Automatic filesystem snapshots before destructive file operations,
with user-facing rollback. Inspired by PR #559 (by @alireza78a).
Architecture:
- Shadow git repos at ~/.hermes/checkpoints/{hash}/ via GIT_DIR
- CheckpointManager: take/list/restore, turn-scoped dedup, pruning
- Transparent — the LLM never sees it, no tool schema, no tokens
- Once per turn — only first write_file/patch triggers a snapshot
Integration:
- Config: checkpoints.enabled + checkpoints.max_snapshots
- CLI flag: hermes --checkpoints
- Trigger: run_agent.py _execute_tool_calls() before write_file/patch
- /rollback slash command in CLI + gateway (list, restore by number)
- Pre-rollback snapshot auto-created on restore (undo the undo)
Safety:
- Never blocks file operations — all errors silently logged
- Skips root dir, home dir, dirs >50K files
- Disables gracefully when git not installed
- Shadow repo completely isolated from project git
Tests: 35 new tests, all passing (2798 total suite)
Docs: feature page, config reference, CLI commands reference
Validate that the username portion of ~username paths contains only
valid characters (alphanumeric, dot, hyphen, underscore) before passing
to shell echo for expansion. Previously, paths like '~; rm -rf /'
would be passed unquoted to self._exec(f'echo {path}'), allowing
arbitrary command execution.
The approach validates the username rather than using shlex.quote(),
which would prevent tilde expansion from working at all since
echo '~user' outputs the literal string instead of expanding it.
Added tests for injection blocking and valid ~username/path expansion.
Credit to @alireza78a for reporting (PR #442, issue #442).
Add MCP sampling/createMessage capability via SamplingHandler class.
Text-only sampling + tool use in sampling with governance (rate limits,
model whitelist, token caps, tool loop limits). Per-server audit metrics.
Based on concept from PR #366 by eren-karakus0. Restructured as class-based
design with bug fixes and tests using real MCP SDK types.
50 new tests, 2600 total passing.
Terminal output was already redacted via redact_sensitive_text() but
read_file and search_files returned raw content. Now both tools
redact secrets before returning results to the LLM.
Based on PR #372 by @teyrebaz33 (closes#363) — applied manually
due to branch conflicts with the current codebase.
New browser capabilities and a built-in skill for agent-driven web QA.
## New tool: browser_console
Returns console messages (log/warn/error/info) AND uncaught JavaScript
exceptions in a single call. Uses agent-browser's 'console' and 'errors'
commands through the existing session plumbing. Supports --clear to reset
buffers. Verified working in both local and Browserbase cloud modes.
## Enhanced tool: browser_vision(annotate=True)
New boolean parameter on browser_vision. When true, agent-browser overlays
numbered [N] labels on interactive elements — each [N] maps to ref @eN.
Annotation data (element name, role, bounding box) returned alongside the
vision analysis. Useful for QA reports and spatial reasoning.
## Config: browser.record_sessions
Auto-record browser sessions as WebM video files when enabled:
- Starts recording on first browser_navigate
- Stops and saves on browser_close
- Saves to ~/.hermes/browser_recordings/
- Works in both local and cloud modes (verified)
- Disabled by default
## Built-in skill: dogfood
Systematic exploratory QA testing for web applications. Teaches the agent
a 5-phase workflow:
1. Plan — accept URL, create output dirs, set scope
2. Explore — systematic crawl with annotated screenshots
3. Collect Evidence — screenshots, console errors, JS exceptions
4. Categorize — severity (Critical/High/Medium/Low) and category
(Functional/Visual/Accessibility/Console/UX/Content)
5. Report — structured markdown with per-issue evidence
Includes:
- skills/dogfood/SKILL.md — full workflow instructions
- skills/dogfood/references/issue-taxonomy.md — severity/category defs
- skills/dogfood/templates/dogfood-report-template.md — report template
## Tests
21 new tests covering:
- browser_console message/error parsing, clear flag, empty/failed states
- browser_console schema registration
- browser_vision annotate schema and flag passing
- record_sessions config defaults and recording lifecycle
- Dogfood skill file existence and content validation
Addresses #315.
