* fix: prevent infinite 400 failure loop on context overflow (#1630)
When a gateway session exceeds the model's context window, Anthropic may
return a generic 400 invalid_request_error with just 'Error' as the
message. This bypassed the phrase-based context-length detection,
causing the agent to treat it as a non-retryable client error. Worse,
the failed user message was still persisted to the transcript, making
the session even larger on each attempt — creating an infinite loop.
Three-layer fix:
1. run_agent.py — Fallback heuristic: when a 400 error has a very short
generic message AND the session is large (>40% of context or >80
messages), treat it as a probable context overflow and trigger
compression instead of aborting.
2. run_agent.py + gateway/run.py — Don't persist failed messages:
when the agent returns failed=True before generating any response,
skip writing the user's message to the transcript/DB. This prevents
the session from growing on each failure.
3. gateway/run.py — Smarter error messages: detect context-overflow
failures and suggest /compact or /reset specifically, instead of a
generic 'try again' that will fail identically.
* fix(skills): detect prompt injection patterns and block cache file reads
Adds two security layers to prevent prompt injection via skills hub
cache files (#1558):
1. read_file: blocks direct reads of ~/.hermes/skills/.hub/ directory
(index-cache, catalog files). The 3.5MB clawhub_catalog_v1.json
was the original injection vector — untrusted skill descriptions
in the catalog contained adversarial text that the model executed.
2. skill_view: warns when skills are loaded from outside the trusted
~/.hermes/skills/ directory, and detects common injection patterns
in skill content ("ignore previous instructions", "<system>", etc.).
Cherry-picked from PR #1562 by ygd58.
* fix(tools): chunk long messages in send_message_tool before dispatch (#1552)
Long messages sent via send_message tool or cron delivery silently
failed when exceeding platform limits. Gateway adapters handle this
via truncate_message(), but the standalone senders in send_message_tool
bypassed that entirely.
- Apply truncate_message() chunking in _send_to_platform() before
dispatching to individual platform senders
- Remove naive message[i:i+2000] character split in _send_discord()
in favor of centralized smart splitting
- Attach media files to last chunk only for Telegram
- Add regression tests for chunking and media placement
Cherry-picked from PR #1557 by llbn.
---------
Co-authored-by: buray <ygd58@users.noreply.github.com>
Co-authored-by: lbn <llbn@users.noreply.github.com>
* fix: prevent infinite 400 failure loop on context overflow (#1630)
When a gateway session exceeds the model's context window, Anthropic may
return a generic 400 invalid_request_error with just 'Error' as the
message. This bypassed the phrase-based context-length detection,
causing the agent to treat it as a non-retryable client error. Worse,
the failed user message was still persisted to the transcript, making
the session even larger on each attempt — creating an infinite loop.
Three-layer fix:
1. run_agent.py — Fallback heuristic: when a 400 error has a very short
generic message AND the session is large (>40% of context or >80
messages), treat it as a probable context overflow and trigger
compression instead of aborting.
2. run_agent.py + gateway/run.py — Don't persist failed messages:
when the agent returns failed=True before generating any response,
skip writing the user's message to the transcript/DB. This prevents
the session from growing on each failure.
3. gateway/run.py — Smarter error messages: detect context-overflow
failures and suggest /compact or /reset specifically, instead of a
generic 'try again' that will fail identically.
* fix(skills): detect prompt injection patterns and block cache file reads
Adds two security layers to prevent prompt injection via skills hub
cache files (#1558):
1. read_file: blocks direct reads of ~/.hermes/skills/.hub/ directory
(index-cache, catalog files). The 3.5MB clawhub_catalog_v1.json
was the original injection vector — untrusted skill descriptions
in the catalog contained adversarial text that the model executed.
2. skill_view: warns when skills are loaded from outside the trusted
~/.hermes/skills/ directory, and detects common injection patterns
in skill content ("ignore previous instructions", "<system>", etc.).
Cherry-picked from PR #1562 by ygd58.
---------
Co-authored-by: buray <ygd58@users.noreply.github.com>
The _send_telegram() function was sending raw markdown text without
parse_mode, causing bold, links, and headers to render as plain text.
This fix reuses the gateway adapter's format_message() to convert
markdown to Telegram's MarkdownV2 format, with a fallback to plain
text if parsing fails.
* fix(tools): remove unnecessary crontab requirement from cronjob tool
The hermes cron system is internal — it uses a JSON-based scheduler
ticked by the gateway (cron/scheduler.py), not system crontab.
