Prepare dependency generations before selecting them. Keep shipped tool
bytes separate from writable additions, and store facts beside their entries.
Validate proposed plugin sets before config publication. Restore the previous
config if the facts write fails.
Consolidate duplicate updater, backup, setup, and voice helpers. Repair
launcher selection, dependency consumers, download ownership, update feeds,
and native Windows process and file handling.
Verification: 206 changed/prior-failing Python files reported 4630 passed,
one failed, and 330 skipped. Fix the remaining Hindsight fixture boundary.
The final targeted rerun reported 234 passed and two skipped. The store
review regression batch reported 83 passed and one skipped. Desktop
TypeScript checks, 56 selected Electron tests, 24 release tests, and the
removed-import/compatibility guards passed.
This is an integration checkpoint, not full audit acceptance. The complete
Python suite has not run on this fixed tree. Crash-atomic plugin publication,
generation cleanup, receipt correlation, and packaged lifecycle acceptance
remain open in docs/pm-audit-status.md.
agent.coding_instructions (a string or list) is appended to the coding brief as
its own stable system block, so users can pin project-wide workflow rules
without editing the shipped brief. Coding-posture only and cache-safe (resolved
once per session; takes effect next session). Empty by default.
Follow-up to the coding-context posture (#43316): that PR detects each repo's
verify loop (manifests, package manager, exact test/lint/build commands, context
files) and bakes it into the system-prompt snapshot — but only as a string, for
the model. Non-prompt consumers (the desktop verify UI) had no way to read it
without re-sniffing and drifting from the prompt.
Split detection from rendering, keeping one source of truth:
- `detect_project_facts(root) -> ProjectFacts` (frozen) holds the structured
facts; `_project_facts()` now renders it into the same snapshot lines, so the
prompt block stays byte-identical (cache-safe).
- `project_facts_for(cwd)` resolves the workspace root (git, else marker) and
returns the structured facts, or None outside a workspace.
- `project.facts` gateway RPC surfaces it to any client (desktop/TUI/ACP).
Tests assert the structured output and that the UI-facing commands never drift
from what the prompt block renders (one detector feeds both).
Tell coding agents to activate shell setup once per session instead of re-sourcing it before every command, and pin the existing LocalEnvironment env-snapshot behavior with regression tests.
The coding-posture brief told GPT/Codex models to use patch mode='patch'
(V4A) for structured/multi-file changes but mode='replace' "for a single
small swap". That second nudge points those models at a format their
first-party harness never taught them.
Verified against openai/codex (current main): apply_patch is the ONLY file
editor in codex-rs — zero occurrences of str_replace/old_string anywhere in
the repo; the grammar (core/src/tools/handlers/apply_patch.lark) is exactly
the V4A dialect our patch_parser implements; the shipped model prompts
(gpt_5_codex, gpt-5.2-codex, gpt-5.1-codex-max + instruction templates)
explicitly say to use apply_patch "for single file edits"; and the tool is
gated per model via ModelInfo.apply_patch_tool_type, i.e. OpenAI ships
V4A-for-everything as model metadata.
The GPT-family line now steers to mode='patch' for all edits, single-file
included. The replace-family line (Claude + open-weight) is unchanged —
Claude Code's FileEdit is old_string/new_string/replace_all exact string
replacement (confirmed from Anthropic's shipped sdk-tools.d.ts, the only
file editor in its tool union), matching our mode='replace'.
The coding posture's names-only demotion of non-coding skill categories
(#44342) applied under the default auto mode, silently changing the skill
index for every user in a git repo. Index changes must be opt-in: demotion
now only fires under agent.coding_context=focus, alongside the toolset
collapse. auto/on leave the skill index untouched; focus semantics are
unchanged (demoted, never hidden; deny-list keeps coding-adjacent and
custom categories at full entries).
Real-world failure with the original index pruning: under the default auto
posture, an agent-created ops skill in a demoted category vanished from the
prompt's skill index mid-project, and the agent silently fell back to a
stale sibling skill instead. The "discovery-only" premise didn't hold —
models do not reach for skills_list to rediscover what the index stops
showing them, and agent-created skills are the model's accumulated project
memory (runbooks, pitfalls, operating rules).
Gating pruning behind the opt-in focus mode was the wrong fix too: users
opening a worktree don't know the config exists, so the index-noise win
would effectively never ship.
