hermes-agent/website
snav e84fe483bc feat(discord): channel history backfill for multi-user sessions
Adds optional channel-context backfill for Discord shared-channel sessions
so the agent can see recent messages it missed between its own turns
(typically when require_mention=true filters out most traffic).

Previously the agent only saw the @mention message that triggered it, which
led to disorienting replies in active multi-user channels where the
conversation context was invisible. With backfill enabled, a configurable
number of recent messages are fetched per-turn and prepended to the trigger
message as a context block, kept separate from sender-prefix logic so
attribution remains clean.

This re-opens the work from #13063 (approved by @OutThisLife on 2026-04-20,
closed when I closed the branch to address the simpolism:main head-branch
issue plus an ordering bug I caught later in live use). Filing against the
freshly-rewritten problem statement in #13054 so the design is grounded in
the failure mode rather than the implementation shape.

The implementation follows the **push-mode last-self-anchored** design from
the two options laid out in #13054. See the issue for the trade-off
discussion vs pull-mode (#13120 was an earlier closed PR using that shape).
Treating this as a reference implementation — happy to rewrite as
last-trigger anchoring or as a hybrid with #13120 if maintainers prefer.

Changes:

- gateway/platforms/discord.py:
  - new `_discord_history_backfill()` / `_discord_history_backfill_limit()`
    helpers (config.extra > env > default), mirroring the existing
    `_discord_require_mention()` shape
  - new `_fetch_channel_context()` that scans `channel.history()` backwards
    from the trigger to the bot's last message (or limit), formats as
    `[Recent channel messages] / [name] msg / ...`, respects DISCORD_ALLOW_BOTS,
    skips system messages
  - per-channel `_last_self_message_id` cache to narrow the fetch window
    on hot paths (avoids full history scan when the bot has spoken recently)
  - **IMPORTANT**: passes `oldest_first=False` explicitly to `channel.history()`.
    discord.py 2.x silently flips the default to True when `after=` is supplied,
    which would select the EARLIEST N messages after our last response instead
    of the LATEST N before the trigger. In high-traffic windows this would
    return stale tool traces and drop the actual final answer the user is
    asking about. See regression test below. Caught in live use during a
    Codex tool-trace burst on May 13 2026.
- gateway/config.py: discord_history_backfill + discord_history_backfill_limit
  settings + yaml→env bridge
- gateway/platforms/base.py: channel_context field on MessageEvent
- gateway/run.py: prepend channel_context after sender-prefix so the
  [sender name] tag applies to the trigger message alone, not to the backfill
- hermes_cli/config.py: defaults for new discord.history_backfill and
  discord.history_backfill_limit keys
- cli-config.yaml.example: documented defaults
- tests/gateway/test_discord_free_response.py: 7 new tests covering
  cold-start backfill, self-message stop boundary, other-bot filtering,
  cache hot-path narrowing, stale-cache fallback, shared-channel +
  per-user backfill paths, and the ordering regression test
  (`test_fetch_channel_context_cache_uses_latest_window_when_after_set`)
- tests/gateway/test_config.py: yaml→env bridge tests
- tests/gateway/test_session.py: prefix-order edge cases
- website/docs/user-guide/messaging/discord.md: env vars + config keys +
  usage docs

Tested on Ubuntu 24.04 — empirically validated in my own multi-bot Discord
research server for the past three weeks.

Fixes #13054
Supersedes #13063 (closed)
2026-05-14 15:50:57 -07:00
..
docs feat(discord): channel history backfill for multi-user sessions 2026-05-14 15:50:57 -07:00
i18n/zh-Hans/docusaurus-plugin-content-docs/current/user-guide docs(i18n): add zh-Hans Tool Gateway, image gen, and Windows WSL guide 2026-05-05 14:14:03 -07:00
scripts chore: ruff auto-fix PLR6201 — tuple → set in membership tests (#23937) 2026-05-11 11:13:25 -07:00
src docs(user-stories): add 116 stories from the Hermes Discord archive (#23436) 2026-05-10 15:21:40 -07:00
static rebuild model catalog 2026-05-11 09:54:31 -07:00
.gitignore docs: publish llms.txt and llms-full.txt for agent-friendly ingestion (#18276) 2026-04-30 23:17:14 -07:00
docusaurus.config.ts docs(i18n): add zh-Hans Tool Gateway, image gen, and Windows WSL guide 2026-05-05 14:14:03 -07:00
package-lock.json docs: stabilize website diagrams 2026-03-14 22:49:57 -07:00
package.json feat(profile): shareable profile distributions via git (#20831) 2026-05-08 10:04:32 -07:00
README.md docs: replace ASCII diagrams with Mermaid/lists, add linting note 2026-03-21 17:58:30 -07:00
sidebars.ts feat(proxy): local OpenAI-compatible proxy for OAuth providers (#25969) 2026-05-14 15:40:48 -07:00
tsconfig.json feat: add documentation website (Docusaurus) 2026-03-05 05:24:55 -08:00

Website

This website is built using Docusaurus, a modern static website generator.

Installation

yarn

Local Development

yarn start

This command starts a local development server and opens up a browser window. Most changes are reflected live without having to restart the server.

Build

yarn build

This command generates static content into the build directory and can be served using any static contents hosting service.

Deployment

Using SSH:

USE_SSH=true yarn deploy

Not using SSH:

GIT_USER=<Your GitHub username> yarn deploy

If you are using GitHub pages for hosting, this command is a convenient way to build the website and push to the gh-pages branch.

Diagram Linting

CI runs ascii-guard to lint docs for ASCII box diagrams. Use Mermaid (````mermaid`) or plain lists/tables instead of ASCII boxes to avoid CI failures.