github NousResearch/hermes-agent v2026.5.7
Hermes Agent v0.13.0 (2026.5.7) — The Tenacity Release
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Hermes Agent v0.13.0 (v2026.5.7)

Release Date: May 7, 2026
Since v0.12.0: 864 commits · 588 merged PRs · 829 files changed · 128,366 insertions · 282 issues closed (13 P0, 36 P1) · 295 community contributors (including co-authors)

The Tenacity Release — Hermes Agent now finishes what it starts. Kanban ships as a durable multi-agent board (heartbeat, reclaim, zombie detection, auto-block on incomplete exit, per-task retries, hallucination recovery). /goal keeps the agent locked on a target across turns (Ralph loop). Checkpoints v2 rewrites state persistence with real pruning. Gateway auto-resumes interrupted sessions after restart. Cron grows a no_agent watchdog mode. A security wave closes 8 P0s — redaction is now ON by default, Discord role-allowlists are guild-scoped, WhatsApp rejects strangers by default, and TOCTOU windows close across auth.json and MCP OAuth. Google Chat becomes the 20th platform. Providers become a pluggable surface. Seven i18n locales ship.

✨ Highlights

  • Multi-agent Kanban — delegate to an AI team that actually finishes — Spin up a durable board, drop tasks on it, and let multiple Hermes workers pick them up, hand off, and close them out. Heartbeats, reclaim, zombie detection, retry budgets, and a hallucination gate keep the team honest. One install, many kanbans. (#17805, #19653, #20232, #20332, #21330, #21183, #21214)

  • /goal — the agent doesn't forget what you asked it to do — Lock the agent onto a target and it stays on task across turns. The Ralph loop as a first-class primitive. (#18262, #18275, #21287)

  • Show it a video — new video_analyze tool for native video understanding on Gemini and compatible multimodal models. (@alt-glitch) (#19301)

  • Clone a voice — xAI Custom Voices lands as a TTS provider with voice cloning support. (@alt-glitch) (#18776)

  • Hermes speaks your language — static gateway + CLI messages translate to 7 locales: Chinese, Japanese, German, Spanish, French, Ukrainian, and Turkish. Docs site gains a Chinese (zh-Hans) locale. (#20231, #20329, #20467, #20474, #20430, #20431)

  • Google Chat — the 20th messaging platform — plus a generic platform-plugin hooks surface so third-party adapters drop in without touching core (IRC and Teams migrated). (#21306, #21331)

  • Sessions survive restarts — gateway bounces mid-agent, /update restarts, source-file reloads — conversations auto-resume when the gateway comes back. (#21192)

  • Security wave — 8 P0 closures — redaction ON by default, Discord role-allowlists guild-scoped (CVSS 8.1 cross-guild DM bypass closed), WhatsApp rejects strangers by default, TOCTOU windows closed across auth.json and MCP OAuth, browser enforces cloud-metadata SSRF floor, cron prompt-injection scans assembled skill content, hermes debug share redacts at upload. (#21193, #21241, #21291, #21176, #21194, #21228, #21350, #19318)

  • Checkpoints v2 — state persistence rewritten. Real pruning, disk guardrails, no more orphan shadow repos. (#20709)

  • The agent lints its own writes — post-write delta lint on write_file + patch. Python, JSON, YAML, TOML. Syntax errors surface immediately instead of shipping downstream. (#20191)

  • no_agent cron mode — script-only watchdog — cron jobs can now skip the agent entirely and just run a script. Empty stdout is silent, non-empty gets delivered verbatim. (#19709)

  • Platform allowlists everywhere — allowed_channels / allowed_chats / allowed_rooms config across Slack, Telegram, Mattermost, Matrix, and DingTalk. (#21251)

  • Providers are now plugins — ProviderProfile ABC + plugins/model-providers/. Drop in third-party providers without touching core. (#20324)

  • API server — long-term memory per session — X-Hermes-Session-Key header gives memory providers a stable session identifier. (#20199)

  • MCP levels up — SSE transport with OAuth forwarding, stale-pipe retries, image results surface as MEDIA tags instead of getting dropped, keepalive on long-lived lifecycle waits. (#21227, #21323, #21289, #21328, #20209)

