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fix(skills): activate Hermes skills in fresh sessions - #8535

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souvikDevloper:test/8504-hermes-skill-lifecycle
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fix(skills): activate Hermes skills in fresh sessions#8535
souvikDevloper wants to merge 5 commits into
NVIDIA:mainfrom
souvikDevloper:test/8504-hermes-skill-lifecycle

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@souvikDevloper

@souvikDevloper souvikDevloper commented Aug 7, 2026

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Summary

Correct Hermes skill activation guidance so installs, updates, and removals take effect in a new chat session without a gateway restart. Add a public-CLI live E2E proof for install, native discovery, and use in a fresh Hermes session, with privacy-safe evidence that the skill reached an authenticated inference request.

This is a bounded foundation for the design-gated epic. It does not select or claim support for an Enterprise AI reference stack.

Related Issue

Refs #8504

Changes

  • Model Hermes' existing session-start skill reload behavior explicitly and use it for install and removal activation guidance.
  • Document the fresh-session activation flow for Hermes users.
  • Extend the existing Hermes live E2E lane to install a deterministic skill through nemohermes, verify its sandbox path and native hermes skills list discovery, and use it in a newly created hermes chat --skills session.
  • Record only a boolean expected-canary result in the local fake inference request ledger. Request bodies and canary values are not persisted, and the positive evidence must be on an authenticated request.

Root cause and prevention

The generic non-OpenClaw path assumed that every agent needed a gateway restart, even though the shipped NemoClaw Hermes plugin reloads skills at session start. Existing tests covered the Hermes install destination but did not cover activation guidance or a live install-to-inference path. Capability unit tests and the new live lifecycle assertion protect both gaps.

Epic scope boundary

This PR does not select a partner control plane, define Team Wisdom evaluation or artifact promotion, validate tenant isolation/privacy/persistence, publish a reference composition, or close #8504. The epic still needs named and versioned candidates with owners, selection gates and weighted dogfood evidence, a frozen ADR/RACI/data-flow design, an immutable skill evaluation/approval/promotion state machine with rollback receipts, a threat model, and publication/support decisions.

Type of Change

  • Code change (feature, bug fix, or refactor)
  • Code change with doc updates
  • Doc only (prose changes, no code sample modifications)
  • Doc only (includes code sample changes)

Quality Gates

  • Tests added or updated for changed behavior
  • Existing tests cover changed behavior - justification:
  • Tests not applicable - justification:
  • Docs updated for user-facing behavior changes
  • Docs not applicable - justification:
  • Sensitive paths changed (security, policy, credentials, preflight, onboarding, inference, runner, sandbox, or messaging)
  • Sensitive-path review completed or maintainer-approved waiver recorded - reviewer/approval link/justification: Independent code/security review checked provider-secret propagation, request-ledger privacy, authenticated evidence binding, public CLI boundaries, and lifecycle behavior; all findings were fixed before commit.
  • Non-success, skipped, or missing CI check accepted by maintainer - check name, approval link, and follow-up issue:

Documentation Writer Review

  • Documentation writer subagent reviewed the completed changes
  • Result: docs-updated
  • Evidence: docs/reference/commands.mdx
  • Agent: Codex Desktop

DGX Station Hardware Evidence

Not applicable; scripts/prepare-dgx-station-host.sh is unchanged.

Verification

  • PR description includes a Signed-off-by: line and every commit appears as Verified in GitHub
  • Normal pre-commit, commit-msg, and pre-push hooks passed, or npm run validate:pr passed after refreshing origin/main when hooks were skipped or unavailable
  • Targeted behavior tests pass for the current change set, or tests are marked not applicable above - 52 CLI unit tests, 9 inference-adapter tests, and the changed fake-hosted-inference contract passed.
  • Applicable broad gate passed - npm test for broad runtime/test-harness changes; npm run check for repo-wide validation/coverage changes
  • Quality Gates section completed with required justifications or waivers
  • No secrets, API keys, or credentials committed
  • npm run docs builds without warnings (doc changes only)
  • Doc pages follow the style guide (doc changes only)
  • New doc pages include SPDX header and frontmatter (new pages only)

Validation details

  • vitest --project cli src/lib/skill-install.test.ts src/lib/skill-remote.test.ts: 52 passed.
  • vitest --project e2e-support test/e2e/support/inference-adapter.test.ts: 9 passed.
  • Changed fake hosted-inference contract: 1 passed.
  • CLI TypeScript, CLI build, semantic E2E phase coverage, test-size budget, source-shape check, Biome, commitlint, generated agent variants, published docs routes, and Fern validation passed. Fern reported 0 errors and 2 existing warnings.
  • The full Windows validate:pr run reached platform-only checkout failures in unchanged files: executable-bit/digest checks and CRLF parsing of scripts/check-version-tag-sync.sh. Linux CI is the broad gate.
  • The live Linux/Docker Hermes E2E was not run locally because Docker is unavailable on this Windows host; the existing CI lane runs it.