Add contextual [Hint: ...] suffixes to tool results where they save
real iterations:
- patch (no match): suggests read_file/search_files to verify content
before retrying — addresses the common pattern where the agent retries
with stale old_string instead of re-reading the file.
- search_files (truncated): provides explicit next offset and suggests
narrowing the search — clearer than relying on total_count inference.
Other hints proposed in #722 (terminal, web_search, web_extract,
browser_snapshot, search zero-results, search content-matches) were
evaluated and found to be low-value: either already covered by existing
mechanisms (read_file pagination, similar-files, schema descriptions)
or guidance the agent already follows from its own reasoning.
5 new tests covering hint presence/absence for both tools.
Source code (hermes_cli/clipboard.py):
- _convert_to_png() lost the file when both Pillow and ImageMagick were
unavailable: path.rename(tmp) moved the file to .bmp, then subprocess.run
raised FileNotFoundError, but the file was never renamed back. The final
fallback 'return path.exists()' returned False.
- Fix: restore the original file in both except handlers by renaming tmp
back to path when the original is missing.
Test (tests/tools/test_clipboard.py):
- test_file_still_usable_when_no_converter expected 'from PIL import Image'
to raise an Exception, but Pillow is installed so pytest.raises fired
'DID NOT RAISE'. The test also never called _convert_to_png().
- Fix: properly mock PIL unavailability via patch.dict(sys.modules),
actually call _convert_to_png(), and assert the correct result.
Previously, search_files would silently return 0 results when the
search path didn't exist (e.g., /root/.hermes/... when HOME is
/home/user). The path was passed to rg/grep/find which would fail
silently, and the empty stdout was parsed as 'no matches found'.
Changes:
- Add path existence check at the top of search() using test -e.
Returns SearchResult with a clear error message when path doesn't exist.
- Add exit code 2 checks in _search_with_rg() and _search_with_grep()
as secondary safety net for other error types (bad regex, permissions).
- Add 4 new tests covering: nonexistent path (content mode), nonexistent
path (files mode), existing path proceeds normally, rg error exit code.
Tests: 37 → 41 in test_file_operations.py, full suite 2330 passed.
Images pasted in the CLI were embedded as raw base64 image_url content
parts in the conversation history, which only works with vision-capable
models. If the main model (e.g. Nous API) doesn't support vision, this
breaks the request and poisons all subsequent messages.
Now the CLI uses the same approach as the messaging gateway: images are
pre-processed through the auxiliary vision model (Gemini Flash via
OpenRouter or Nous Portal) and converted to text descriptions. The
local file path is included so the agent can re-examine via
vision_analyze if needed. Works with any model.
Fixes#638.
Skills can now declare runtime prerequisites (env vars, CLI binaries) via
YAML frontmatter. Skills with unmet prerequisites are excluded from the
system prompt so the agent never claims capabilities it can't deliver, and
skill_view() warns the agent about what's missing.
Three layers of defense:
- build_skills_system_prompt() filters out unavailable skills
- _find_all_skills() flags unmet prerequisites in metadata
- skill_view() returns prerequisites_warning with actionable details
Tagged 12 bundled skills that have hard runtime dependencies:
gif-search (TENOR_API_KEY), notion (NOTION_API_KEY), himalaya, imessage,
apple-notes, apple-reminders, openhue, duckduckgo-search, codebase-inspection,
blogwatcher, songsee, mcporter.
Closes#658Fixes#630
Add a 'platforms' field to SKILL.md frontmatter that restricts skills
to specific operating systems. Skills with platforms: [macos] only
appear in the system prompt, skills_list(), and slash commands on macOS.
Skills without the field load everywhere (backward compatible).