  • Curator grows subcommands — hermes curator archive, prune, list-archived. Manual hermes curator run is synchronous now — you see results without polling. (#20200, #21236, #21216)

  • ACP — /steer and /queue — direct the in-flight agent or queue follow-ups from Zed, VS Code, or JetBrains. Plus atomic session persistence and reasoning-metadata preservation across restarts. (@HenkDz) (#18114, #20279, #20296, #20433)

  • TUI glow-up — /model picker matches hermes model with inline auth (@austinpickett), collapsible startup banner sections (@kshitijk4poor), context-compression counter in the status bar. (#18117, #20625, #21218)

  • Dashboard grows up — Plugins page (manage, enable/disable, auth status) (@austinpickett), Profiles management page (@vincez-hms-coder), sortable analytics tables, reverse-proxy support via X-Forwarded-Prefix, new default-large 18px theme. (#18095, #16419, #18192, #21296, #20820)

  • SearXNG + split web tools — SearXNG ships as a native search-only backend; web tools now let you pick different backends per capability (search vs extract vs browse). (@kshitijk4poor) (#20823, #20061, #20841)

  • OpenRouter response caching — explicit cache control for models that expose it. (@kshitijk4poor) (#19132)

  • [[as_document]] — skill media-routing directive — skills can force the gateway to deliver output as a document on platforms that support it. (#21210)

  • transform_llm_output plugin hook — new lifecycle hook that lets plugins reshape or filter LLM output before it hits the conversation. Useful for context-window reducers and content filters. (#21235)

  • Nous OAuth persists across profiles — shared token store: sign in once, every profile inherits the session. (#19712)

  • QQBot — native approval keyboards — feature parity with Telegram / Discord approval UX. Chunked upload, quoted attachments. (#21342, #21353)

  • 6 new optional skills — Shopify (Admin + Storefront GraphQL), here.now, shop-app personal shopping assistant, Anthropic financial-services bundle, kanban-video-orchestrator (@SHL0MS), searxng-search (@kshitijk4poor). (#18116, #18170, #20702, #21180, #19281, #20841)

  • New models — deepseek/deepseek-v4-pro, x-ai/grok-4.3, openrouter/owl-alpha (free), tencent/hy3-preview (@Contentment003111), Arcee Trinity Large Thinking temperature + compression overrides. (#20495, #20497, #18071, #21077, #20473)

  • 100 fresh CLI startup tips — the random tip banner gets 100 new entries covering cron, kanban, curator, plugins, and lesser-known flags. (#20168)

🧩 Multi-Agent Kanban (Durable)

New — durable multi-profile collaboration board

  • feat(kanban): durable multi-profile collaboration board — post-revert reimplementation, multi-profile by design (#17805)
  • Multi-project boards — one install, many kanbans (#19653, #19679)
  • Share board, workspaces, and worker logs across profiles (#19378)
  • Hallucination gate + recovery UX for worker-created-card claims (closes #20017) (#20232)
  • Generic diagnostics engine for task distress signals (#20332)
  • Per-task max_retries override (supersedes #20972) (#21330)
  • Multiline textarea for inline-create title (salvage of #20970) (#21243)

Kanban Dashboard

  • Workspace kind + path inputs in inline create form (#19679)
  • Per-platform home-channel notification toggles (#19864)
  • Sharper home-channel toggle contrast + drop → running action (#19916)
  • Fix: reject direct status transition to 'running' via dashboard API (salvage of #19554) (#19705)
  • Fix: dashboard board pin authoritative over server current file (#20879) (#21230)
  • Fix: treat dashboard event-stream cancellation as normal shutdown (#20790) (#21222)
  • Fix: filter dashboard board by selected tenant (#19817) (#21349)
  • Fix: code/pre styling theme-immune across all themes (#21086) (#21247)
  • Fix: reset <code> background inside dashboard board (#20687)
  • Fix: preserve dashboard completion summaries + add kanban edit (salvages #20016) (#20195)
  • Fix: avoid fragile failure-column renames (salvage #20848) (@kshitijk4poor) (#20855)

