hermes-agent/plugin-catalog/README.md

Hermes Plugin Catalog

Curated, Nous-approved Hermes plugins. Each YAML file in this directory (except removed.yaml) is one catalog entry, discoverable via hermes plugins catalog / hermes plugins search and installable with hermes plugins install <name>.

Admission policy

Presence in this directory is the trust signal. The rules that keep it meaningful:

1. Human-merged gate. Entries are added only via a PR to the hermes-agent repository, reviewed and merged by a maintainer. There is no self-serve registry, no automated ingestion.
2. Exact SHA pins are mandatory. Every entry pins a full 40-character commit SHA. Branches, tags, and short SHAs are rejected by the loader. Installs clone the repository and check out exactly that commit.
3. No self-updating code. A listed plugin must not fetch and replace its own files (in-app "check for updates", signed release downloaders, remote plugin.js loaders). The exact SHA pin is the trust model; a self-updater lets an installed copy move to a commit nobody reviewed. Updates reach users only through a SHA-bump PR here plus hermes plugins update <name>. Keep the updater in the standalone distribution if you want one; strip it from the catalog build.
4. SHA bumps are new PRs. Updating an entry's pin is a new PR whose diff (old SHA → new SHA) is re-reviewed like any other change — reviewers are expected to look at the upstream commit range being adopted.
5. Owner-or-major-contributor submissions, or a maintainer-curated sweep. An entry may be submitted by the plugin repository's owner or a major contributor to it; drive-by submissions of third-party repos are declined. Hermes maintainers may also add entries in batches from a reviewed sweep of community plugins (every pin validated and scanned at the pinned commit, self-updater and credential-store checks run, English-first UI). Authors of swept-in entries keep control: a PR from the owner adjusting or removing their entry is accepted on request, and SHA bumps stay owner-or-maintainer PRs under rule 4.
6. Declared capabilities must match reality. The capabilities: block (tools, hooks, middleware, env vars) must match what the plugin actually registers at the pinned commit. Validation fails the entry otherwise — undeclared capability creep is treated as a security issue.

Entry schema

name: example-plugin        # [a-z0-9_-]{1,64}, the catalog key
repo: https://github.com/owner/repo   # https:// only
sha: <40-hex commit sha>    # mandatory exact pin
subdir: ""                  # optional path within the repo
description: One-line description.
maintainer: OwnerName
tier: official              # official | community (default community)
category: memory            # desktop | memory | platform | web | tools | voice | automation | models | general
                            # (default desktop) — the shelf the entry sits on at /docs/plugins
requires_hermes: ">=0.19"   # optional
docs_url: ""                # optional
version: "1.4.0"            # optional human label for the sha (quote it); shown as "1.4.0 @ abcd1234"
image: ""                   # optional https image on a GitHub host, 2:1 (e.g. 1200x600), e.g.
                            # https://raw.githubusercontent.com/owner/repo/<sha>/docs/banner.png
platforms: []               # optional, e.g. [linux, macos]; empty = all
capabilities:
  provides_tools: []
  provides_hooks: []
  provides_middleware: []
  requires_env: []

version and image are cosmetic: neither is parsed or used to pick what installs. The sha stays the release; bump version in the same PR that bumps sha so the label on the card matches the code. Images must live on raw.githubusercontent.com, github.com or *.githubusercontent.com so the Desktop catalog never fetches from third-party hosts; pin the raw URL to the entry's commit and the picture is as immutable as the code.

removed.yaml — the blocklist

When an entry is pulled from the catalog for security or policy reasons, it is recorded in removed.yaml with a reason and date. The installer refuses to install anything matching a removed entry's name or repo URL, so a malicious plugin cannot be re-installed from a stale identifier after removal. Removals, like additions, land via reviewed PRs.