOINT-as-main-program pattern).
- Add a 'Per-profile gateway supervision' subsection covering the
new lifecycle commands, restart semantics, log persistence, and
'Manager: s6 (container supervisor)' status reporting.
- Add 'Breaking change vs. pre-s6 images' callout naming the
/init ENTRYPOINT and pointing affected wrappers at the pin
workaround.
website/docs/user-guide/profiles.md:
- Add a note under 'Persistent services' pointing container users
at the docker.md section explaining s6 supervision inside the
image. Host-side systemd/launchd documentation is unchanged.
skills/software-development/hermes-s6-container-supervision/SKILL.md:
- New maintainer skill covering the supervision-tree map, file
layout, the Architecture B rationale (cont-init.d args + halt
exit-code propagation), quick recipes, and the 8 pitfalls we hit
while implementing the plan (PATH-without-/command, root-owned
profile dirs, SOUL.md as marker, the '143' anti-pattern, etc.).
hermes_cli/doctor.py:
- _check_gateway_service_linger skips on s6 (the linger concept
doesn't apply inside the container).
- New _check_s6_supervision section reports main-hermes/dashboard
state and per-profile-gateway count (registered vs supervised
up), only inside the s6 container. Host doctor output unchanged.
- External Tools / Docker check no longer emits a 'docker not
found' warning inside the container; prints an explanatory
info line instead. Still respects an explicit TERMINAL_ENV=docker
(in case the user mounted /var/run/docker.sock).
hermes_cli/gateway.py:
- Document _container_systemd_operational more precisely: it's
NOT for our Hermes Docker image (s6-overlay handles that via
detect_service_manager() == 's6'). It still covers
systemd-nspawn / k8s-with-systemd-init cases, so leaving it in
place is correct; the docstring just makes that explicit.
Test harness (verification, no test changes in this commit):
19 passed, 0 xfailed. 66 service-manager / container-boot /
profiles-s6-hooks / gateway-s6-dispatch unit tests still green.
61 doctor tests still green. Hadolint + shellcheck clean.
Refs: docs/plans/2026-05-07-s6-overlay-dynamic-subagent-gateways.md
Completes the Windows-gating coverage for the built-in skills/ tree. Every
bundled SKILL.md now carries an explicit platforms: declaration so the
loader (agent.skill_utils.skill_matches_platform) can skip-load skills
that don't fit the current OS.
74 skills declared cross-platform (platforms: [linux, macos, windows]):
Creative (16): ascii-art, ascii-video, architecture-diagram, baoyu-comic,
baoyu-infographic, claude-design, creative-ideation, design-md,
excalidraw, humanizer, manim-video, p5js, pixel-art,
popular-web-designs, pretext, sketch, songwriting-and-ai-music,
touchdesigner-mcp
Autonomous agents: claude-code, codex, hermes-agent, opencode
Data/devops: jupyter-live-kernel, kanban-orchestrator, kanban-worker,
webhook-subscriptions, dogfood, codebase-inspection
GitHub: github-auth, github-code-review, github-issues,
github-pr-workflow, github-repo-management
Media: gif-search, heartmula, songsee, spotify, youtube-content
MCP / email / gaming / notes / smart-home: native-mcp, himalaya,
pokemon-player, obsidian, openhue
mlops (non-broken): weights-and-biases, huggingface-hub, llama-cpp,
outlines, segment-anything-model, dspy, trl-fine-tuning
Productivity: airtable, google-workspace, linear, maps, nano-pdf,
notion, ocr-and-documents, powerpoint
Red-teaming / research: godmode, arxiv, blogwatcher, llm-wiki,
polymarket
Software-dev: debugging-hermes-tui-commands, hermes-agent-skill-authoring,
node-inspect-debugger, plan, requesting-code-review, spike,
subagent-driven-development, systematic-debugging,
test-driven-development, writing-plans
Misc: yuanbao
5 skills gated from Windows (platforms: [linux, macos]):
mlops/inference/vllm (serving-llms-vllm)
vLLM is officially Linux-only; Windows requires WSL.
mlops/training/axolotl
Axolotl's flash-attn + deepspeed + bitsandbytes stack is Linux-first.
mlops/training/unsloth
Requires Triton + xformers + flash-attn — Linux only in practice.
mlops/models/audiocraft (audiocraft-audio-generation)
torchaudio ffmpeg backend + encodec dependencies are Linux-first.
mlops/inference/obliteratus
Research abliteration workflow; relies on Linux-focused pytorch
kernels and MLX — no first-class Windows path.
Same strict-over-lenient policy as the optional-skills sweep: when the
underlying tool's Windows support is rough, missing, or WSL-only, gate the
skill. Easier to un-gate after verified Windows support lands than to leak
partial support that manifests as mid-task failures.
Combined with prior commits in this branch, every bundled SKILL.md
(skills/ + optional-skills/) now has a platforms: declaration.