Worker lifecycle + reliability

  • Heartbeat + reclaim + zombie + retry-cap fixes (#21147, #21141, #21169, #20881) (#21183)
  • Auto-block workers that exit without completing + shutdown race (#20894) (#21214)
  • Detect darwin zombie workers (salvages #20023) (#20188)
  • Unify failure counter across spawn/timeout/crash outcomes (#20410)
  • Enforce worker task-ownership on destructive tool calls (#19713)
  • Drop worker identity claim from KANBAN_GUIDANCE (#19427)
  • Fix: skip dispatch for tasks assigned to non-profile lanes (salvages #20105, #20134) (#20165)
  • Fix: include default profile in on-disk assignee enumeration (salvages #20123) (#20170)
  • Fix: ignore stale current board pointers (salvages #20063) (#20183)
  • Fix: profile discovery ignores HERMES_HOME in custom-root deployments (@jackey8616) (#19020)
  • Fix: allow orchestrator profiles to see kanban tools via toolsets config (#19606)

Batch salvages

  • Tier-1 batch — metadata test, max_spawn config, run-id lifecycle guard (salvages #19522 #19556 #19829) (#20440)
  • Tier-2 batch — doctor, started_at, parent-guard, latest_summary, selects, linked-children (#20448)

Documentation

  • Backfill multi-board refs in reference docs (#19704)
  • Document /kanban slash command (#19584)
  • Document recommended handoff evidence metadata (salvage #19512) (#20415)
  • Fix orchestrator + worker skill setup instructions (@helix4u) (#20958, #20960)

🎯 Persistent Goals, Checkpoints & Session Durability

/goal — persistent cross-turn goals (Ralph loop)

  • feat: /goal — persistent cross-turn goals (#18262)
  • Docs page — Persistent Goals (/goal) (#18275)
  • Fix: honor configured goal turn budget (salvage #19423) (#21287)

Checkpoints v2

  • Single-store rewrite with real pruning + disk guardrails (#20709)

Session durability

  • Auto-resume interrupted sessions after gateway restart (salvage #20888) (#21192)
  • Preserve pending update prompts across restarts (#20160)
  • Preserve home-channel thread targets across restart notifications (salvage #18440) (#19271)
  • Preserve thread routing from cached live session sources (#21206)
  • Preserve assistant metadata when branching sessions (#18222)
  • Preserve thread routing for /update progress and prompts (#18193)
  • Preserve document type when merging queued events (#18215)

🛡️ Security & Reliability

Security hardening (8 P0 closures)

  • Enable secret redaction by default (#17691, #20785) (#21193)
  • Discord — scope DISCORD_ALLOWED_ROLES to originating guild (#12136, CVSS 8.1) (#21241)
  • WhatsApp — reject strangers by default, never respond in self-chat (#8389) (#21291)
  • MCP OAuth — close TOCTOU window when saving credentials (#21176)
  • hermes_cli/auth.py — close TOCTOU window in credential writers (#21194)
  • Browser — enforce cloud-metadata SSRF floor in hybrid routing (#16234) (#21228)
  • hermes debug share — redact log content at upload time (@GodsBoy) (#19318)
  • Cron — scan assembled prompt including skill content for prompt injection (#3968) (#21350)
  • Restore .env/auth.json/state.db with 0600 perms (#19699)
  • SRI integrity for dashboard plugin scripts (salvage #19389) (#21277)
  • Bind Meet node server to localhost, restrict token file to owner read (#19597)
  • Extend sensitive-write target to cover shell RC and credential files (#19282)
  • Harden YOLO mode env parsing against quoted-bool strings (#18214)
  • OSV-Scanner CI + Dependabot for github-actions only (#20037)

Reliability — critical bug closures

  • CLI crash on startup — Invalid key 'c-S-c' (P0, prompt_toolkit doesn't support Shift modifier) (#19895, #19919)
  • CLOSE_WAIT fd leak audit — httpx keepalive + WhatsApp aiohttp leak + Feishu hygiene (#18451) (#18766)
  • Gateway creates AIAgent with empty OpenRouter API key when OPENROUTER_API_KEY is missing (#20982) — fallback providers correctly honored
  • Background review + curator protected from overwriting bundled/hub skills (#20273) (#20194)
  • TUI compression continuation — ghost sessions with incomplete metadata (#20001)
  • hermes mcp add silently launches chat instead of registering MCP server (#19785) (#21204)
  • Background review agent runtime propagation — provider/model/credentials now actually inherit from parent
  • Inbound document host paths translated to container paths for Docker backend (salvage #19048) (#21184)
  • Matrix gateway race between auto-redaction and message delivery with high-speed models (#19075)
  • /new during active agent session never sends response on Telegram (#18912)

