chore: bump version to v0.2.0 + add curated first-release changelog

- Update __version__ to 0.2.0 (was 0.1.0)
- Update pyproject.toml to match
- Add RELEASE_v0.2.0.md with comprehensive changelog covering:
  - All 231 merged PRs
  - 120 resolved issues
  - 74+ contributors credited
  - Organized by feature area with PR links

RELEASE_v0.2.0.md

@@ -0,0 +1,378 @@
+# Hermes Agent v0.2.0 (v2026.3.12)
+
+**Release Date:** March 12, 2026
+
+> 🎉 **First official tagged release!** Hermes Agent has been in active development since July 2025, with 1,388 commits from 74+ contributors across 231 merged pull requests. This release marks the beginning of regular weekly releases. Everything below represents the full feature set shipping today.
+
+---
+
+## ✨ Highlights
+
+- **Multi-Platform Messaging Gateway** — Run Hermes Agent on Telegram, Discord, Slack, WhatsApp, Signal, Email (IMAP/SMTP), and Home Assistant, all from a single codebase with unified session management, conversation persistence, and per-platform tool configuration.
+
+- **MCP (Model Context Protocol) Client** — Full native MCP support with stdio and HTTP transports, server reconnection, resource/prompt discovery, sampling (server-initiated LLM requests), and `hermes tools` UI integration. ([#291](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/291), [#301](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/301), [#753](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/753)) — @0xbyt4
+
+- **Skills Ecosystem** — 70+ bundled and optional skills across 15+ categories (research, creative, gaming, smart-home, productivity, MLOps, and more). Skills are data-driven Markdown files with YAML frontmatter — the agent loads them dynamically based on task context. Includes a Skills Hub for community discovery and per-platform skill enable/disable. ([#743](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/743)) — @teyrebaz33
+
+- **Centralized Provider Router** — Unified `resolve_provider_client()` + `call_llm()`/`async_call_llm()` API replaces scattered provider logic. All auxiliary consumers (vision, summarization, context compression, trajectory saving) route through a single code path with automatic credential resolution. ([#1003](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/1003))
+
+- **ACP (Agent Communication Protocol) Server** — VS Code, Zed, and JetBrains editor integration via the agent-protocol standard. ([#949](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/949))
+
+- **Reinforcement Learning Environments** — Atropos-compatible RL training environments: TerminalBench2 (tool-calling), WebResearchEnv (multi-step web research), YC-Bench (long-horizon agent benchmark), and OpenThoughts-TBLite evaluation. ([#17](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/17), [#434](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/434)) — @dmahan93, @jackx707
+
+- **Git Worktree Isolation** — `hermes -w` launches isolated agent sessions in git worktrees, enabling safe parallel work on the same repo without conflicts. ([#654](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/654))
+
+---
+
+## 🏗️ Core Agent & Architecture
+
+### Agent Loop & Conversation
+- Shared iteration budget across parent + subagent delegation to prevent runaway chains
+- Iteration budget pressure via tool result injection — agent gets warned as it approaches limits
+- Configurable subagent provider/model with full credential resolution ([#609](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/issues/609))
+- Fallback model for provider resilience — automatic retry on a different model when primary fails ([#740](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/740), [#454](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/issues/454))
+- Context compression improvements: retry with rebuilt payload after compression ([#616](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/616)) — @tripledoublev; regression tests for tool-call boundary handling ([#648](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/648)) — @intertwine
+- Auto-compress pathologically large gateway sessions ([#628](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/issues/628))
+- Handle 413 payload-too-large via compression instead of aborting ([#153](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/153)) — @tekelala
+- Tool call repair middleware — auto-lowercase and invalid tool handler ([#520](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/issues/520))
+- Reasoning effort configuration and `/reasoning` command for effort levels + display toggle ([#921](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/921))
+- Default reasoning effort tuned from xhigh to medium
+
+### Provider & Model Support
+- **First-class providers:** OpenRouter, OpenAI, Anthropic, Nous Portal, Codex (OpenAI Responses API), Google Gemini, z.ai/GLM, Kimi/Moonshot, MiniMax, DeepSeek, Azure OpenAI, custom endpoints
+- Nous Portal as first-class provider option in setup ([#644](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/issues/644)) — @Indelwin
+- OpenAI Codex (Responses API) with OAuth support, ChatGPT subscription Codex ([#43](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/43)) — @grp06
+- Codex OAuth vision support + multimodal content adapter
+- Validate `/model` against live API instead of hardcoded lists
+- Support for self-hosted Firecrawl instances ([#460](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/460)) — @caentzminger
+- OpenRouter provider routing configuration (provider_preferences)
+- Nous credential refresh on 401 errors ([#571](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/571), [#269](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/269)) — @rewbs
+- Dynamic max tokens handling for various providers
+- Kimi Code API support ([#635](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/635)) — @christomitov
+
+### Session & Memory