Hermes's skill loader (agent/skill_utils.skill_matches_platform) already honors
the 'platforms:' frontmatter field and skip-loads skills whose declared
platform list doesn't include sys.platform. Seven bundled skills are in fact
Linux/macOS-only but never declared it, so they leak into Windows skill
listings and sometimes load with broken instructions.
Audited all 160 SKILL.md files (skills/ + optional-skills/) for Windows-
hostile signals: apt-get/brew/systemd/chmod+x install flows, ptrace/proc
runtime dependencies, bash-only launcher scripts, and package dependencies
with no Windows build. The 7 below fail one or more of those tests in a way
that fundamentally can't be papered over by docs edits:
minecraft-modpack-server bash start.sh + chmod +x + apt openjdk
evaluating-llms-harness lm-eval-harness bash launcher scripts
distributed-llm-pretraining-
torchtitan bash multi-node torchrun launcher
python-debugpy remote attach relies on /proc ptrace_scope
pytorch-fsdp NCCL backend; Windows path is WSL only
tensorrt-llm NVIDIA TensorRT-LLM has no Windows build
searxng-search Docker volume flow assumes POSIX $(pwd)
All seven get 'platforms: [linux, macos]'. On Windows the loader now skips
them silently — no more phantom skill listings, no more mid-task failures
because an Apple-only path was surfaced as a suggestion.
Cross-platform skills that merely CONTAIN signals in examples or
install-instructions (brew install as one of several paths, /tmp/ in a code
snippet, etc.) are NOT touched by this commit. A broader audit that
declares the ~140 cross-platform skills as 'platforms: [linux, macos,
windows]' can follow as a separate change once each has been verified
working on Windows.
The installed user copies under ~/AppData/Local/hermes/skills/ (when they
exist) are also patched so the running session reflects the gating
immediately, but only the in-repo files are committed here.
Target: every skill's description fits in a one-line gateway menu and
leads with trigger keywords an agent would match on. Drops filler like
'Use this skill to', 'A skill for', 'This skill provides'.
Before: max description length was 791 chars (architecture-diagram),
74 of 81 built-in skills were >60 chars.
After: max 60, mean 54, all 81 built-in skills <=60.
Rewritten with double-quoted YAML scalars to preserve Chinese/arrow
glyphs (baoyu-comic, yuanbao, youtube-content).
Was user-local in ~/.hermes/skills/. Ported into skills/software-development/
so other Hermes users get it and so the related_skills links from
node-inspect-debugger and python-debugpy resolve in-repo.
Frontmatter upgraded to match repo convention (version/author/license/
metadata.hermes.{tags,related_skills}, description rewritten as "Use when ...").
Body expanded with debugging-tactics section pointing at the two new
debugger skills, and additional common-issues / pitfalls entries.
Two new skills under skills/software-development/ for real breakpoint-driven
debugging from the terminal:
- node-inspect-debugger: node --inspect / --inspect-brk, node inspect REPL,
CDP scripting via chrome-remote-interface, attaching to running Node
processes (SIGUSR1), ui-tui-specific recipes, Vitest under debugger,
CPU profiles + heap snapshots.
- python-debugpy: pdb quick reference, breakpoint() workflow, pytest --pdb
(with xdist caveat for scripts/run_tests.sh), post-mortem, debugpy for
remote/attach, remote-pdb as the agent-friendly alternative to DAP,
recipes for tui_gateway/_SlashWorker/subprocess debugging.
Improvements to all 5 skills adapted from obra/superpowers:
- Restored anti-rationalization tables and red flags from originals
(key behavioral guardrails that prevent LLMs from taking shortcuts)
- Restored 'Rule of Three' for debugging (3+ failed fixes = question
architecture, not keep fixing)
- Restored Pattern Analysis and Hypothesis Testing phases in debugging
- Restored 'Why Order Matters' rebuttals and verification checklist in TDD
- Added proper Hermes delegate_task integration with real parameter examples
and toolset specifications throughout
- Added Hermes tool usage (search_files, read_file, terminal) for
investigation and verification steps
- Removed references to non-existent skills (brainstorming,
finishing-a-development-branch, executing-plans, using-git-worktrees)
- Removed generic language-specific sections (Go, Rust, Jest) that
added bulk without agent value
- Tightened prose — cut ~430 lines while adding more actionable content
- Added execution handoff section to writing-plans
- Consistent cross-references between the 5 skills
Add 5 new skills for professional software development workflows,
adapted from the Superpowers project ( obra/superpowers ):
- test-driven-development: RED-GREEN-REFACTOR cycle enforcement
- systematic-debugging: 4-phase root cause investigation
- subagent-driven-development: Structured delegation with two-stage review
- writing-plans: Comprehensive implementation planning
- requesting-code-review: Systematic code review process
These skills provide structured development workflows that transform
Hermes from a general assistant into a professional software engineer
with defined processes for quality assurance.
Skills are organized under software-development category and follow
Hermes skill format with proper frontmatter, examples, and integration
guidance with existing skills.
