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.
All failure paths in _run_browser_command now log at WARNING level,
which means they automatically land in ~/.hermes/logs/errors.log
(the persistent error log captures WARNING+).
What's now logged:
- agent-browser CLI not found (warning)
- Session creation failure with task ID (warning)
- Command entry with socket_dir path and length (debug)
- Non-zero return code with stderr (warning)
- Non-JSON output from agent-browser (warning — version mismatch/crash)
- Command timeout with task ID and socket path (warning)
- Unexpected exceptions with full traceback (warning + exc_info)
- browser_vision: which model is used and screenshot size (debug)
- browser_vision: LLM analysis failure with full traceback (warning)
Also fixed: _get_vision_model() was called twice in browser_vision —
now called once and reused.
macOS sets TMPDIR to /var/folders/xx/.../T/ (~51 chars). Combined with
agent-browser session names, socket paths reach 121 chars — exceeding
the 104-byte macOS AF_UNIX limit. This causes 'Screenshot file was not
created' errors and silent browser_vision failures on macOS.
Fix: use /tmp/ on macOS (symlink to /private/tmp, sticky-bit protected).
On Linux, tempfile.gettempdir() already returns /tmp — no behavior change.
Changes in browser_tool.py:
- Add _socket_safe_tmpdir() helper — returns /tmp on macOS, gettempdir()
elsewhere
- Replace all 3 tempfile.gettempdir() calls for socket dirs
- Set mode=0o700 on socket dirs for privacy (was using default umask)
- Guard vision/text client init with try/except — a broken auxiliary
config no longer prevents the entire browser_tool module from importing
(which would disable all 10 browser tools, not just vision)
- Improve screenshot error messages with mode info and diagnostic hints
- Don't delete screenshots when LLM analysis fails — the capture was
valid, only the vision API call failed. Screenshots are still cleaned
up by the existing 24-hour _cleanup_old_screenshots mechanism.
Changes in code_execution_tool.py:
- Same /tmp fix for RPC socket path (was 103 chars on macOS — one char
from the 104-byte limit)
- Added support for auxiliary model overrides in the configuration, allowing users to specify providers and models for vision and web extraction tasks.
- Updated the CLI configuration example to include new auxiliary model settings.
- Enhanced the environment variable mapping in the CLI to accommodate auxiliary model configurations.
- Improved the resolution logic for auxiliary clients to support task-specific provider overrides.
- Updated relevant documentation and comments for clarity on the new features and their usage.
Updated the systemd unit generation to include the virtual environment and node modules in the PATH, improving the execution context for the hermes CLI. Additionally, added support for installing Playwright and its dependencies on Arch/Manjaro systems in the install script, ensuring a smoother setup process for browser tools.
Enhanced the environment setup for browser commands by ensuring the PATH variable includes standard directories, addressing potential issues with minimal PATH in systemd services. Additionally, updated the logging of stderr to use a warning level on failure for better visibility of errors. This change improves the robustness of subprocess execution in the browser tool.
browser_vision now saves screenshots persistently to ~/.hermes/browser_screenshots/
and returns the screenshot_path in its JSON response. The model can include
MEDIA:<path> in its response to share screenshots as native photos.
Changes:
- browser_tool.py: Save screenshots persistently, return screenshot_path,
auto-cleanup files older than 24 hours, mkdir moved inside try/except
- telegram.py: Add send_image_file() — sends local images via bot.send_photo()
- discord.py: Add send_image_file() — sends local images via discord.File
- slack.py: Add send_image_file() — sends local images via files_upload_v2()
(WhatsApp already had send_image_file — no changes needed)
- prompt_builder.py: Updated Telegram hint to list image extensions,
added Discord and Slack MEDIA: platform hints
- browser.md: Document screenshot sharing and 24h cleanup
- send_file_integration_map.md: Updated to reflect send_image_file is now
implemented on Telegram/Discord/Slack
- test_send_image_file.py: 19 tests covering MEDIA: .png extraction,
send_image_file on all platforms, and screenshot cleanup
Partially addresses #466 (Phase 0: platform adapter gaps for send_image_file).
Add local browser mode as an automatic fallback when Browserbase
credentials are not configured. Uses the same agent-browser CLI with
--session (local Chromium) instead of --cdp (cloud Browserbase).
The agent-facing API is completely unchanged — all 10 browser_* tools
produce identical output in both modes. Auto-detection:
- BROWSERBASE_API_KEY set → cloud mode (existing behavior)
- No key → local mode (new, free, headless Chromium)
Changes:
- _is_local_mode(): auto-detect based on env vars
- _create_local_session(): lightweight session (no API call)
- _get_session_info(): branches on local vs cloud
- _run_browser_command(): --session in local, --cdp in cloud
- check_browser_requirements(): only needs agent-browser CLI in local mode
- _emergency_cleanup: CLI close in local, API release in cloud
- cleanup_browser/browser_close: skip BB API calls in local mode
- Registry: removed requires_env — check_fn handles both modes
Setup for local mode:
npm install -g agent-browser
agent-browser install # downloads Chromium
agent-browser install --with-deps # also installs system libs (Docker/Debian)
Closes#374 (Phase 1)
- Added _max_tokens_param method in AIAgent to return appropriate max tokens parameter based on the provider (OpenAI vs. others).
