Seed the tips corpus with the knobs users can turn to reduce token
spend: hermes tools / hermes skills config to trim surface area,
/reasoning low|minimal to dial thinking depth down from the medium
default, and hermes models to route auxiliary tasks (vision, compression,
title gen, session_search) to cheaper backends while the main chat model
stays intact.
Requested by @micheltamanda under Teknium's tip-of-the-day tweet.
BOOT.md was merged in PR #3733 before the feature was ready — the
built-in hook spawned a bare AIAgent() with no model/runtime kwargs,
which immediately 401s on any provider with a custom endpoint. Three
separate community PRs (#5240, #12514, #14992) tried to paper over it.
Remove the BOOT.md hook entirely and its user-facing docs/tips. Keep
the gateway/builtin_hooks/ package and the HookRegistry._register_builtin_hooks()
hook-point intact as the extension surface for future always-on
gateway hooks.
Closes#5239.
Co-authored-by: teknium1 <teknium@users.noreply.github.com>
Enter while the agent is busy can now inject the typed text via /steer —
arriving at the agent after the next tool call — instead of interrupting
(current default) or queueing for the next turn.
Changes:
- cli.py: keybinding honors busy_input_mode='steer' by calling
agent.steer(text) on the UI thread (thread-safe), with automatic
fallback to 'queue' when the agent is missing, steer() is unavailable,
images are attached, or steer() rejects the payload. /busy accepts
'steer' as a fourth argument alongside queue/interrupt/status.
- gateway/run.py: busy-message handler and the PRIORITY running-agent
path both route through running_agent.steer() when the mode is 'steer',
with the same fallback-to-queue safety net. Ack wording tells users
their message was steered into the current run. Restart-drain queueing
now also activates for 'steer' so messages aren't lost across restarts.
- agent/onboarding.py: first-touch hint has a steer branch for both
CLI and gateway.
- hermes_cli/commands.py: /busy args_hint updated to include steer,
and 'steer' is registered as a subcommand (completions).
- hermes_cli/web_server.py: dashboard select widget offers steer.
- hermes_cli/config.py, cli-config.yaml.example, hermes_cli/tips.py:
inline docs updated.
- website/docs/user-guide/cli.md + messaging/index.md: documented.
- Tests: steer set/status path for /busy; onboarding hints;
_load_busy_input_mode accepts steer; busy-session ack exercises
steer success + two fallback-to-queue branches.
Requested on X by @CodingAcct.
Default is unchanged (interrupt).
The ephemeral no-tools side-question variant of /btw confused users who
expected 'by-the-way' to mean 'run this off to the side with tools' —
they'd type /btw and get a toolless agent that couldn't do the work.
/bg worked because it was /background with full tools.
Collapse the two: /btw and /bg both alias to /background. One command,
one behavior, no more gotchas about which variant has tools.
Removed:
- _handle_btw_command in cli.py and gateway/run.py
- _run_btw_task + _active_btw_tasks state in gateway/run.py
- prompt.btw JSON-RPC method + btw.complete event in tui_gateway
- BtwStartResponse type + btw.complete case in ui-tui
- Standalone /btw slash tree registration in Discord
- Standalone btw CommandDef in hermes_cli/commands.py
Updated:
- background CommandDef aliases: (bg,) -> (bg, btw)
- TUI session.ts: local btw handler merged into background
- Docs and tips updated to describe /btw as a /background alias
Make the main-branch test suite pass again. Most failures were tests
still asserting old shapes after recent refactors; two were real source
bugs.
Source fixes:
- tools/mcp_tool.py: _kill_orphaned_mcp_children() slept 2s on every
shutdown even when no tracked PIDs existed, making test_shutdown_is_parallel
measure ~3s for 3 parallel 1s shutdowns. Early-return when pids is empty.
- hermes_cli/tips.py: tip 105 was 157 chars; corpus max is 150.
Test fixes (mostly stale mock targets / missing fixture fields):
- test_zombie_process_cleanup, test_agent_cache: patch run_agent.cleanup_vm
(the local name bound at import), not tools.terminal_tool.cleanup_vm.
- test_browser_camofox: patch tools.browser_camofox.load_config, not
hermes_cli.config.load_config (the source module, not the resolved one).
- test_flush_memories_codex._chat_response_with_memory_call: add
finish_reason, tool_call.id, tool_call.type so the chat_completions
transport normalizer doesn't AttributeError.
- test_concurrent_interrupt: polling_tool signature now accepts
messages= kwarg that _invoke_tool() passes through.
- test_minimax_provider: add _fallback_chain=[] to the __new__'d agent
so switch_model() doesn't AttributeError.
- test_skills_config: SKILLS_DIR MagicMock + .rglob stopped working
after the scanner switched to agent.skill_utils.iter_skill_index_files
(os.walk-based). Point SKILLS_DIR at a real tmp_path and patch
agent.skill_utils.get_external_skills_dirs.
- test_browser_cdp_tool: browser_cdp toolset was intentionally split into
'browser-cdp' (commit 96b0f3700) so its stricter check_fn doesn't gate
the whole browser toolset; test now expects 'browser-cdp'.
- test_registry: add tools.browser_dialog_tool to the expected
builtin-discovery set (PR #14540 added it).
- test_file_tools TestPatchHints: patch_tool surfaces hints as a '_hint'
key on the JSON payload, not inline '[Hint: ...' text.
- test_write_deny test_hermes_env: resolve .env via get_hermes_home() so
the path matches the profile-aware denylist under hermetic HERMES_HOME.