Signed-off-by: souvikDevloper 138186578+souvikDevloper@users.noreply.github.com

Summary by CodeRabbit

  • New Features

    • Hermes skills now become available automatically in new chat sessions without requiring a gateway restart.
    • Removing Hermes skills takes effect in the next chat session without a gateway restart.
    • Installation and removal guidance now reflects each supported agent’s activation behavior.
  • Documentation

    • Updated Hermes skill installation and removal instructions to explain new-session activation.
    • Clarified when users should start a new chat versus restart the gateway after skill changes.

Refs NVIDIA#8504

Signed-off-by: souvikDevloper <138186578+souvikDevloper@users.noreply.github.com>
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This pull request requires additional validation before any workflows can run on NVIDIA's runners.

Pull request vetters can view their responsibilities here.

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coderabbitai Bot commented Aug 7, 2026

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Review Change Stack

No actionable comments were generated in the recent review. 🎉

ℹ️ Recent review info
⚙️ Run configuration

Configuration used: Path: .coderabbit.yaml

Review profile: CHILL

Plan: Enterprise

Run ID: d199a6e0-51e3-4681-9906-cb5971d595f0

📥 Commits

Reviewing files that changed from the base of the PR and between 7083e0e and 2d8aa53.

📒 Files selected for processing (1)
  • test/e2e/live/hermes-e2e.test.ts
🚧 Files skipped from review as they are similar to previous changes (1)
  • test/e2e/live/hermes-e2e.test.ts

📝 Walkthrough

Walkthrough

Hermes skill installation and removal now use new-session activation guidance. New E2E coverage validates skill discovery, execution, fresh-session behavior, authenticated inference routing, and canary redaction.

Changes

Hermes skill lifecycle

Layer / File(s) Summary
Session-based skill activation
src/lib/skill-install.ts, src/lib/skill-remote.ts, src/lib/actions/sandbox/skill-install.ts, src/lib/*test.ts, docs/reference/commands.mdx
Hermes skill paths report session-start reload support. Installation and removal guidance directs Hermes users to start a new chat session. Tests cover metadata and messages.
Privacy-safe request observation
test/e2e/fixtures/*, test/e2e/lib/fake-openai-compatible-api.mts, test/e2e/support/*
E2E inference fixtures accept a canary and record only its presence. Mock adapters expose request summaries where supported. Tests verify authenticated requests and omit the canary from serialized records.
Hermes skill lifecycle E2E flow
test/e2e/fixtures/hermes-skill-runtime/SKILL.md, test/e2e/live/hermes-skill-lifecycle.ts, test/e2e/live/hermes-e2e.test.ts, test/e2e/live/hermes-e2e-phases.ts
The E2E flow installs a fixture skill, verifies discovery, runs it in a fresh session, checks the response, and validates canary presence at the authenticated mock inference boundary.

Estimated code review effort: 3 (Moderate) | ~25 minutes

Sequence Diagram(s)

sequenceDiagram
  participant HermesE2E
  participant SkillInstaller
  participant HermesSession
  participant FakeInferenceServer
  HermesE2E->>SkillInstaller: Install fixture skill
  SkillInstaller-->>HermesE2E: Confirm installation
  HermesE2E->>HermesSession: Start a new chat and invoke the skill
  HermesSession->>FakeInferenceServer: Send authenticated request with canary
  FakeInferenceServer-->>HermesE2E: Return request metadata with canary presence
Loading

Possibly related PRs

  • NVIDIA/NemoClaw#8475: Both changes modify Deep Agents skill-install documentation, tests, and installation output.

Suggested labels: bug-fix, area: skills

🚥 Pre-merge checks | ✅ 3 | ❌ 2

❌ Failed checks (2 warnings)

Check name Status Explanation Resolution
Linked Issues check ⚠️ Warning The PR provides Hermes skill-lifecycle support but does not satisfy the broader Enterprise AI reference-stack requirements in [#8504]. Link this work to a focused child issue, or extend the PR to address stack selection, architecture, validation, and publication requirements.
Docstring Coverage ⚠️ Warning Docstring coverage is 33.33% which is insufficient. The required threshold is 80.00%. Write docstrings for the functions missing them to satisfy the coverage threshold.
✅ Passed checks (3 passed)
Check name Status Explanation
Description Check ✅ Passed Check skipped - CodeRabbit’s high-level summary is enabled.
Title check ✅ Passed The title clearly describes activating Hermes skills in fresh sessions, which is the main change.
Out of Scope Changes check ✅ Passed The documentation, skill lifecycle changes, privacy-safe canary checks, and E2E coverage support the stated Hermes fresh-session objectives.
✨ Finishing Touches
🧪 Generate unit tests (beta)
  • Create PR with unit tests

Comment @coderabbitai help to get the list of available commands.

@github-actions

github-actions Bot commented Aug 7, 2026

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PR Review Advisor — Informational

Advisor assessment: Informational / low confidence
Next action: No advisor follow-up needed.
Findings: 0 blockers · 0 warnings · 0 suggestions
Status: PR review advisor skipped: OpenShell inference configuration failed or the advisor credential is unavailable

Model lanes

  • GPT-5.6 Terra (primary): Skipped
  • Nemotron 3 Ultra (second opinion): Skipped

Second-opinion terminology and E2E selections are advisory. Live E2E does not run automatically for pull requests.