- Updated API calls in AIAgent to utilize the new max tokens handling.
- Introduced auxiliary_max_tokens_param function in auxiliary_client for consistent max tokens management across auxiliary clients.
- Refactored multiple tools to use auxiliary_max_tokens_param for improved compatibility with different models and providers.
- Introduced a shared interrupt signaling mechanism to allow tools to check for user interrupts during long-running operations.
- Updated the AIAgent to handle interrupts more effectively, ensuring in-progress tool calls are canceled and multiple interrupt messages are combined into one prompt.
- Enhanced the CLI configuration to include container resource limits (CPU, memory, disk) and persistence options for Docker, Singularity, and Modal environments.
- Improved documentation to clarify interrupt behaviors and container resource settings, providing users with better guidance on configuration and usage.
- Introduced logging functionality in cli.py, run_agent.py, scheduler.py, and various tool modules to replace print statements with structured logging.
- Enhanced error handling and informational messages to improve debugging and monitoring capabilities.
- Ensured consistent logging practices across the codebase, facilitating better traceability and maintenance.
- Revised descriptions for various tools in model_tools.py, browser_tool.py, code_execution_tool.py, delegate_tool.py, and terminal_tool.py to enhance clarity and reduce verbosity.
- Improved consistency in terminology and formatting across tool descriptions, ensuring users have a clearer understanding of tool functionalities and usage.
- Clarified the usage of the --cdp flag when connecting to an existing Browserbase session.
- Emphasized the importance of not using --session with --cdp to avoid creating a local browser instance in agent-browser >=0.13.
- Updated comments to reflect changes in per-task isolation management with AGENT_BROWSER_SOCKET_DIR.
- Increased the default session inactivity timeout from 2 to 5 minutes to accommodate LLM reasoning during multi-step tasks.
- Enhanced thread safety by implementing locks around session activity tracking and cleanup processes, allowing concurrent access by multiple subagents.
- Removed the stale daemon cleanup function, as it is no longer necessary with the updated session management approach.
- Updated logging and session cleanup logic to ensure proper handling of active sessions and associated resources.
- Updated the stale daemon cleanup function to support multiple patterns for identifying orphaned agent-browser processes, improving reliability across different versions.
- Added logging for stderr output during browser command execution to aid in diagnostics, particularly for capturing warnings from the agent-browser.
- Implemented a warning for empty snapshots returned from the agent-browser, indicating potential issues with stale daemons or CDP connections.
- Upgraded the agent-browser dependency from version 0.7.6 to 0.13.0 in package.json.
- Added functionality to kill stale agent-browser daemon processes in browser_tool.py to prevent orphaned instances from previous runs.
- Added checks for local installation of the agent-browser CLI in the `_find_agent_browser` function, improving installation guidance.
- Implemented per-task socket directory management in `_run_browser_command` to prevent concurrency issues.
- Updated `cleanup_browser` to remove per-task socket directories, ensuring proper resource cleanup after task completion.
- Refactored comments for clarity and improved documentation throughout the browser tool code.
- Updated `.env.example` to include `BROWSER_INACTIVITY_TIMEOUT` for auto-cleanup of inactive sessions.
- Enhanced `cli.py` to load the new inactivity timeout configuration into environment variables.
- Added background thread functionality in `browser_tool.py` to periodically clean up inactive browser sessions based on the configured timeout.
- Improved session management by tracking last activity timestamps and ensuring cleanup occurs when sessions exceed inactivity limits.
- Introduced `cli-config.yaml.example` to provide a template for configuring the CLI behavior, including model settings, terminal tool configurations, agent behavior, and toolsets.
- Created `cli.py` for an interactive terminal interface, allowing users to start the Hermes Agent with various options and toolsets.
- Added `hermes` launcher script for convenient CLI access.
- Updated `model_tools.py` to support quiet mode for suppressing output during tool initialization and execution.
- Enhanced logging in various tools to respect quiet mode, improving user experience by reducing unnecessary output.
- Added `prompt_toolkit` to `requirements.txt` for improved CLI interaction capabilities.
- Created `TODO.md` for future improvements and enhancements to the Hermes Agent framework.
- Introduced new browser automation tools in `browser_tool.py` for navigating, interacting with, and extracting content from web pages using the agent-browser CLI and Browserbase cloud execution.
- Updated `.env.example` to include new configuration options for Browserbase API keys and session settings.
- Enhanced `model_tools.py` and `toolsets.py` to integrate browser tools into the existing tool framework, ensuring consistent access across toolsets.
- Updated `README.md` with setup instructions for browser tools and their usage examples.
- Added new test script `test_modal_terminal.py` to validate Modal terminal backend functionality.
- Improved `run_agent.py` to support browser tool integration and logging enhancements for better tracking of API responses.
