* fix(curator): authoritative absorbed_into declarations on skill delete
Closes#18671. The classification pipeline that feeds cron-ref rewriting
used to infer consolidation vs pruning from two brittle signals: the
curator model's post-hoc YAML summary block, and a substring heuristic
scanning other tool calls for the removed skill's name. Both miss in
real consolidations — the model forgets the YAML under reasoning
pressure, and the heuristic misses when the umbrella's patch content
describes the absorbed behavior abstractly instead of naming the old
slug. When both miss, the skill falls through to 'no-evidence fallback'
pruned, and #18253's cron rewriter drops the cron ref entirely instead
of mapping it to the umbrella. Same observable symptom as pre-#18253:
'Skill(s) not found and skipped' at the next cron run.
The fix makes the model declare intent at the moment of deletion.
skill_manage(action='delete') now accepts absorbed_into:
- absorbed_into='<umbrella>' -> consolidated, target must exist on disk
- absorbed_into='' -> explicit prune, no forwarding target
- missing -> legacy path, falls through to heuristic/YAML
The curator reconciler reads these declarations off llm_meta.tool_calls
BEFORE either the YAML block or the substring heuristic. Declaration
wins. Fallback logic stays intact for backward compat with any caller
(human or older curator conversation) that doesn't populate the arg.
Changes
- tools/skill_manager_tool.py: add absorbed_into param to skill_manage
+ _delete_skill. Validate target exists when non-empty. Reject
absorbed_into=<self>. Wire through dispatcher + registry + schema.
- agent/curator.py: new _extract_absorbed_into_declarations() walks
tool calls for skill_manage(delete) with the arg. _reconcile_classification
accepts absorbed_declarations= and treats them as authoritative. Curator
prompt updated to require the arg on every delete.
- Tests: 7 new skill_manager tests covering the tool contract (valid
target, empty string, nonexistent target, self-reference, whitespace,
backward compat, dispatcher plumbing). 11 new curator tests covering
the extractor + authoritative reconciler path + mixed-legacy-and-
declared runs.
Validation
- 307/307 targeted tests pass (curator + cron + skill_manager suites).
- E2E #18671 repro: 3 narrow skills, 1 umbrella, cron job referencing
all 3. Model emits NO YAML block. Heuristic misses (patch prose
doesn't name old slugs). Delete calls carry absorbed_into. Result:
both PR skills correctly classified 'consolidated' + cron rewritten
['pr-review-format', 'pr-review-checklist', 'stale-junk'] ->
['hermes-agent-dev']; stale-junk pruned via absorbed_into=''.
- E2E backward-compat: delete without absorbed_into, model emits YAML
-> routed via existing 'model' source, cron still rewritten correctly.
* feat(curator): capture + restore cron skill links across snapshot/rollback
Before this, rolling back a curator run restored the skills tree but cron
jobs still pointed at the umbrella skills the curator had rewritten them
to. The user would see their old narrow skills back on disk but their
cron jobs still configured with the merged umbrella — not actually 'back
to how it was'.
Snapshot side: snapshot_skills() now captures ~/.hermes/cron/jobs.json
alongside the skills tarball, as cron-jobs.json. The manifest gets a new
'cron_jobs' block with {backed_up, jobs_count} so rollback (and the CLI
confirm dialog) can surface what's in the snapshot. If jobs.json is
missing/unreadable/malformed, snapshot proceeds without cron data — the
skills backup is the core guarantee; cron is additive.
Rollback side: after the skills extract succeeds, the new
_restore_cron_skill_links() reconciles the backed-up jobs into the live
jobs.json SURGICALLY. Only 'skills' and 'skill' fields are restored, and
only on jobs matched by id. Everything else about a cron job — schedule,
last_run_at, next_run_at, enabled, prompt, workdir, hooks — is live
state the user or scheduler has modified since the snapshot; overwriting
it would regress unrelated activity.
Reconciliation rules:
- Job in backup AND live, skills differ → skills restored.
- Job in backup AND live, skills match → no-op.
- Job in backup, NOT in live → skipped (user deleted it
after snapshot; their choice
is later than the snapshot).
- Job in live, NOT in backup → untouched (user created it
after snapshot).
- Snapshot missing cron-jobs.json at all → rollback still succeeds,
reports 'not captured'
(older pre-feature snapshots
keep working).
Writes go through cron.jobs.save_jobs under the same _jobs_file_lock the
scheduler uses, so rollback doesn't race tick().
Also:
- hermes_cli/curator.py: rollback confirm dialog now shows
'cron jobs: N (will be restored for skill-link fields only)' when the
snapshot has cron data, or 'not in snapshot (<reason>)' otherwise.
- rollback()'s message string includes a 'cron links: ...' clause
summarizing the reconciliation outcome.