E2E guidance

Advisory only. A maintainer can dispatch the default E2E suite against this exact revision.

Recommended E2E: cloud-inference, cloud-onboard, security-posture, hermes-e2e, inference-routing, network-policy, onboard-repair, onboard-resume

Workflow run details

This automated review informs maintainers. Warnings and suggestions do not require a response. A maintainer decides whether to merge.

@souvikDevloper
souvikDevloper marked this pull request as ready for review August 7, 2026 07:56
@souvikDevloper

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@apurvvkumaria hey can u please review it and let me know

@coderabbitai coderabbitai Bot left a comment

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Caution

Some comments are outside the diff and can’t be posted inline due to platform limitations.

⚠️ Outside diff range comments (1)
test/e2e/fixtures/hermes-skill-runtime/SKILL.md (1)

1-14: 📐 Maintainability & Code Quality | 🟠 Major | ⚡ Quick win

Add the SPDX header after the YAML front matter.

parseFrontmatter requires --- on the first line. Add the required HTML SPDX header after the closing front-matter delimiter so skill installation continues to work.

🤖 Prompt for AI Agents
Verify each finding against current code. Fix only still-valid issues, skip the
rest with a brief reason, keep changes minimal, and validate.

In `@test/e2e/fixtures/hermes-skill-runtime/SKILL.md` around lines 1 - 14, Add the
required HTML SPDX header immediately after the closing YAML front-matter
delimiter in the Hermes skill definition, while keeping the opening delimiter on
the first line and preserving the existing skill content unchanged.

Source: Coding guidelines

🤖 Prompt for all review comments with AI agents
Verify each finding against current code. Fix only still-valid issues, skip the
rest with a brief reason, keep changes minimal, and validate.

Outside diff comments:
In `@test/e2e/fixtures/hermes-skill-runtime/SKILL.md`:
- Around line 1-14: Add the required HTML SPDX header immediately after the
closing YAML front-matter delimiter in the Hermes skill definition, while
keeping the opening delimiter on the first line and preserving the existing
skill content unchanged.

ℹ️ Review info
⚙️ Run configuration

Configuration used: Path: .coderabbit.yaml

Review profile: CHILL

Plan: Enterprise

Run ID: 802468e7-615d-4794-9d0d-ae399790f908

📥 Commits

Reviewing files that changed from the base of the PR and between cabe038 and 99e8910.

📒 Files selected for processing (16)
  • docs/reference/commands.mdx
  • src/lib/actions/sandbox/skill-install.test.ts
  • src/lib/actions/sandbox/skill-install.ts
  • src/lib/skill-install.test.ts
  • src/lib/skill-install.ts
  • src/lib/skill-remote.test.ts
  • src/lib/skill-remote.ts
  • test/e2e/fixtures/fake-openai-compatible.ts
  • test/e2e/fixtures/hermes-skill-runtime/SKILL.md
  • test/e2e/fixtures/inference-adapter.ts
  • test/e2e/lib/fake-openai-compatible-api.mts
  • test/e2e/live/hermes-e2e-phases.ts
  • test/e2e/live/hermes-e2e.test.ts
  • test/e2e/live/hermes-skill-lifecycle.ts
  • test/e2e/support/hosted-inference.test.ts
  • test/e2e/support/inference-adapter.test.ts

cv
cv previously requested changes Aug 7, 2026

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Please refresh this branch onto the current main commit and run the required PR workflows; all five required checks are missing. The Hermes fresh-session activation scope is bounded to existing skill behavior and includes source, docs, and live E2E coverage, so I found no additional blocking defect in the described contract.

@apurvvkumaria apurvvkumaria self-assigned this Aug 7, 2026
Signed-off-by: Apurv Kumaria <akumaria@nvidia.com>
Signed-off-by: Apurv Kumaria <akumaria@nvidia.com>
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Addressed the requested changes in the current branch revision:

  • Refreshed the contributor branch from current main without changing the intended Hermes fresh-session behavior.
  • Added the required SPDX notices immediately after the YAML front matter in test/e2e/fixtures/hermes-skill-runtime/SKILL.md, preserving skill parsing and content.

Validation completed after both changes:

  • 65 targeted CLI tests passed.
  • 23 E2E-support tests passed, including authenticated request-canary presence and request-ledger redaction.
  • CLI TypeScript, repository hooks, source-shape, test-title, project-membership, and test-size checks passed.
  • The documentation writer review found the Hermes-only command guidance accurate; agent-variant generation and the Fern build passed with 0 errors.
  • Security review found no secrets, request-body persistence, injection path, authorization change, dependency change, or sandbox-policy regression.
  • All three commits in the branch are signed off and GitHub reports them as Verified.

Fresh required workflows are now running. The earlier Nemotron advisor failure was an optional partial second-opinion run; the primary advisor completed with no blocking findings.

@cv
cv dismissed their stale review August 7, 2026 10:31

The branch refresh and fixture license correction address this review. Required checks remain separate from code-review findings.

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[Epic] Establish the Enterprise AI Opinionated Reference Stack

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