- test_checkpoint_manager test_falls_back_to_parent: guard the walk-up
so a stray /tmp/pyproject.toml on the host doesn't pick up /tmp as the
project root.
- test_quick_commands: set cli.session_id in the __new__'d CLI so the
alias-args path doesn't trip AttributeError when fuzzy-matching leaks
a skill command across xdist test distribution.
Closes#11616.
The agent's API retry loop hardcoded max_retries = 3, so users with
fallback providers on flaky primaries burned through ~3 × provider
timeout (e.g. 3 × 180s = 9 minutes) before their fallback chain got a
chance to kick in.
Expose a new config key:
agent:
api_max_retries: 3 # default unchanged
Set it to 1 for fast failover when you have fallback providers, or
raise it if you prefer longer tolerance on a single provider. Values
< 1 are clamped to 1 (single attempt, no retry); non-integer values
fall back to the default.
This wraps the Hermes-level retry loop only — the OpenAI SDK's own
low-level retries (max_retries=2 default) still run beneath this for
transient network errors.
Changes:
- hermes_cli/config.py: add agent.api_max_retries default 3 with comment.
- run_agent.py: read self._api_max_retries in AIAgent.__init__; replace
hardcoded max_retries = 3 in the retry loop with self._api_max_retries.
- cli-config.yaml.example: documented example entry.
- hermes_cli/tips.py: discoverable tip line.
- tests/run_agent/test_api_max_retries_config.py: 4 tests covering
default, override, clamp-to-one, and invalid-value fallback.
Adds role='leaf'|'orchestrator' to delegate_task. With max_spawn_depth>=2,
an orchestrator child retains the 'delegation' toolset and can spawn its
own workers; leaf children cannot delegate further (identical to today).
Default posture is flat — max_spawn_depth=1 means a depth-0 parent's
children land at the depth-1 floor and orchestrator role silently
degrades to leaf. Users opt into nested delegation by raising
max_spawn_depth to 2 or 3 in config.yaml.
Also threads acp_command/acp_args through the main agent loop's delegate
dispatch (previously silently dropped in the schema) via a new
_dispatch_delegate_task helper, and adds a DelegateEvent enum with
legacy-string back-compat for gateway/ACP/CLI progress consumers.
Config (hermes_cli/config.py defaults):
delegation.max_concurrent_children: 3 # floor-only, no upper cap
delegation.max_spawn_depth: 1 # 1=flat (default), 2-3 unlock nested
delegation.orchestrator_enabled: true # global kill switch
Salvaged from @pefontana's PR #11215. Overrides vs. the original PR:
concurrency stays at 3 (PR bumped to 5 + cap 8 — we keep the floor only,
no hard ceiling); max_spawn_depth defaults to 1 (PR defaulted to 2 which
silently enabled one level of orchestration for every user).
Co-authored-by: pefontana <fontana.pedro93@gmail.com>
Smart model routing (auto-routing short/simple turns to a cheap model
across providers) was opt-in and disabled by default. This removes the
feature wholesale: the routing module, its config keys, docs, tests, and
the orchestration scaffolding it required in cli.py / gateway/run.py /
cron/scheduler.py.
The /fast (Priority Processing / Anthropic fast mode) feature kept its
hooks into _resolve_turn_agent_config — those still build a route dict
and attach request_overrides when the model supports it; the route now
just always uses the session's primary model/provider rather than
running prompts through choose_cheap_model_route() first.
Also removed:
- DEFAULT_CONFIG['smart_model_routing'] block and matching commented-out
example sections in hermes_cli/config.py and cli-config.yaml.example
- _load_smart_model_routing() / self._smart_model_routing on GatewayRunner
- self._smart_model_routing / self._active_agent_route_signature on
HermesCLI (signature kept; just no longer initialised through the
smart-routing pipeline)
- route_label parameter on HermesCLI._init_agent (only set by smart
routing; never read elsewhere)
- 'Smart Model Routing' section in website/docs/integrations/providers.md
- tip in hermes_cli/tips.py
- entries in hermes_cli/dump.py + hermes_cli/web_server.py
- row in skills/autonomous-ai-agents/hermes-agent/SKILL.md
Tests:
- Deleted tests/agent/test_smart_model_routing.py
- Rewrote tests/agent/test_credential_pool_routing.py to target the
simplified _resolve_turn_agent_config directly (preserves credential
pool propagation + 429 rotation coverage)
- Dropped 'cheap model' test from test_cli_provider_resolution.py
- Dropped resolve_turn_route patches from cli + gateway test_fast_command
— they now exercise the real method end-to-end
- Removed _smart_model_routing stub assignments from gateway/cron test
helpers
Targeted suites: 74/74 in the directly affected test files;
tests/agent + tests/cron + tests/cli pass except 5 failures that
already exist on main (cron silent-delivery + alias quick-command).
Add a 'tip of the day' feature that displays a random one-liner about
Hermes Agent features on every new session — CLI startup, /clear, /new,
and gateway /new across all messaging platforms.
- New hermes_cli/tips.py module with 210 curated tips covering slash
commands, keybindings, CLI flags, config options, tools, gateway
platforms, profiles, sessions, memory, skills, cron, voice, security,
and more
- CLI: tips display in skin-aware dim gold color after the welcome line
- Gateway: tips append to the /new and /reset response on all platforms
- Fully wrapped in try/except — tips are non-critical and never break
startup or reset
Display format (CLI):
✦ Tip: /btw <question> asks a quick side question without tools or history.
Display format (gateway):
✨ Session reset! Starting fresh.
✦ Tip: hermes -c resumes your most recent CLI session.