The check for shutil.which('crontab') was preventing the cronjob tool
from being available in environments without crontab installed (e.g.
minimal Ubuntu containers).
Changes:
- Remove shutil.which('crontab') check from check_cronjob_requirements()
- Remove unused shutil import
- Update docstring to clarify internal scheduler is used
- Update tests to reflect new behavior and add coverage for all
session modes (interactive, gateway, exec_ask)
Fixes#1589
* test: add HERMES_EXEC_ASK coverage for cronjob requirements
Adds missing test for the exec_ask session mode, complementing
the cherry-picked fix from PR #1633.
---------
Co-authored-by: Bartok9 <bartokmagic@proton.me>
Introduce a cloud browser provider abstraction so users can switch
between Local Browser, Browserbase, and Browser Use (or future providers)
via hermes tools / hermes setup.
Cloud browser providers are behind an ABC (tools/browser_providers/base.py)
so adding a new provider is a single-file addition with no changes to
browser_tool.py internals.
Changes:
- tools/browser_providers/ package with ABC, Browserbase extraction,
and Browser Use provider
- browser_tool.py refactored to use _PROVIDER_REGISTRY + _get_cloud_provider()
(cached) instead of hardcoded _is_local_mode() / _create_browserbase_session()
- tools_config.py: generic _is_provider_active() / _detect_active_provider_index()
replace TTS-only logic; Browser Use added as third browser option
- config.py: BROWSER_USE_API_KEY added to OPTIONAL_ENV_VARS + show_config + allowlist
- subprocess pipe hang fix: agent-browser daemon inherits pipe fds,
communicate() blocks. Replaced with Popen + temp files.
Original PR: #1208
Co-authored-by: ShawnPana <shawnpana@users.noreply.github.com>
* fix: Anthropic OAuth compatibility — Claude Code identity fingerprinting
Anthropic routes OAuth/subscription requests based on Claude Code's
identity markers. Without them, requests get intermittent 500 errors
(~25% failure rate observed). This matches what pi-ai (clawdbot) and
OpenCode both implement for OAuth compatibility.
Changes (OAuth tokens only — API key users unaffected):
1. Headers: user-agent 'claude-cli/2.1.2 (external, cli)' + x-app 'cli'
2. System prompt: prepend 'You are Claude Code, Anthropic's official CLI'
3. System prompt sanitization: replace Hermes/Nous references
4. Tool names: prefix with 'mcp_' (Claude Code convention for non-native tools)
5. Tool name stripping: remove 'mcp_' prefix from response tool calls
Before: 9/12 OK, 1 hard fail, 4 needed retries (~25% error rate)
After: 16/16 OK, 0 failures, 0 retries (0% error rate)
* fix: three gateway issues from user error logs
1. send_animation missing metadata kwarg (base.py)
- Base class send_animation lacked the metadata parameter that the
call site in base.py line 917 passes. Telegram's override accepted
it, but any platform without an override (Discord, Slack, etc.)
hit TypeError. Added metadata to base class signature.
2. MarkdownV2 split-inside-inline-code (base.py truncate_message)
- truncate_message could split at a space inside an inline code span
(e.g. `function(arg1, arg2)`), leaving an unpaired backtick and
unescaped parentheses in the chunk. Telegram rejects with
'character ( is reserved'. Added inline code awareness to the
split-point finder — detects odd backtick counts and moves the
split before the code span.
3. tirith auto-install without cosign (tirith_security.py)
- Previously required cosign on PATH for auto-install, blocking
install entirely with a warning if missing. Now proceeds with
SHA-256 checksum verification only when cosign is unavailable.
Cosign is still used for full supply chain verification when
present. If cosign IS present but verification explicitly fails,
install is still aborted (tampered release).
* fix(tools): improve error logging in code_execution_tool
* fix: harden execute_code cleanup and reduce logging noise
Follow-up to cherry-picked PR #1588 (aydnOktay):
- Initialize server_sock = None before try block to prevent NameError
if exception occurs before socket creation (line 413 is inside the try)
- Guard server_sock.close() with None check
- Narrow cleanup exception handlers to OSError (the actual error type)
- Remove exc_info=True from cleanup debug logs — benign teardown
failures don't need stack traces, the message is sufficient
- Remove redundant try/except around shutil.rmtree(ignore_errors=True)
- Silence sock_path unlink with pass — expected when already cleaned up
---------
Co-authored-by: aydnOktay <xaydinoktay@gmail.com>
When neither apptainer nor singularity is installed, the Singularity
backend silently defaults to "singularity" and fails with a cryptic
FileNotFoundError inside _start_instance(). Add a preflight check
that resolves the executable and verifies it responds, raising a
clear RuntimeError with install instructions on failure.