📱 Messaging Platforms (Gateway)

New platform

  • Google Chat — 20th platform + generic env_enablement_fn / cron_deliver_env_var platform-plugin hooks (IRC + Teams migrated) (#21306, #21331)

Cross-platform

  • allowed_{channels,chats,rooms} whitelist — Slack (salvage #7401), Telegram, Mattermost, Matrix, DingTalk (#21251)
  • Per-platform gateway_restart_notification flag (#20892)
  • busy_ack_enabled config — suppress ack messages (#18194)
  • Auto-delete slash-command system notices after TTL (#18266)
  • Opt-in cleanup of temporary progress bubbles (#21186)
  • [[as_document]] directive — skill media routing (salvage #19069) (#21210)
  • hermes gateway list — cross-profile status (salvage #19129) (#21225)
  • Auto-resume interrupted sessions after restart (salvage #20888) (#21192)
  • Atomic restart markers + Windows runtime-lock offset (#17842) (#18179)
  • Fix: config.yaml wins over .env for agent/display/timezone settings (#18764)
  • Fix: auto-restart when source files change out from under us (#17648) (#18409)
  • Fix: use git HEAD SHA for stale-code check, not file mtimes (#19740)
  • Fix: shutdown + restart hygiene — drain timeout, false-fatal, success log (#18761)
  • Fix: preserve max_turns after env reload (salvage #19183) (#21240)
  • Fix: exclude ancestor PIDs from gateway process scan (#19586)
  • Fix: move quick-command alias dispatch before built-ins (#19588)
  • Fix: show other profiles in 'gateway status' to prevent confusion (#19582)
  • Fix: include external_dirs skills in Telegram/Discord slash commands (salvage #8790) (#18741)
  • Fix: match disabled/optional skills by frontmatter slug, not dir name (#18753)
  • Fix: read /status token totals from SessionDB (#17158) (#18206)
  • Fix: snapshot callback generation after agent binds it, not before (#18219)
  • Fix: re-inject topic-bound skill after /new or /reset (#18205)
  • Fix: isolate pending native image paths by session (#18202)
  • Fix: clear queued reload skills notes on new/resume/branch (#19431)
  • Fix: hide required-arg commands from Telegram menu (#19400)
  • Fix: bridge top-level require_mention to Telegram config (#19429)
  • Fix: suppress duplicate voice transcripts (#19428)
  • Fix: show friendly error when service is not installed (#19707)
  • Fix: read context_length from custom_providers in session info header (#19708)
  • Fix: preserve WSL interop PATH in systemd units (#19867)
  • Fix: handle planned service stops (salvage #19876) (#19936)
  • Fix: keep DoH-confirmed Telegram IPs that match system DNS (salvage #17043) (#20175)
  • Fix: load reply_to_mode from config.yaml for Discord + Telegram (salvage #17117) (#20171)
  • Fix: tolerate malformed HERMES_HUMAN_DELAY_* env vars (salvage #16933) (#20217)
  • Fix: deterministic thread eviction preserves newest entries (salvage #13639) (#20285)
  • Fix: don't dead-end setup wizard when only system-scope unit is installed (#20905)
  • Fix: wait for systemd restart readiness + harden Discord slash-command sync (#20949)
  • Fix: avoid duplicated Responses history (salvage #18995) (#21185)
  • Fix: surface bootstrap failures to stderr (salvage #21157) (#21278)
  • Fix: log agent task failures instead of silently losing usage data (salvage #21159) (#21274)
  • Fix: log runtime-status write failures with rate-limiting (salvage #21158) (#21285)
  • Fix: reset-failed before every fallback restart so the gateway can't get stranded (#21371)
  • Fix: Telegram — preserve thread_id=1 for forum General typing indicator (#21390)
  • Fix: batch critical fixes — session resume, /new race, HA WebSocket scheme (@kshitijk4poor) (#19182)

Telegram

  • DM user-managed multi-session topics (salvage of #19185) (#19206)

Discord

  • Message deletion action (salvage #19052) (#21197)
  • Fix: allow free_response_channels to override DISCORD_IGNORE_NO_MENTION (#19629)