+- Session naming with unique titles, auto-lineage, rich listing, and resume by name ([#720](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/720))
+- Interactive session browser with search filtering ([#733](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/733))
+- Display previous messages when resuming a session in CLI ([#734](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/734))
+- Proactive async memory flush on session expiry
+- Session reset policy for messaging platforms
+- Honcho AI-native cross-session user modeling integration ([#38](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/38)) — @Erosika
+- `/resume` command for switching to named sessions in gateway
+- Smart context length probing with persistent caching + banner display
+
+---
+
+## 📱 Messaging Platforms (Gateway)
+
+### Telegram
+- Native file attachments: send_document + send_video ([#779](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/779))
+- Document file processing for PDF, text, and Office files ([#153](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/153)) — @tekelala
+- Forum topic session isolation ([#766](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/766)) — @spanishflu-est1918
+- Browser screenshot sharing via MEDIA: protocol
+- Location support for find-nearby skill
+- TTS voice message fix — prevent accumulation across turns ([#176](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/176)) — @Bartok9
+- Improved error handling and logging ([#763](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/763)) — @aydnOktay
+
+### Discord
+- Thread-aware free-response routing ([#insecurejezza](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/insecurejezza))
+- Channel topic included in session context ([#248](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/248)) — @Bartok9
+- DISCORD_ALLOW_BOTS config for bot message filtering ([#758](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/758))
+- Improved error handling and logging ([#761](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/761)) — @aydnOktay
+- Document and video support ([#784](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/784))
+
+### Slack
+- App_mention fix + document/video support ([#784](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/784))
+- Structured logging replacing print statements — @aydnOktay
+
+### WhatsApp
+- Native media sending — images, videos, documents ([#292](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/292)) — @satelerd
+- Consolidate tool progress into single editable message — @satelerd
+- Multi-user session isolation and bridge message handling ([#75](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/75)) — @satelerd
+- Cross-platform port cleanup replacing Linux-only fuser ([#433](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/433)) — @Farukest
+
+### Signal
+- Full Signal messenger gateway via signal-cli-rest-api ([#405](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/issues/405))
+- Media URL support in message events ([#871](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/871))
+
+### Email (IMAP/SMTP)
+- New email gateway platform ([#291 area](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/291)) — @0xbyt4
+
+### Home Assistant
+- REST tools + WebSocket gateway integration ([#184](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/184)) — @0xbyt4
+- Service discovery and enhanced setup
+
+### Gateway Core
+- Configurable background process watcher notifications: all, result, error, off ([#840](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/840), [#592](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/issues/592))
+- Expose subagent tool calls and thinking to users ([#186](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/186)) — @cutepawss
+- `/compress`, `/usage`, `/update` slash commands for conversation management
+- `edit_message()` for Telegram/Discord/Slack with fallback
+- Session transcript deduplication fix — eliminated 3x SQLite message inflation ([#873](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/873))
+- MCP server shutdown on gateway exit ([#796](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/796)) — @0xbyt4
+- Stable system prompt across gateway turns for cache hits ([#754](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/754))
+
+---
+
+## 🖥️ CLI & User Experience
+
+### Interactive CLI
+- Data-driven skin/theme engine for CLI customization — banners, spinners, colors, branding
+- Built-in skins: default (gold/kawaii), ares (crimson war-god), mono (grayscale), slate (cool blue), poseidon, sisyphus, charizard, and custom YAML skins
+- `/personality` command with custom personality support + ability to disable default personality ([#773](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/773)) — @teyrebaz33
+- User-defined quick commands that bypass the agent loop ([#746](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/746)) — @teyrebaz33
+- `/reasoning` command for effort level and display toggle ([#921](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/921))
+- `/verbose` slash command to toggle debug output at runtime ([#94](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/94)) — @cesareth
+- `/insights` command with usage analytics, cost estimation & activity patterns ([#552](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/552))
+- `/background` command for managing background processes
+- `/help` formatting with command categories ([#640](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/issues/640))
+- Bell-on-complete — terminal bell when agent finishes ([#738](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/738))
+- Up/down arrow history navigation
+- Clipboard image paste (Alt+V / Ctrl+V)
+- Loading indicators for slow slash commands ([#882](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/882))
