Hermes Agent adapter

Hermes Agent adapter

Hermes Agent configuration and UI evolve independently of this skill. Consult current Hermes Agent documentation and the hermes-agent skill before using Hermes-specific commands or claiming a configuration capability.

Required pre-delegation check

Before delegating child work, locate and load agent-lifecycle. It remains responsible for stable child identity, activity, heartbeats, snapshots/reconciliation, and lifecycle truth. If missing, offer installation and wait for user approval; do not replace it with todos, a task board, or a post-run summary.

Prefer Hermes's native lifecycle/child-agent UI. Only if it is unavailable may a fallback be rendered. If a lifecycle source exists, render one aggregate active, display-only todo and individual DISPLAY ONLY child rows with child ID, literal state, activity or active tool, and freshness; the normalized lifecycle projection is authoritative and edits to those rows are ignored. If no lifecycle source exists, render no child rows and state exactly Background work visibility unavailable; state unknown. On reconnect, obtain reconciliation and rebuild the fallback from the projection. Preserve completed, failed, cancelled, and lost as literal terminal mappings; never map them to todo completion or cancellation.

Model-routing capability and degradation

Hermes has two relevant live bindings:

• DRIVER uses the session's main model: model.provider and model.default.
• BUILDER uses Hermes's one delegated-child binding: delegation.provider and delegation.model. Every delegated child uses this same binding; Hermes does not expose separate child bindings per child or per role.
• SWEEPER has no independently addressable Hermes binding. Fold it into BUILDER (fold-builder) or do its work inline with DRIVER (inline-driver). Report that role as degraded, including the chosen mode.

Do not state that one child binding prevents distinct DRIVER and BUILDER selection: they are distinct session and delegation controls. Do not claim separately dispatchable child models beyond the single BUILDER binding.

For display, keep provider and model as separate fields. In particular, do not concatenate them into a synthetic provider/model identifier: gateway providers such as routera can select an exact ID such as openai/gpt-5.6-terra, where routera/openai/gpt-5.6-terra is false.

Shipped Hermes routing adapter

This catalog ships a Hermes-specific adapter layer, not a Hermes profile primitive. When Hermes's native routing UI is not the applicable control surface, use the repository's hermes-routing.mjs adapter script. It is catalog adapter tooling that reads and applies the catalog's scoped routing intent through documented Hermes configuration; it does not add a native Hermes profile type or claim a Desktop-core feature.

Use the script only after checking its documented interface and actual output. The adapter reads $HERMES_HOME/provider_models_cache.json safely; it never calls the nonexistent hermes models list --json command and never reads credentials. It validates the exact selected model ID across all cached provider catalogs, while preserving the configured provider in its own binding field. This supports gateway providers whose model ID is listed under another cached catalog.

Before applying host bindings, capture all four host values (model.provider, model.default, delegation.provider, and delegation.model) in a receipt. Apply and read back every value; if any write or readback fails, roll back every changed key. A reset restores that receipt and clears active routing intent; it never deletes all saved profiles. Live inventory validation and host binding remain Hermes-adapter responsibilities.

At session start, auto-load the most-specific matching saved profile, validate exact identifiers against Hermes's cached live inventory, and surface invalid or unsupported bindings before child dispatch. Never silently fall back to the session default.

Reporting

For each role, label the outcome selected, configured, dispatched, observed, invalid, or degraded as defined in profile controls. A selected profile value is not proof Hermes sent that model to a child; read live child metadata or lifecycle evidence before claiming observed use.