Slack

  • Fix: ephemeral slash-command ack, private notice delivery, format_message fixes (@kshitijk4poor) (#18198)

WhatsApp

  • Fix: load WhatsApp home channel from env overrides (#18190)

Feishu

  • Operator-configurable bot admission and mention policy (#18208)
  • Fix: force text mode for markdown tables (salvage of #13723 by @WuTianyi123) (#20275)

Matrix + Email

  • Fix: /sethome on Matrix and Email now persists across restarts (#18272)

Teams

  • Docs + feat: sidebar + threading with group-chat fallback (#20042)

Weixin

  • Fix: deduplicate Weixin messages by content fingerprint (#19742)

QQBot

  • Port SDK improvements in-tree — chunked upload, approval keyboards, quoted attachments (#21342)
  • Wire native tool-approval UX via inline keyboards (#21353)

🏗️ Core Agent & Architecture

Provider & Model Support

Pluggable providers

  • ProviderProfile ABC + plugins/model-providers/ — inference providers are now a pluggable surface (salvage of #14424) (#20324)
  • list_picker_providers — credential-filtered picker (salvage #13561) (#20298)
  • Remove /provider alias for /model (#20358)
  • Shared Hermes dotenv loader across CLI + plugins (salvage #13660) (#20281)
  • Nous OAuth persisted across profiles via shared token store (#19712)

New models

  • deepseek/deepseek-v4-pro added to OpenRouter + Nous Portal (#20495)
  • x-ai/grok-4.3 added to OpenRouter + Nous Portal (#20497)
  • openrouter/owl-alpha (free tier) added to curated OpenRouter list (#18071)
  • tencent/hy3-preview paid route on OpenRouter (@Contentment003111) (#21077)
  • Arcee Trinity Large Thinking — temperature + compression overrides (#20473)
  • Rename x-ai/grok-4.20-beta to x-ai/grok-4.20 (#19640)
  • Demote Vercel AI Gateway to bottom of provider picker (#18112)

Provider configuration

  • OpenRouter — response caching support (@kshitijk4poor) (#19132)
  • image_gen.model from config.yaml honored (salvage #19376) (#21273)
  • Fix: honor runtime default model during delegate provider resolution (@johnncenae) (#17587)
  • Fix: avoid Bedrock credential probe in provider picker (@helix4u) (#18998)
  • Fix: drop stale env-var override of persisted provider for cron (#19627)
  • Fix: auxiliary curator api_key/base_url into runtime resolution (#19421)

Agent Loop & Conversation

  • video_analyze — native video understanding tool (@alt-glitch) (#19301)
  • Show context compression count in status bar (CLI + TUI) (#21218)
  • Isolate get_tool_definitions quiet_mode cache + dedup LCM injection (#17335) (#17889)
  • Fix: warning-first tool-call loop guardrails (#18227)
  • Fix: break permanent empty-response loop from orphan tool-tail (#21385)
  • Fix: propagate ContextVars to concurrent tool worker threads (salvage #16660) (#18123)
  • Fix: surface self-improvement review summaries across CLI, TUI, and gateway (#18073)
  • Fix: serialize concurrent hermes_tools RPC calls from execute_code (#17894, #17902)
  • Fix: include system prompt + tool schemas in token estimates for compression (#18265)

Compression

  • Fix: skip non-string tool content in dedup pass to prevent AttributeError (#19398)
  • Fix: reset _summary_failure_cooldown_until on session reset (#19622)
  • Fix: trigger fallback on timeout errors alongside model-unavailable errors (#19665)
  • Fix: _prune_old_tool_results boundary direction (#19725)
  • Fix: soften summary prompt for content filters (salvage #19456) (#21302)

Delegate

  • Fix: inherit parent fallback_chain in _build_child_agent (#19601)
  • Fix: guard _load_config() against delegation: null in config.yaml (#19662)
  • Fix: inherit parent api_key when delegation.base_url set without delegation.api_key (#19741)
  • Fix: expand composite toolsets before intersection (salvage #19455) (#21300)
  • Fix: correct ACP docs — Claude Code CLI has no --acp flag (salvage #19058) (#21201)

Session & Memory

  • Hindsight — probe API for update_mode='append' to dedupe across processes (@nicoloboschi) (#20222)