+- Spinner flickering fix under patch_stdout ([#91](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/91)) — @0xbyt4
+- `--quiet/-Q` flag for programmatic single-query mode
+- `--fuck-it-ship-it` flag to bypass all approval prompts ([#724](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/724)) — @dmahan93
+- Tools summary flag ([#767](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/767)) — @luisv-1
+
+### Setup & Configuration
+- Modular setup wizard with section subcommands and tool-first UX
+- Interactive setup for messaging platforms in gateway CLI
+- Container resource configuration prompts
+- Backend validation for required binaries
+- Config migration system with version tracking (currently v7)
+- API keys properly routed to .env instead of config.yaml ([#469](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/469)) — @ygd58
+- Atomic writes for .env to prevent API key loss on crash ([#954](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/954)) — @alireza78a
+- `hermes tools` — per-platform tool enable/disable with curses UI
+- `hermes skills` — per-platform skill enable/disable ([#743](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/743)) — @teyrebaz33
+- Multiple named custom providers
+- `hermes doctor` for health checks across all configured providers and tools
+- `hermes update` with auto-restart for gateway service
+- Show update-available notice in CLI banner
+
+### Filesystem & Safety
+- Filesystem checkpoints and `/rollback` command ([#824](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/824), [#452](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/issues/452))
+- Structured tool result hints for patch and search_files ([#722](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/issues/722))
+- High-value tool result CTAs — next-action guidance
+
+---
+
+## 🔧 Tool System
+
+### Browser
+- Local browser backend — zero-cost headless Chromium via agent-browser (no Browserbase needed)
+- Console/errors tool, annotated screenshots, auto-recording ([#745](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/745))
+- Browser screenshot sharing via MEDIA: on all messaging platforms ([#657](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/657))
+
+### Terminal & Execution
+- `execute_code` sandbox with json_parse, shell_quote, retry helpers
+- Docker backend improvements: custom volume mounts ([#158](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/158)) — @Indelwin
+- Daytona cloud sandbox backend ([#451](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/451)) — @rovle, with CLI setup, doctor, and status display
+- SSH backend fixes ([#59](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/59)) — @deankerr
+- Shell noise filtering and login shell execution for environment consistency
+- Head+tail truncation for execute_code stdout overflow
+- Background process management with configurable notification modes
+
+### Delegation
+- Subagent tool call and thinking exposure to users
+- Additional parameters for child agent configuration
+- Shared iteration budget across parent + subagents
+
+### File Operations
+- Fuzzy-matching patch with 9 strategies
+- File search via ripgrep backend
+- Atomic writes across all file operations
+
+---
+
+## 🧩 Skills Ecosystem
+
+### System
+- Skill slash commands — dynamic CLI and gateway integration
+- Optional skills — official skills shipped but not activated by default
+- Conditional skill activation based on tool availability ([#785](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/785)) — @teyrebaz33
+- Platform-conditional skill loading
+- Skill prerequisites — hide skills with unmet dependencies ([#659](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/659)) — @kshitijk4poor
+- `hermes skills browse` — paginated browsing of all hub skills
+- Skills sub-category organization
+- Atomic skill file writes ([#551](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/551)) — @aydnOktay
+- Skills sync data loss prevention ([#563](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/563)) — @0xbyt4
+
+### Bundled Skills (selected highlights)
+- **MLOps:** Axolotl, vLLM, TRL, Unsloth, PyTorch FSDP/Lightning, GGUF, PEFT, Flash Attention, Weights & Biases, Modal, Lambda Labs, and 25+ more
+- **Research:** arXiv search, agentic research ideas, ML paper writing
+- **Creative:** ASCII art (pyfiglet + cowsay + 571 fonts), ASCII video production, Excalidraw diagrams
+- **Software Development:** Systematic debugging, TDD, subagent-driven development, writing plans, code review
+- **Productivity:** Google Workspace, Notion, PowerPoint, Obsidian, nano-PDF
+- **Gaming:** Minecraft modpack server, Pokémon player
+- **Smart Home:** OpenHue (Philips Hue control)
+- **Domain:** Passive reconnaissance (subdomains, SSL, WHOIS, DNS)
+- **Media:** YouTube transcripts, GIF search, text-to-speech
+- **Market Data:** Polymarket prediction markets
+- **OCR:** PDF and scanned document extraction
+- **Blockchain:** Solana skill with USD pricing ([#212](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/212)) — @gizdusum
+- **Email:** AgentMail for agent-owned inboxes ([#330](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/330)) — @teyrebaz33
+- **Feeds:** BlogWatcher for RSS/Atom monitoring
+- **DuckDuckGo Search:** Firecrawl fallback ([#267](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/267)) — @gamedevCloudy; expanded with DDGS Python API ([#598](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/598)) — @areu01or00
+- **OpenClaw Migration:** Official migration skill ([#570](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/570)) — @unmodeled-tyler
+- **ASCII Video:** Full production pipeline ([#854](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/854)) — @SHL0MS
+
+---
+
+## 🔒 Security & Reliability
+
+### Security Hardening
+- Path traversal fix in skill_view — prevented reading arbitrary files including API keys ([#220](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/issues/220)) — @Farukest