Closes#1511
* feat: improve memory prioritization — user preferences over procedural knowledge
Inspired by OpenAI Codex's memory prompt improvements (openai/codex#14493)
which focus memory writes on user preferences and recurring patterns
rather than procedural task details.
Key insight: 'Optimize for reducing future user steering — the most
valuable memory prevents the user from having to repeat themselves.'
Changes:
- MEMORY_GUIDANCE (prompt_builder.py): added prioritization hierarchy
and the core principle about reducing user steering
- MEMORY_SCHEMA (memory_tool.py): reordered WHEN TO SAVE list to put
corrections first, added explicit PRIORITY guidance
- Memory nudge (run_agent.py): now asks specifically about preferences,
corrections, and workflow patterns instead of generic 'anything'
- Memory flush (run_agent.py): now instructs to prioritize user
preferences and corrections over task-specific details
* feat: more aggressive skill creation and update prompting
Press harder on skill updates — the agent should proactively patch
skills when it encounters issues during use, not wait to be asked.
Changes:
- SKILLS_GUIDANCE: 'consider saving' → 'save'; added explicit instruction
to patch skills immediately when found outdated/wrong
- Skills header: added instruction to update loaded skills before finishing
if they had missing steps or wrong commands
- Skill nudge: more assertive ('save the approach' not 'consider saving'),
now also prompts for updating existing skills used in the task
- Skill nudge interval: lowered default from 15 to 10 iterations
- skill_manage schema: added 'patch it immediately' to update triggers
Add /browser slash command for connecting browser tools to the user's
live Chrome instance via Chrome DevTools Protocol:
/browser connect — connect to Chrome on localhost:9222
/browser connect ws://host:port — custom CDP endpoint
/browser disconnect — revert to default (headless/Browserbase)
/browser status — show current browser mode + connectivity
When connected:
- All browser tools (navigate, snapshot, click, etc.) control the
user's real Chrome — logged-in sessions, cookies, open tabs
- Platform-specific Chrome launch instructions are shown
- Port connectivity is tested immediately
- A context message is injected so the model knows it's controlling
a live browser and should be mindful of user's open tabs
Implementation:
- BROWSER_CDP_URL env var drives the backend selection in browser_tool.py
- New _create_cdp_session() creates sessions using the CDP override
- _get_cdp_override() checked before local/Browserbase selection
- Existing agent-browser --cdp flag handles the actual CDP connection
Inspired by OpenClaw's browser profile system.
* feat: smart approvals — LLM-based risk assessment for dangerous commands
Adds a 'smart' approval mode that uses the auxiliary LLM to assess
whether a flagged command is genuinely dangerous or a false positive,
auto-approving low-risk commands without prompting the user.
Inspired by OpenAI Codex's Smart Approvals guardian subagent
(openai/codex#13860).
Config (config.yaml):
approvals:
mode: manual # manual (default), smart, off
Modes:
- manual — current behavior, always prompt the user
- smart — aux LLM evaluates risk: APPROVE (auto-allow), DENY (block),
or ESCALATE (fall through to manual prompt)
- off — skip all approval prompts (equivalent to --yolo)
When smart mode auto-approves, the pattern gets session-level approval
so subsequent uses of the same pattern don't trigger another LLM call.
When it denies, the command is blocked without user prompt. When
uncertain, it escalates to the normal manual approval flow.
The LLM prompt is carefully scoped: it sees only the command text and
the flagged reason, assesses actual risk vs false positive, and returns
a single-word verdict.
* feat: make smart approval model configurable via config.yaml
Adds auxiliary.approval section to config.yaml with the same
provider/model/base_url/api_key pattern as other aux tasks (vision,
web_extract, compression, etc.).
Config:
auxiliary:
approval:
provider: auto
model: '' # fast/cheap model recommended
base_url: ''
api_key: ''
Bridged to env vars in both CLI and gateway paths so the aux client
picks them up automatically.
* feat: add /stop command to kill all background processes
Adds a /stop slash command that kills all running background processes
at once. Currently users have to process(list) then process(kill) for
each one individually.