Implementation:
- skill_matches_platform() in tools/skills_tool.py — core filter
- Wired into all 3 discovery paths: prompt_builder.py, skills_tool.py,
skill_commands.py
- 28 new tests across 3 test files
New bundled Apple/macOS skills (all platforms: [macos]):
- imessage — Send/receive iMessages via imsg CLI
- apple-reminders — Manage Reminders via remindctl CLI
- apple-notes — Manage Notes via memo CLI
- findmy — Track devices/AirTags via AppleScript + screen capture
Docs updated: CONTRIBUTING.md, AGENTS.md, creating-skills.md,
skills.md (user guide)
Two bugs in sync_skills():
1. Failed copytree poisons manifest: when shutil.copytree fails (disk
full, permission error), the skill is still recorded in the manifest.
On the next sync, the skill appears as "in manifest but not on disk"
which is interpreted as "user deliberately deleted it" — the skill
is never retried. Fix: only write to manifest on successful copy.
2. Failed update destroys user copy: rmtree deletes the existing skill
directory before copytree runs. If copytree then fails, the user's
skill is gone with no way to recover. Fix: move to .bak before
copying, restore from backup if copytree fails.
Both bugs are proven by new regression tests that fail on the old code
and pass on the fix.
Upgrade skills_sync manifest to v2 format (name:origin_hash). The origin
hash records the MD5 of the bundled skill at the time it was last synced.
On update, the user's copy is compared against the origin hash:
- User copy == origin hash → unmodified → safe to update from bundled
- User copy != origin hash → user customized → skip (preserve changes)
v1 manifests (plain names) are auto-migrated: the user's current hash
becomes the baseline, so future syncs can detect modifications.
Output now shows user-modified skills:
~ whisper (user-modified, skipping)
27 tests covering all scenarios including v1→v2 migration, user
modification detection, update after migration, and origin hash tracking.
2009 tests pass.
- Restored 21 skills removed in commits 757d012 and 740dd92:
accelerate, audiocraft, code-review, faiss, flash-attention, gguf,
grpo-rl-training, guidance, llava, nemo-curator, obliteratus, peft,
pytorch-fsdp, pytorch-lightning, simpo, slime, stable-diffusion,
tensorrt-llm, torchtitan, trl-fine-tuning, whisper
- Rewrote sync_skills() with proper update semantics:
* New skills (not in manifest): copied to user dir
* Existing skills (in manifest + on disk): updated via hash comparison
* User-deleted skills (in manifest, not on disk): respected, not re-added
* Stale manifest entries (removed from bundled): cleaned from manifest
- Added sync_skills() to CLI startup (cmd_chat) and gateway startup
(start_gateway) — previously only ran during 'hermes update'
- Updated cmd_update output to show new/updated/cleaned counts
- Rewrote tests: 20 tests covering manifest CRUD, dir hashing, fresh
install, user deletion respect, update detection, stale cleanup, and
name collision handling
75 bundled skills total. 2002 tests pass.
The mock handler checked for function_name == 'search' but the RPC
sends 'search_files'. Any test exercising search_files through the
mock would get 'Unknown tool' instead of the canned response.
The _TOOL_STUBS dict in code_execution_tool.py was out of sync with the
actual tool schemas, causing TypeErrors when the LLM used parameters it
sees in its system prompt but the sandbox stubs didn't accept:
search_files:
- Added missing params: context, offset, output_mode
- Fixed target default: 'grep' → 'content' (old value was obsolete)
patch:
- Added missing params: mode, patch (V4A multi-file patch support)
Also added 4 drift-detection tests (TestStubSchemaDrift) that will
catch future divergence between stubs and real schemas:
- test_stubs_cover_all_schema_params: every schema param in stub
- test_stubs_pass_all_params_to_rpc: every stub param sent over RPC
- test_search_files_target_uses_current_values: no obsolete values
- test_generated_module_accepts_all_params: generated code compiles
All 28 tests pass.
Authored by rovle. Adds Daytona as the sixth terminal execution backend
with cloud sandboxes, persistent workspaces, and full CLI/gateway integration.
Includes 24 unit tests and 8 integration tests.