+- Shell injection prevention in sudo password piping ([#65](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/65)) — @leonsgithub
+- Dangerous command detection: multiline bypass fix ([#233](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/233)), tee/process substitution patterns ([#280](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/280)) — @Farukest, @dogiladeveloper
+- Symlink boundary check fix in skills_guard ([#386](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/386)) — @Farukest
+- Multi-word prompt injection bypass prevention in skills_guard ([#192](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/192)) — @0xbyt4
+- Symlink bypass fix in write deny list on macOS ([#61](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/61)) — @0xbyt4
+- Enforce 0600/0700 file permissions on sensitive files ([#757](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/757))
+- .env file permissions restricted to owner-only ([#529](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/529)) — @Himess
+- Expand secret redaction patterns + config toggle to disable
+- FTS5 query sanitization ([#565](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/565)) — @0xbyt4
+- `--force` flag properly blocked from overriding dangerous verdicts ([#388](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/388)) — @Farukest
+
+### Reliability & Stability
+- Atomic writes for: sessions.json ([#611](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/611)) — @alireza78a; cron jobs ([#146](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/146)) — @alireza78a; .env config ([#954](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/954)); process checkpoints ([#298](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/298)) — @aydnOktay; batch runner ([#297](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/297)) — @aydnOktay; skill files ([#551](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/551)) — @aydnOktay
+- Guard all print() against OSError for systemd/headless environments ([#963](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/963))
+- Detect, warn, and block file re-read/search loops after context compression ([#705](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/705)) — @0xbyt4
+- Reset all retry counters at start of run_conversation ([#607](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/607)) — @0xbyt4
+- Return deny on approval callback timeout instead of None ([#603](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/603)) — @0xbyt4
+- Fix None message content crashes across codebase ([#277](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/277))
+- Fix context overrun crash with local LLM backends ([#403](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/403)) — @ch3ronsa
+- Fix `_flush_sentinel` leaking to external API providers ([#227](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/227)) — @Farukest
+- Prevent conversation_history mutation in callers ([#229](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/229)) — @Farukest
+- Fix systemd restart loop ([#614](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/614)) — @voidborne-d
+- Close file handles and sockets properly to prevent fd leaks ([#568](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/568), [#296](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/296), [#709](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/709)) — @alireza78a, @memosr
+
+### Windows Compatibility
+- Guard POSIX-only process functions for Windows ([#219](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/219)) — @Farukest
+- Windows native support via Git Bash, ZIP-based update fallback
+- Install to %LOCALAPPDATA%\hermes on Windows
+- pywinpty for PTY support on Windows ([#457](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/457)) — @shitcoinsherpa
+- Explicit UTF-8 encoding on all config/data file I/O ([#458](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/458)) — @shitcoinsherpa
+- Windows-compatible path handling in skill listing ([#354](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/354), [#390](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/390)) — @Farukest
+- Regex-based search output parsing for Windows drive-letter paths ([#533](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/533)) — @Himess
+- Auth store file lock for Windows ([#455](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/455)) — @shitcoinsherpa
+
+---
+
+## 🧪 Testing
+
+- **3,289 tests** across agent, gateway, tools, cron, and CLI
+- Parallelized test suite with pytest-xdist ([#802](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/802)) — @OutThisLife
+- Comprehensive unit test batches covering core modules ([#34](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/34), [#60](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/60), [#62](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/62), [#67](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/67), [#191](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/191), [#193](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/193)) — @0xbyt4
+- Telegram format tests (43 tests for italic/bold/code rendering) ([#204](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/204)) — @0xbyt4
+- Clarify tool tests ([#121](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/121)) — @Bartok9
+- Vision tools type hints and 42 tests ([#792](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/792))
+- Context compressor boundary regression tests ([#648](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/648)) — @intertwine
+- RL environment tests — vLLM integration, Atropos tool calling — @dmahan93
+
+---
+
+## 🔬 RL & Evaluation Environments
+
+- **Atropos Integration** — Full agentic RL training pipeline with tool calling support ([#17](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/17))