Curator

  • hermes curator archive and prune subcommands (#20200)
  • hermes curator list-archived (#20651) (#21236)
  • Synchronous manual hermes curator run (#20555) (#21216)
  • Fix: preserve last_report_path in state (#18169)
  • Fix: rewrite cron job skill refs after consolidation (#18253)
  • Fix: defer first run + --dry-run preview (#18373) (#18389)
  • Fix: authoritative absorbed_into on delete + restore cron skill links on rollback (#18671) (#18731)
  • Fix: prevent false-positive consolidation from substring matching (#19573)
  • Fix: only mark agent-created for background-review sediment (#19621)
  • Fix: protect hub skills by frontmatter name (#20194)

🔧 Tool System

File tools

  • Post-write delta lint on write_file + patch — in-proc linters for Python, JSON, YAML, TOML (#20191)

Cron

  • no_agent mode — script-only cron jobs (watchdog pattern) (#19709)
  • context_from chaining docs (salvage #15724) (#20394)
  • Fix: treat non-dict origin as missing instead of crashing tick (#19283)
  • Fix: bump skill usage when cron jobs load skills (#19433)
  • Fix: recover null next_run_at jobs (#19576)
  • Fix: skip AI call when prerun script produces no output (#19628)
  • Fix: expand config.yaml refs during job execution (#19872)
  • Fix: serialize get_due_jobs writes to prevent parallel state corruption (#19874)
  • Fix: initialize MCP servers before constructing the cron AIAgent (#21354)

MCP

  • SSE transport support (salvage #19135) (#21227)
  • Forward OAuth auth + bump sse_read_timeout on SSE transport (#21323)
  • Retry stale pipe transport failures as session-expired (#21289)
  • Surface image tool results as MEDIA tags instead of dropping them (#21328)
  • Periodic keepalive to _wait_for_lifecycle_event (salvage #17016) (#20209)
  • Fix: reconnect on terminated sessions (#19380)
  • Fix: decouple AnyUrl import from mcp dependency (#19695)
  • Fix: mcp add --command gets distinct argparse dest (#21204)
  • Fix: clear stale thread interrupt before MCP discovery (#21276)
  • Fix: report configured timeout in MCP call errors (#21281)
  • Fix: include exception type in error messages when str(exc) is empty (salvage #19425) (#21292)
  • Fix: re-raise CancelledError explicitly in MCPServerTask.run (#21318)
  • Fix: coerce numeric tool args defensively in mcp_serve (#21329)
  • Fix: gate utility stubs on server-advertised capabilities (#21347)

Browser

  • Fix: allow explicit CDP override without local agent-browser (#19670)
  • Fix: inject --no-sandbox for root + AppArmor userns restrictions (#19747)
  • Fix: tighten Lightpanda fallback edge cases (@kshitijk4poor) (#20672)

Web tools

Approval / Tool gating

  • Fix: wake blocked gateway approvals on session cleanup (#18171)
  • Fix: harden YOLO mode env parsing against quoted-bool strings (#18214)
  • Fix: extend sensitive write target to cover shell RC and credential files (#19282)

🔌 Plugin System

  • transform_llm_output plugin hook (salvage of #20813) (#21235)
  • Document env_enablement_fn + cron_deliver_env_var platform-plugin hooks (#21331)
  • Pluggable surfaces coverage — model-provider guide, full plugin map, opt-in fix (#20749)
  • Plugin-authoring gaps — image-gen provider guide + publishing a skill tap (#20800)

🧩 Skills Ecosystem

New optional skills

  • Shopify — Admin + Storefront GraphQL optional skill (#18116)
  • here.now — optional skill (#18170)
  • shop-app — personal shopping assistant (optional) (#20702)
  • Anthropic financial-services bundle — ported as optional finance skills (#21180)
  • kanban-video-orchestrator — creative optional skill (@SHL0MS) (#19281)
  • searxng-search — optional skill + Web Search + Extract docs page (@kshitijk4poor) (#20841, #20844)