The execute_code sandbox generates a hermes_tools.py stub module for LLM
scripts. Three common failure modes keep tripping up scripts:
1. json.loads(strict=True) rejects control chars in terminal() output
(e.g., GitHub issue bodies with literal tabs/newlines)
2. Shell backtick/quote interpretation when interpolating dynamic content
into terminal() commands (markdown with backticks gets eaten by bash)
3. No retry logic for transient network failures (API timeouts, rate limits)
Adds three convenience helpers to the generated hermes_tools module:
- json_parse(text) — json.loads with strict=False for tolerant parsing
- shell_quote(s) — shlex.quote() for safe shell interpolation
- retry(fn, max_attempts=3, delay=2) — exponential backoff wrapper
Also updates the EXECUTE_CODE_SCHEMA description to document these helpers
so LLMs know they're available without importing anything extra.
Includes 7 new tests (unit + integration) covering all three helpers.
The original implementation only supported xclip (X11), which silently
fails on WSL2 (can't access Windows clipboard for images), Wayland
desktops (xclip is X11-only), and VSCode terminal on WSL2.
Clipboard backend changes (hermes_cli/clipboard.py):
- WSL2: detect via /proc/version, use powershell.exe with .NET
System.Windows.Forms.Clipboard to extract images as base64 PNG
- Wayland: use wl-paste with MIME type detection, auto-convert BMP
to PNG for WSLg environments (via Pillow or ImageMagick)
- Dispatch order: WSL → Wayland → X11 (xclip), with fallthrough
- New has_clipboard_image() for lightweight clipboard checks
- Cache WSL detection result per-process
CLI changes (cli.py):
- /paste command: explicit clipboard image check for terminals where
BracketedPaste doesn't fire (image-only clipboard in VSCode/WinTerm)
- Ctrl+V keybinding: fallback for Linux terminals where Ctrl+V sends
raw byte instead of triggering bracketed paste
Tests: 80 tests (up from 37) covering WSL, Wayland, X11 dispatch,
BMP conversion, has_clipboard_image, and /paste command.
Copy an image to clipboard (screenshot, browser, etc.) and paste into
the Hermes CLI. The image is saved to ~/.hermes/images/, shown as a
badge above the input ([📎 Image #1]), and sent to the model as a
base64-encoded OpenAI vision multimodal content block.
Implementation:
- hermes_cli/clipboard.py: clean module with platform-specific extraction
- macOS: pngpaste (if installed) → osascript fallback (always available)
- Linux: xclip (apt install xclip)
- cli.py: BracketedPaste key handler checks clipboard on every paste,
image bar widget shows attached images, chat() converts to multimodal
content format, Ctrl+C clears attachments
Inspired by @m0at's fork (https://github.com/m0at/hermes-agent) which
implemented image paste support for local vision models. Reimplemented
cleanly as a separate module with tests.
On top of PR #460: self-hosted Firecrawl instances don't require an API
key (USE_DB_AUTHENTICATION=false), so don't force users to set a dummy
FIRECRAWL_API_KEY when FIRECRAWL_API_URL is set. Also adds a proper
self-hosting section to the configuration docs explaining what you get,
what you lose, and how to set it up (Docker stack, tradeoffs vs cloud).
Added 2 more tests (URL-only without key, neither-set raises).
Adds optional FIRECRAWL_API_URL environment variable to support
self-hosted Firecrawl deployments alongside the cloud service.
- Add FIRECRAWL_API_URL to optional env vars in hermes_cli/config.py
- Update _get_firecrawl_client() in tools/web_tools.py to accept custom API URL
- Add tests for client initialization with/without URL
- Document new env var in installation and config guides
The Daytona SDK's process.exec(timeout=N) parameter is not enforced —
the server-side timeout never fires and the SDK has no client-side
fallback, causing commands to hang indefinitely.
Fix: wrap commands with timeout N sh -c '...' (coreutils) which
reliably kills the process and returns exit code 124. Added
shlex.quote for proper shell escaping and a secondary deadline (timeout + 10s) that force-stops the sandbox if the shell timeout somehow fails.
