Drop the swe-rex dependency for Modal terminal backend and use the
Modal SDK directly (Sandbox.create + Sandbox.exec). This fixes:
- AsyncUsageWarning from synchronous App.lookup() in async context
- DeprecationError from unencrypted_ports / .url on unencrypted tunnels
(deprecated 2026-03-05)
The new implementation:
- Uses modal.App.lookup.aio() for async-safe app creation
- Uses Sandbox.create.aio() with 'sleep infinity' entrypoint
- Uses Sandbox.exec.aio() for direct command execution (no HTTP server
or tunnel needed)
- Keeps all existing features: persistent filesystem snapshots,
configurable resources (CPU/memory/disk), sudo support, interrupt
handling, _AsyncWorker for event loop safety
Consistent with the Docker backend precedent (PR #2804) where we
removed mini-swe-agent in favor of direct docker run.
Files changed:
- tools/environments/modal.py - core rewrite
- tools/terminal_tool.py - health check: modal instead of swerex
- hermes_cli/setup.py - install modal instead of swe-rex[modal]
- pyproject.toml - modal extra: modal>=1.0.0 instead of swe-rex[modal]
- scripts/kill_modal.sh - grep for hermes-agent instead of swe-rex
- tests/ - updated for new implementation
- environments/README.md - updated patches section
- website/docs - updated install command
Drop the mini-swe-agent git submodule. All terminal backends now use
hermes-agent's own environment implementations directly.
Docker backend:
- Inline the `docker run -d` container startup (was 15 lines in
minisweagent's DockerEnvironment). Our wrapper already handled
execute(), cleanup(), security hardening, volumes, and resource limits.
Modal backend:
- Import swe-rex's ModalDeployment directly instead of going through
minisweagent's 90-line passthrough wrapper.
- Bake the _AsyncWorker pattern (from environments/patches.py) directly
into ModalEnvironment for Atropos compatibility without monkey-patching.
Cleanup:
- Remove minisweagent_path.py (submodule path resolution helper)
- Remove submodule init/install from install.sh and setup-hermes.sh
- Remove mini-swe-agent from .gitmodules
- environments/patches.py is now a no-op (kept for backward compat)
- terminal_tool.py no longer does sys.path hacking for minisweagent
- mini_swe_runner.py guards imports (optional, for RL training only)
- Update all affected tests to mock the new direct subprocess calls
- Update README.md, CONTRIBUTING.md
No functionality change — all Docker, Modal, local, SSH, Singularity,
and Daytona backends behave identically. 6093 tests pass.
Salvaged from PR #979 onto current main.
Preserve the current terminal backend checks while surfacing actionable
preflight errors for unknown TERMINAL_ENV values, missing SSH host/user
configuration, and missing Modal credentials/config. Tighten the modal
regression test so it deterministically exercises the config-missing
path.