Inspired by OpenAI Codex's separation of interrupt (Ctrl+C stops current
turn) from /stop (cleans up background processes). See openai/codex#14602.
Ctrl+C continues to only interrupt the active agent turn — background
dev servers, watchers, etc. are preserved. /stop is the explicit way
to clean them all up.
Salvaged from PR #1528 by an420eth. Closes#517.
Improves _strategy_block_anchor in fuzzy_match.py:
- Add unicode normalization (smart quotes, em/en-dashes, ellipsis,
non-breaking spaces → ASCII) so LLM-produced unicode artifacts
don't break anchor line matching
- Lower thresholds: 0.10 for unique matches (was 0.70), 0.30 for
multiple candidates — if first/last lines match exactly, the
block is almost certainly correct
- Use original (non-normalized) content for offset calculation to
preserve correct character positions
Tested: 3 new scenarios fixed (em-dash anchors, non-breaking space
anchors, very-low-similarity unique matches), zero regressions on
all 9 existing fuzzy match tests.
Co-authored-by: an420eth <an420eth@users.noreply.github.com>
Keep Docker sandboxes isolated by default. Add an explicit terminal.docker_mount_cwd_to_workspace opt-in, thread it through terminal/file environment creation, and document the security tradeoff and config.yaml workflow clearly.
Fixes#1445 — When using Docker backend, the user's current working
directory is now automatically bind-mounted to /workspace inside the
container. This allows users to run `cd my-project && hermes` and have
their project files accessible to the agent without manual volume config.
Changes:
- Add host_cwd and auto_mount_cwd parameters to DockerEnvironment
- Capture original host CWD in _get_env_config() before container fallback
- Pass host_cwd through _create_environment() to Docker backend
- Add TERMINAL_DOCKER_NO_AUTO_MOUNT env var to disable if needed
- Skip auto-mount when /workspace is already explicitly mounted
- Add tests for auto-mount behavior
- Add documentation for the new feature
The auto-mount is skipped when:
1. TERMINAL_DOCKER_NO_AUTO_MOUNT=true is set
2. User configured docker_volumes with :/workspace
3. persistent_filesystem=true (persistent sandbox mode)
This makes the Docker backend behave more intuitively — the agent
operates on the user's actual project directory by default.
Checkpoint & rollback upgrades:
1. Enabled by default — checkpoints are now on for all new sessions.
Zero cost when no file-mutating tools fire. Disable with
checkpoints.enabled: false in config.yaml.
2. Diff preview — /rollback diff <N> shows a git diff between the
checkpoint and current working tree before committing to a restore.
3. File-level restore — /rollback <N> <file> restores a single file
from a checkpoint instead of the entire directory.
4. Conversation undo on rollback — when restoring files, the last
chat turn is automatically undone so the agent's context matches
the restored filesystem state.
5. Terminal command checkpoints — destructive terminal commands (rm,
mv, sed -i, truncate, git reset/clean, output redirects) now
trigger automatic checkpoints before execution. Previously only
write_file and patch were covered.
6. Change summary in listing — /rollback now shows file count and
+insertions/-deletions for each checkpoint.
7. Fixed dead code — removed duplicate _run_git call in
list_checkpoints with nonsensical --all if False condition.
8. Updated help text — /rollback with no args now shows available
subcommands (diff, file-level restore).
Salvaged from PR #1470 by adavyas.
Core fix: Honcho tool calls in a multi-session gateway could route to
the wrong session because honcho_tools.py relied on process-global
state. Now threads session context through the call chain:
AIAgent._invoke_tool() → handle_function_call() → registry.dispatch()
→ handler **kw → _resolve_session_context()
Changes:
- Add _resolve_session_context() to prefer per-call context over globals
- Plumb honcho_manager + honcho_session_key through handle_function_call
- Add sync_honcho=False to run_conversation() for synthetic flush turns
- Pass honcho_session_key through gateway memory flush lifecycle
- Harden gateway PID detection when /proc cmdline is unreadable
- Make interrupt test scripts import-safe for pytest-xdist
- Wrap BibTeX examples in Jekyll raw blocks for docs build
- Fix thread-order-dependent assertion in client lifecycle test
- Expand Honcho docs: session isolation, lifecycle, routing internals
Dropped from original PR:
- Indentation change in _create_request_openai_client that would move
client creation inside the lock (causes unnecessary contention)
Co-authored-by: adavyas <adavyas@users.noreply.github.com>
Salvaged from PR #1146 by spanishflu-est1918.