Signed-off-by: rovle <lovre.pesut@gmail.com>
state
- Replace logger.warning with warnings.warn for the disk cap so users
actually see it (logger was suppressed by CLI's log level config)
- Use SandboxState enum instead of string literals in
_ensure_sandbox_ready
Signed-off-by: rovle <lovre.pesut@gmail.com>
Authored by 0xbyt4. Wraps commands with unique fence markers to isolate real output
from shell init/exit noise (oh-my-zsh, macOS session restore, etc.). Falls back to
expanded pattern-based cleaning. Also fixes BSD find fallback and test module shadowing.
Authored by 0xbyt4.
The dedup logic in GitHubSource.search() and unified_search() used
'r.trust_level == "trusted"' which let trusted results overwrite builtin
ones. Now uses ranked comparison: builtin (2) > trusted (1) > community (0).
Authored by 0xbyt4.
144 new tests covering gateway/pairing.py, tools/skill_manager_tool.py,
tools/skills_tool.py, honcho_integration/session.py, and
agent/auxiliary_client.py.
Authored by Farukest. Fixes#389.
Replaces hardcoded forward-slash string checks ('/.git/', '/.hub/') with
Path.parts membership test in _find_all_skills() and scan_skill_commands().
On Windows, str(Path) uses backslashes so the old filter never matched,
causing quarantined skills to appear as installed.
Authored by Farukest. Fixes#387.
Removes 'and not force' from the dangerous verdict check so --force
can never install skills with critical security findings (reverse shells,
data exfiltration, etc). The docstring already documented this behavior
but the code didn't enforce it.
Authored by Farukest. Fixes#385.
Replaces startswith() with Path.is_relative_to() in _check_structure()
symlink escape check — same fix pattern as skill_view() (PR #352).
Prevents symlinks escaping to sibling directories with shared name prefixes.
get_definitions() already wrapped check_fn() calls in try/except,
but is_toolset_available() did not. A failing check (network error,
missing import, bad config) would propagate uncaught and crash the
CLI banner, agent startup, and tools-info display.
Now is_toolset_available() catches all exceptions and returns False,
matching the existing pattern in get_definitions().
Added 4 tests covering exception handling in is_toolset_available(),
check_toolset_requirements(), get_definitions(), and
check_tool_availability().
Closes#402
The hidden directory filter used hardcoded forward-slash strings like
'/.git/' and '/.hub/' to exclude internal directories. On Windows,
Path returns backslash-separated strings, so the filter never matched.
This caused quarantined skills in .hub/quarantine/ to appear as
installed skills and available slash commands on Windows.
Replaced string-based checks with Path.parts membership test which
works on both Windows and Unix.
The docstring states --force should never override dangerous verdicts,
but the condition `if result.verdict == "dangerous" and not force`
allowed force=True to skip the early return. Execution then fell
through to `if force: return True`, bypassing the policy block.
Removed `and not force` so dangerous skills are always blocked
regardless of the --force flag.
The symlink escape check in _check_structure() used startswith()
without a trailing separator. A symlink resolving to a sibling
directory with a shared prefix (e.g. 'axolotl-backdoor') would pass
the check for 'axolotl' since the string prefix matched.
Replaced with Path.is_relative_to() which correctly handles directory
boundaries and is consistent with the skill_view path check.
session_search was returning the current session if it matched the
query, which is redundant — the agent already has the current
conversation context. This wasted an LLM summarization call and a
result slot.
Added current_session_id parameter to session_search(). The agent
passes self.session_id and the search filters out any results where
either the raw or parent-resolved session ID matches. Both the raw
match and the parent-resolved match are checked to handle child
sessions from delegation.
Two tests added verifying the exclusion works and that other
sessions are still returned.
Replace the string-based startswith + os.sep approach with
Path.is_relative_to() (Python 3.9+, we require 3.10+). This is
the idiomatic pathlib way to check path containment — it handles
separators, case sensitivity, and the equal-path case natively
without string manipulation.
Simplified tests to match: removed the now-unnecessary
test_separator_is_os_native test since is_relative_to doesn't
depend on separator choice.