+- **TerminalBench2** — Terminal-based tool calling evaluation
+- **WebResearchEnv** — Multi-step web research RL environment ([#434](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/434)) — @jackx707
+- **YC-Bench** — Long-horizon agent benchmark environment
+- **OpenThoughts-TBLite** — Evaluation environment and scripts
+- **Modal sandbox** — Cloud evaluation with concurrency limits ([#621](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/621)) — @voteblake
+- Local vLLM instance support for evaluation — @dmahan93
+- Hermes-atropos-environments bundled skill ([#815](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/815))
+
+---
+
+## 📚 Documentation
+
+- **Full documentation website** (Docusaurus) with 37+ pages covering setup, configuration, tools, skills, messaging platforms, and guides
+- Comprehensive platform setup guides for Telegram, Discord, Slack, WhatsApp, Signal, and Email
+- AGENTS.md — development guide for AI coding assistants
+- CONTRIBUTING.md — contributor guidelines ([#117](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/117)) — @Bartok9
+- Slash commands reference ([#142](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/142)) — @Bartok9
+- Skin/theme system documentation
+- MCP documentation and examples
+- Auxiliary models documentation
+- Comprehensive accuracy audit (35+ corrections)
+- Documentation typo fixes ([#825](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/825), [#439](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/439)) — @JackTheGit
+- Terminology and CLI formatting standardization ([#166](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/166), [#167](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/167), [#168](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/168)) — @Jr-kenny
+
+---
+
+## 🐛 Notable Bug Fixes
+
+- Fix DeepSeek V3 tool call parser silently dropping multi-line JSON arguments ([#444](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/444)) — @PercyDikec
+- Fix gateway transcript losing 1 message per turn due to offset mismatch ([#395](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/395)) — @PercyDikec
+- Fix /retry command silently discarding the agent's final response ([#441](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/441)) — @PercyDikec
+- Fix max-iterations retry returning empty string after think-block stripping ([#438](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/438)) — @PercyDikec
+- Fix Codex status dict key mismatch ([#448](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/448)) and visibility filter ([#446](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/446)) — @PercyDikec
+- Fix `_strip_think_blocks` regex stripping visible content when model discusses \<think\> tags literally ([#786](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/issues/786))
+- Strip \<think\> blocks from final user-facing responses ([#174](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/174)) — @Bartok9
+- Fix Mistral 422 errors from leftover finish_reason in assistant messages ([#253](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/253)) — @Sertug17
+- Fix OPENROUTER_API_KEY resolution order across all code paths ([#295](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/295)) — @0xbyt4
+- Fix gateway session_search crash from missing session_db ([#108](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/108)) — @Bartok9
+- Fix /retry, /undo having no effect and /reset silently losing memories in gateway ([#217](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/217)) — @Farukest
+- Fix empty file content in ReadResult.to_dict() ([#225](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/225)) — @Farukest
+- Fix retry exhaustion IndexError fallthrough ([#223](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/223)) — @Farukest
+- Fix Anthropic native base URL detection failing fast ([#173](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/173)) — @adavyas
+- Fix ClawHub Skills Hub adapter for API endpoint changes ([#286](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/286)) — @BP602
+- Fix terminal blinking on SSH due to UI invalidate throttling ([#284](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/284)) — @ygd58
+- Fix multi-line input paste detection destroying input ([#84](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/84)) — @0xbyt4
+- Fix cron job timezone handling for naive timestamps ([#309](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/309)) — @areu01or00
+- Fix memory tool entry parsing when content contains section sign ([#162](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/162)) — @aydnOktay
+- Fix Docker backend on macOS and subagent auth for Nous Portal ([#46](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/46)) — @rsavitt
+- Fix piped install silently aborting when interactive prompts fail ([#72](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/72)) — @cutepawss
+- Fix false positives in recursive delete detection ([#68](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/68)) — @cutepawss
+- Eliminate shell noise from terminal output + fix 36 test failures ([#293](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/293)) — @0xbyt4
+- Fix Honcho auto-enable when API key is present ([#243](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/243)) — @Bartok9
+- Fix duplicate 'skills' subparser crash on Python 3.11+ ([#898](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/issues/898))
+- Fix Telegram italic regex newline bug ([#204](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/204)) — @0xbyt4
+- Fix Ruff lint warnings across codebase ([#608](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/608)) — @JackTheGit
+
+---
+
+## 👥 Contributors
+
+Thank you to everyone who has contributed to Hermes Agent! This project is built by a growing community of developers, researchers, and AI enthusiasts.