Background process progress/completion messages were sent with only
chat_id, landing in the general topic instead of the originating forum
topic. Thread the thread_id from HERMES_SESSION_THREAD_ID through the
watcher payload and pass it as metadata to adapter.send() so Telegram
routes notifications to the correct topic.
The env var export (HERMES_SESSION_THREAD_ID in _set_session_env /
_clear_session_env) already existed on main — this commit adds the
missing watcher plumbing.
Co-authored-by: spanishflu-est1918 <spanishflu-est1918@users.noreply.github.com>
Restore local STT command fallback for voice transcription, detect whisper and ffmpeg in common local install paths, and avoid bogus no-provider messaging when only a backend-specific key is missing.
- Add 'emoji' field to ToolEntry and 'get_emoji()' to ToolRegistry
- Add emoji= to all 50+ registry.register() calls across tool files
- Add get_tool_emoji() helper in agent/display.py with 3-tier resolution:
skin override → registry default → hardcoded fallback
- Replace hardcoded emoji maps in run_agent.py, delegate_tool.py, and
gateway/run.py with centralized get_tool_emoji() calls
- Add 'tool_emojis' field to SkinConfig so skins can override per-tool
emojis (e.g. ares skin could use swords instead of wrenches)
- Add 11 tests (5 registry emoji, 6 display/skin integration)
- Update AGENTS.md skin docs table
Based on the approach from PR #1061 by ForgingAlex (emoji centralization
in registry). This salvage fixes several issues from the original:
- Does NOT split the cronjob tool (which would crash on missing schemas)
- Does NOT change image_generate toolset/requires_env/is_async
- Does NOT delete existing tests
- Completes the centralization (gateway/run.py was missed)
- Hooks into the skin system for full customizability
SSH persistent shell now defaults to true — non-local backends benefit
most from state persistence across execute() calls. Local backend
remains opt-in via TERMINAL_LOCAL_PERSISTENT env var.
New config.yaml option: terminal.persistent_shell (default: true)
Controls the default for non-local backends. Users can disable with:
hermes config set terminal.persistent_shell false
Precedence: per-backend env var > TERMINAL_PERSISTENT_SHELL > default.
Wired through cli.py, gateway/run.py, and hermes_cli/config.py so the
config.yaml value reaches terminal_tool via env var bridge.
When a cronjob is created from within a Telegram or Slack thread,
deliver=origin was posting to the parent channel instead of the thread.
Root cause: the gateway never set HERMES_SESSION_THREAD_ID in the
session environment, so cronjob_tools.py could not capture thread_id
into the job's origin metadata — even though the scheduler already
reads origin.get('thread_id').
Fix:
- gateway/run.py: set HERMES_SESSION_THREAD_ID when thread_id is
present on the session context, and clear it in _clear_session_env
- tools/cronjob_tools.py: read HERMES_SESSION_THREAD_ID into origin
Closes#1219
Extend subprocess env sanitization beyond provider credentials by blocking Hermes-managed tool, messaging, and related gateway runtime vars. Reuse a shared sanitizer in LocalEnvironment and ProcessRegistry so background and PTY processes honor the same blocklist and _HERMES_FORCE_ escape hatch. Add regression coverage for local env execution and process_registry spawning.
Expanded the list of blocked environment variables to include Google, Groq, Mistral, and other major LLM providers. This ensures complete isolation and prevents conflicts with external CLI tools.
Salvaged from PR #1292 onto current main. Preserve per-job model,
provider, and base_url overrides in cron execution, persist them in
job records, expose them through the cronjob tool create/update paths,
and add regression coverage. Deliberately does not persist per-job
api_key values.
- add stt.enabled to the default user config
- make transcription_tools respect the disabled flag globally
- surface disabled state cleanly in voice mode diagnostics
- add regression coverage for disabled STT provider selection
pattern_key was derived by splitting the regex on \b and taking [1],
so patterns starting with the same word (e.g. find -exec rm and
find -delete) produced the same key "find". Approving one silently
approved the other. Using the unique description string as the key
eliminates all collisions.
The fork bomb regex used `()` (empty capture group) and unescaped `{}`
instead of literal `\(\)` and `\{\}`. This meant the classic fork bomb
`:(){ :|:& };:` was never detected. Also added `\s*` between `:` and
`&` and between `;` and trailing `:` to catch whitespace variants.