Instead, the coding posture now DEMOTES non-coding categories rather than
hiding them: each demoted category renders as a single names-only line
("gaming [names only]: allthemons10-ops, mc-backup") with a footer note
explaining the omitted descriptions. Every skill name stays in the prompt,
so memory-anchored recall ("load <name>") keeps working in every mode,
while the description noise is still cut. Applies in auto/on/focus alike;
the general posture demotes nothing. Deny-list semantics unchanged —
unknown/custom categories and coding-adjacent ones keep full entries.
API renamed to match the honest semantics: hidden_skill_categories →
compact_skill_categories, build_skills_system_prompt(hidden_categories=) →
compact_categories=.
* feat(agent): coding-context posture with per-model edit-format tuning
Hermes detects when it's running in a coding context — an interactive
surface (CLI, TUI, ACP, desktop) sitting in a code workspace (git repo or
recognised project root) — and shifts into a coding posture. Outside that
(chat platforms, non-workspaces) nothing changes.
The posture is modelled as a frozen RuntimeMode selected from a small
ContextProfile registry (coding/general). A profile is data: the toolset to
collapse to, the operating brief to inject, and seams for model routing and
memory. Every domain reads the same resolved object instead of re-probing
git/config on its own:
- System prompt — RuntimeMode.system_blocks(): an operating brief (gather
context before editing, edit through tools not chat, verify with terminal,
cap retry loops) plus a live git/workspace snapshot, built once and baked
into the stable prompt tier so per-conversation caching is preserved.
- Per-model edit-format tuning — the brief nudges each model family toward
the patch mode it handles best: OpenAI/Codex toward mode='patch' (V4A
multi-file diffs), Anthropic toward mode='replace' (string replacement).
The model id rides on RuntimeMode; unknown families keep neutral wording.
- Skill index — non-coding skill categories are pruned from the prompt's
skill index (discovery-only; skills_list/skill_view still reach the full
catalog, with a disclosure note).
- Toolset — only under the opt-in 'focus' mode does the posture collapse to
the coding toolset + enabled MCP servers; the default posture is
prompt-only and never overrides configured toolsets.
Activation via agent.coding_context: auto (default), focus, on, off.
Subagents inherit the posture for free via toolset inheritance + the shared
prompt builder. Detection is not memoized so a long-lived gateway/TUI
process can't pin a stale posture across working directories.
* feat(agent): cover new-file authoring in the coding edit-format nudge
The per-model edit-format guidance only addressed editing existing code
(patch mode='patch' vs 'replace'), but authoring a brand-new file —
write_file, not patch — is a large fraction of real coding work and the
nudge was silent on it. Surfaced when building a single-file artifact where
the dominant operation was write_file and the steering offered no guidance.
Both family lines now lead with "author new files with write_file; for
edits to existing code prefer ...". Tests assert write_file appears in each
family's brief; unknown families still get neutral wording.
* docs(agent): correct memoization docstring + clarify TUI config-load asymmetry
* feat(agent): sharpen the coding posture — verify-loop facts, wider edit steering, $HOME guard
Tuning pass on the coding posture from dogfooding it as a harness:
- Workspace snapshot now hands the model its verify loop up front:
detected manifests + package manager (lockfile sniff), the exact
verify commands (package.json scripts, Makefile targets,
scripts/run_tests.sh, pytest config), and which context files
(AGENTS.md / CLAUDE.md / .cursorrules) exist at the root. Marker-only
(non-git) projects get the snapshot too instead of nothing. The
"verify before claiming done" brief line was the highest-value piece
in evals — this turns it from advice into an executable loop instead
of making the model rediscover the test command every session. Still
stat-cheap, size-guarded reads, built once at prompt time.
- Edit-format steering covers the families Hermes actually serves:
Gemini and open-weight coding models (DeepSeek, Qwen, Kimi, GLM,
Grok, Hermes, Llama, Mistral, Devstral, MiniMax) steer to
mode='replace' — their RL scaffolds use str_replace-style editors.
Previously only GPT/Codex and Claude families got steering; the
models Hermes users disproportionately run all fell to neutral.
- Operating brief gains four behaviors elite harnesses encode: batch
independent reads/searches in one turn; fix root causes and the bug
class (sibling call paths), not the reported site; no drive-by
refactors/renames/reformatting; never read, print, or commit secrets.
Plus a patch-failure escalation ladder: after the same region fails
twice, rewrite the enclosing function/file with write_file instead of
a third patch attempt.
- $HOME dotfiles guard: a git repo rooted exactly at the home directory
(or a marker sitting in it, e.g. a global ~/AGENTS.md) is user config,
not a code workspace — without the guard, every session anywhere under
a dotfiles-managed home silently flipped to the coding posture. Real
projects under such a home still detect via their own markers/repos;
'on' mode bypasses the guard.