+
+### Core Team
+- **@teknium1** — Project creator, lead developer (~1,100 commits)
+- **@dmahan93** — RL environments, Atropos integration, evaluation infrastructure
+
+### Top Community Contributors
+- **@0xbyt4** — 35 PRs: MCP client, Home Assistant, security fixes, extensive test coverage, ascii-art skill, and dozens of bug fixes across the codebase
+- **@Farukest** — 15 PRs: Security hardening (path traversal, shell injection, symlink bypass), Windows compatibility, WhatsApp fixes
+- **@aydnOktay** — 8 PRs: Atomic writes, error handling improvements across Telegram, Discord, transcription, code execution, and skills
+- **@teyrebaz33** — 4 PRs: Skills enable/disable system, quick commands, personality customization, conditional skill activation, embedding infrastructure
+- **@Bartok9** — 8 PRs: CONTRIBUTING.md, slash commands reference, Discord channel topics, think-block stripping, TTS fix, session count fix, Honcho fix, clarify tool tests
+- **@PercyDikec** — 7 PRs: DeepSeek V3 parser fix, /retry fix, gateway transcript fix, Codex fixes, max-iterations retry fixes
+- **@rovle** — Daytona cloud sandbox backend (4 PRs)
+- **@alireza78a** — Atomic writes for cron/sessions, fd leak prevention, security allowlist fix
+- **@satelerd** — WhatsApp native media, multi-user session isolation, tool progress consolidation
+- **@Erosika** — Honcho AI-native memory integration
+- **@SHL0MS** — ASCII video skill
+- **@shitcoinsherpa** — Windows support (pywinpty, UTF-8 encoding, auth store lock)
+
+### All Contributors
+@0xbyt4, @Aum08Desai, @BP602, @Bartok9, @Farukest, @FurkanL0, @Himess, @Indelwin, @JackTheGit, @JoshuaMart, @Jr-kenny, @OutThisLife, @PercyDikec, @SHL0MS, @Sertug17, @VencentSoliman, @VolodymyrBg, @adavyas, @alireza78a, @areu01or00, @aydnOktay, @batuhankocyigit, @bierlingm, @caentzminger, @cesareth, @ch3ronsa, @christomitov, @cutepawss, @deankerr, @dmahan93, @dogiladeveloper, @dragonkhoi, @erosika, @gamedevCloudy, @gizdusum, @grp06, @hjc-puro, @insecurejezza, @intertwine, @jackx707, @jdblackstar, @johnh4098, @kaos35, @kshitijk4poor, @leonsgithub, @luisv-1, @manuelschipper, @mehmetkr-31, @memosr, @mormio, @rsavitt, @rewbs, @rovle, @satelerd, @spanishflu-est1918, @stablegenius49, @tars90percent, @tekelala, @teknium1, @teyrebaz33, @tripledoublev, @unmodeled-tyler, @voidborne-d, @voteblake, @ygd58
+
+---
+
+## 📦 Installation
+
+```bash
+curl -fsSL https://hermes.nousresearch.com/install | bash
+```
+
+Or clone and install manually:
+
+```bash
+git clone https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent.git ~/.hermes/hermes-agent
+cd ~/.hermes/hermes-agent
+./install.sh
+hermes setup
+```
+
+---
+
+**Full Changelog**: [v2026.3.12](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/commits/v2026.3.12)

hermes_cli/__init__.py

@@ -11,5 +11,5 @@ Provides subcommands for:
 - hermes cron          - Manage cron jobs
 """
 
-__version__ = "0.1.0"
+__version__ = "0.2.0"
 __release_date__ = "2026.3.12"

pyproject.toml

@@ -4,7 +4,7 @@ build-backend = "setuptools.build_meta"
 
 [project]
 name = "hermes-agent"
-version = "0.1.0"
+version = "0.2.0"
 description = "The self-improving AI agent — creates skills from experience, improves them during use, and runs anywhere"
 readme = "README.md"
 requires-python = ">=3.11"