Skill UX

  • Linear skill — add Documents support + Python helper script (#20752)
  • Modernize Obsidian skill to use file tools (salvage #19332) (#20413)
  • Default custom tool creation to plugins (@kshitijk4poor) (#19755)
  • skill_commands cache — rescan on platform scope changes (salvage #14570 by @LeonSGP43) (#18739)
  • Skills — additional rescan paths in skill_commands cache (salvage #19042) (#21181)
  • Fix: regression tests for non-dict metadata in extract_skill_conditions (#18213)
  • Docs: explain restoring bundled skills (salvage #19254) (#20404)
  • Docs: document hermes skills reset subcommand (salvage #11544) (#20395)
  • Docs: himalaya v1.2.0 folder.aliases syntax (#19882)
  • Point agent at hermes-agent skill + docs site sync (#20390)

🖥️ CLI & User Experience

CLI

TUI (Ink)

Dashboard

Update + setup

  • hermes update --yes/-y to skip interactive prompts (#18261)
  • Restart manual profile gateways after update (#18178)

Profiles

  • --no-skills flag for empty profile creation (#20986)

🎵 Voice, Image & Media

  • xAI Custom Voices — voice cloning (@alt-glitch) (#18776)
  • Achievements — share card render on unlocked badges (#19657)
  • Refresh systemd unit on gateway boot (not just start/restart) (@alt-glitch) (#19684)

🔗 API Server & Remote Access

  • X-Hermes-Session-Key header for long-term memory scoping (closes #20060) (#20199)

🧰 ACP Adapter (VS Code / Zed / JetBrains)

  • /steer and /queue slash commands (@HenkDz) (#18114)
  • Fix: translate Windows cwd for WSL sessions (salvage #18128) (#18233)
  • Fix: run /steer as a regular prompt on idle sessions (#18258)
  • Fix: route Zed thoughts to reasoning + polish tool/context rendering (#19139)
  • Fix: atomic session persistence via replace_messages (salvage #13675) (#20279)
  • Fix: preserve assistant reasoning metadata in session persistence (salvage #13575) (#20296)
  • Docs: update VS Code setup for ACP Client extension (salvage #12495) (#20433)

🐳 Docker

  • Launch dashboard as side-process via HERMES_DASHBOARD=1 (@benbarclay) (#19540)
  • Refuse root gateway runs in official image (salvage #19215) (#21250)
  • Chown runtime node_modules trees to hermes user (salvage #19303) (#21267)
  • Fix: exclude compose/profile runtime state from build context (#19626)
  • CI: don't cancel overlapping builds, guard :latest (@ethernet8023) (#20890)
  • Test: align Dockerfile contract tests with simplified TUI flow (salvage #19024) (#21174)
  • Docs: connect to local inference servers (vLLM, Ollama) (salvage #12335) (#20407)
  • Docs: document API_SERVER_* env vars (salvage #11758) (#20409)
  • Docs: clarify Docker terminal backend is a single persistent container (#20003)

🐛 Notable Bug Fixes

Agent

  • Fix: recover lazy session creation regressions (#18370 fallout) (@alt-glitch) (#20363)
  • Fix: propagate ContextVars to concurrent tool worker threads (salvage #16660) (#18123)
  • Fix: warning-first tool-call loop guardrails (#18227)
  • Fix: surface self-improvement review summaries across CLI, TUI, and gateway (#18073)

Gateway streaming

  • Fix: harden StreamingConfig bool and numeric coercion (@simbam99) (#16463)

Model

  • Fix: avoid Bedrock credential probe in provider picker (@helix4u) (#18998)

Doctor

  • Fix: check global agent-browser when local install not found (#19671)
  • Test: kimi-coding-cn provider validation regression (#19734)

Update

  • Fix: patch isatty on real streams to fix xdist-flaky --yes tests (salvage #19026) (#21175)
  • Fix: teach restart-mocks about the post-update survivor sweep (salvage #19031) (#21177)

Auth

  • Fix: acp preserve assistant reasoning metadata (#20296)

Redact

  • Fix: add code_file param to skip false-positive ENV/JSON patterns (#19715)

Email

  • Fix: quoted-relative file-drop paths + Date header on tool email path (#19646)

🧪 Testing

  • ACP — accept prompt persistence kwargs in MCP E2E mocks (@stephenschoettler) (#18047)
  • Toolsets — include kanban in expected post-#17805 toolset assertions (@briandevans) (#18122)
  • Agent — cover max-iterations summary message sanitization (#19580)
  • run_agent — -inf and nan regression coverage for _coerce_number (#19703)

