Seed ~/.hermes/SOUL.md when missing, load SOUL only from HERMES_HOME, and inject raw SOUL content without wrapper text. If the file exists but is empty, nothing is added to the system prompt.
When a skill declares required_environment_variables in its YAML
frontmatter, missing env vars trigger a secure TUI prompt (identical
to the sudo password widget) when the skill is loaded. Secrets flow
directly to ~/.hermes/.env, never entering LLM context.
Key changes:
- New required_environment_variables frontmatter field for skills
- Secure TUI widget (masked input, 120s timeout)
- Gateway safety: messaging platforms show local setup guidance
- Legacy prerequisites.env_vars normalized into new format
- Remote backend handling: conservative setup_needed=True
- Env var name validation, file permissions hardened to 0o600
- Redact patterns extended for secret-related JSON fields
- 12 existing skills updated with prerequisites declarations
- ~48 new tests covering skip, timeout, gateway, remote backends
- Dynamic panel widget sizing (fixes hardcoded width from original PR)
Cherry-picked from PR #723 by kshitijk4poor, rebased onto current main
with conflict resolution.
Fixes#688
Co-authored-by: kshitijk4poor <kshitijk4poor@users.noreply.github.com>