Tests
- 9 new cases: snapshot-with-cron, snapshot-without-cron, malformed-json
captured-as-raw, full rollback-restores-skills-and-cron, rollback
touches only skill fields, rollback skips user-deleted jobs, rollback
leaves user-created jobs untouched, rollback still works with
pre-feature snapshot that has no cron-jobs.json, standalone unit test
on _restore_cron_skill_links exercising the full report shape.
Validation
- 484/484 targeted tests pass (curator + cron + skill_manager suites).
- E2E: real snapshot_skills, real cron rewrite, real rollback. Before:
['pr-review-format', 'pr-review-checklist', 'pr-triage-salvage'].
After curator: ['hermes-agent-dev']. After rollback: ['pr-review-format',
'pr-review-checklist', 'pr-triage-salvage']. Non-skill fields (id,
name, prompt) preserved across the round trip.
* fix(curator): defer first run and add --dry-run preview (#18373)
Curator was meant to run 7 days after install, not on the very first
gateway tick. On a fresh install (no .curator_state), should_run_now()
returned True immediately because last_run_at was None — so the gateway
cron ticker fired Curator against a fresh skill library moments after
'hermes update'. Combined with the binary 'agent-created' provenance
model (anything not bundled and not hub-installed), this consolidated
hand-authored user workflow skills without consent.
Changes:
- should_run_now(): first observation seeds last_run_at='now' and returns
False. The next real pass fires one full interval_hours later (7 days
by default), matching the original design intent.
- hermes curator run --dry-run: produces the same review report without
applying automatic transitions OR permitting the LLM to call
skill_manage / terminal mv. A DRY-RUN banner is prepended to the
prompt and the caller skips apply_automatic_transitions. State is
NOT advanced so a preview doesn't defer the next scheduled real pass.
- hermes update: prints a one-liner on fresh installs pointing at
--dry-run, pause, and the docs. Silent on steady state.
- Docs: curator.md and cli-commands.md explain the deferred first-run
behavior and warn that hand-written SKILL.md files share the
'agent-created' bucket, with guidance to pin or preview before the
first pass.
Tests:
- test_first_run_defers replaces the old 'first run always eligible'
assertion — same fixture, inverted expectation.
- test_maybe_run_curator_defers_on_fresh_install covers the gateway tick
path end-to-end.
- Three new dry-run tests cover state-advance suppression, prompt
banner injection, and apply_automatic_transitions skipping.
Fixes#18373.
* feat(curator): pre-run backup + rollback (#18373)
Every real curator pass now snapshots ~/.hermes/skills/ into
~/.hermes/skills/.curator_backups/<utc-iso>/skills.tar.gz before calling
apply_automatic_transitions or the LLM review. If a run consolidates or
archives something the user didn't want touched, 'hermes curator
rollback' restores the tree in one command. Dry-run is skipped — no
mutation means no snapshot needed.
Changes:
- agent/curator_backup.py (new): tar.gz snapshot + safe rollback. The
snapshot excludes .curator_backups/ (would recurse) and .hub/ (managed
by the skills hub). Extract refuses absolute paths and .. components,
and uses tarfile's filter='data' on Python 3.12+. Rollback takes a
pre-rollback safety snapshot FIRST, stages the current tree into
.rollback-staging-<ts>/ so the extract lands in an empty dir, and
cleans the staging dir on success. A failed extract restores the
staged contents.
- agent/curator.py: run_curator_review() calls curator_backup.
snapshot_skills(reason='pre-curator-run') before apply_automatic_
transitions. Best-effort — a failed snapshot logs at debug and the
run continues (a transient disk issue shouldn't silently disable
curator forever).
- hermes_cli/curator.py: new 'hermes curator backup' and 'hermes curator
rollback' subcommands. rollback supports --list, --id <ts>, -y.
- hermes_cli/config.py: curator.backup.{enabled, keep} config block
with sane defaults (enabled=true, keep=5).
- Docs: curator.md gets a 'Backups and rollback' section; cli-commands
.md table gets the new rows.
Tests (new file tests/agent/test_curator_backup.py, 16 cases):
- snapshot creates tarball + manifest with correct counts
- snapshot excludes .curator_backups/ (recursion guard) and .hub/
- snapshot disabled via config returns None without creating anything
- snapshot uniquifies ids within the same second (-01 suffix)
- prune honors keep count, newest-first
- list_backups + _resolve_backup cover newest-default and unknown-id
- rollback restores a deleted skill with content intact
- rollback is itself undoable — safety snapshot shows up in list_backups
- rollback with no snapshots returns an error
- rollback refuses tarballs with absolute paths or .. components
- real curator runs take a 'pre-curator-run' snapshot; dry-runs do not
All curator tests: 210 passing locally.
Teknium