📚 Documentation

Major docs additions

  • llms.txt + llms-full.txt — agent-friendly ingestion (#18276)
  • User Stories and Use Cases collage page (#18282)
  • Persistent Goals (/goal) feature page (#18275)
  • Windows (WSL2) guide expansion — filesystem, networking, services, pitfalls (#20748)
  • Chinese (zh-CN) README translation (salvage #13508) (#20431)
  • zh-Hans Docusaurus locale + Tool Gateway / image-gen / WSL quickstart translations (salvage #11728) (#20430)
  • Tool Gateway docs restructure — lead with what it does, config moved to bottom (#20827)
  • Quickstart — Onchain AI Garage Hermes tutorials playlist (#20192)
  • Open WebUI bootstrap script (salvage #9566) (#20427)
  • Local Ollama setup guide (salvage #5842) (#20426)
  • Google Gemini guide (salvage #17450) (#20401)
  • Custom model aliases for /model command (#20475)
  • Together/Groq/Perplexity cookbook via custom_providers (salvage #15214) (#20400)
  • Doubao speech integration examples (TTS + STT) (salvage #18065) (#20418)
  • WSL-to-Windows Chrome MCP bridge (salvage #8313) (#20428)
  • Hermes skills docs sync — slash commands + durable-systems section (#20390)
  • AGENTS.md — curator/cron/delegation/toolsets + fix plugin tree (#20226)
  • Bedrock quickstart entry + fallback comment + deployment link (salvage #11093) (#20397)

Docs polish

  • Collapse exploding skills tree to a single Skills node (#18259)
  • Clarify session_search auxiliary model docs (#19593)
  • Open WebUI Quick Setup gap fill (#19654)
  • Default custom tool creation to plugins (@kshitijk4poor) (#19755)
  • Clarify Telegram group chat troubleshooting (salvage #18672) (#20416)
  • Codex OAuth auth prerequisite clarification (salvage #18688) (#20417)
  • Discord Server Members Intent + SSRC-mapping drift + /voice join slash Choice (salvage #11350) (#20411)
  • Document ctx.dispatch_tool() (salvage #10955) (#20391)
  • Document hermes webhook subscribe --deliver-only (salvage #12612) (#20392)
  • Document hermes import reference (salvage #14711) (#20396)
  • Document per-provider TTS max_text_length caps (salvage #13825) (#20389)
  • Clarify supported prompt customization surfaces (salvage #19987) (#20383)
  • Correct web_extract summarizer timeout comment (salvage #20051) (#20381)
  • Fix fallback provider config paths (salvage #20033) (#20382)
  • Fix misleading RL install-extras claim (salvage #19080) (#21213)
  • Clarify API server tool execution locality (salvage #19117) (#21223)
  • Prefer .venv to match AGENTS.md and scripts/run_tests.sh (@xxxigm) (#21334)
  • Align tool discovery + test runner with AGENTS.md (@xxxigm) (#20791)
  • Align terminal-backend count and naming across docs and code (salvage #19044) (#20402)
  • Refresh stale platform counts (salvage #19053) (#20403)

👥 Contributors

Core

  • @teknium1 — salvage, triage, review, feature work, and release management

Top Community Contributors

  • @kshitijk4poor (21 PRs) — SearXNG native search backend, per-capability backend selection, collapsible TUI startup banner, Slack ephemeral ack + format fixes, Lightpanda fallback hardening, searxng-search optional skill + Web Search + Extract docs, default custom tool creation to plugins, kanban failure-column fix
  • @alt-glitch (13 PRs) — video_analyze tool, xAI Custom Voices (voice cloning), local-backend CLI launch-directory fix, lazy-session creation regression recovery, systemd unit refresh on gateway boot
  • @OutThisLife (9 PRs) — TUI perf — overlay render churn reduction, voice push-to-talk parity restoration (salvaging @Montbra)
  • @helix4u (6 PRs) — Classic CLI output recovery after resize, absolute-path TUI completion, gateway model picker current-context fix, Bedrock credential probe avoidance, kanban docs fixes
  • @ethernet8023 (3 PRs) — Docker CI — don't cancel overlapping builds, :latest guard
  • @benbarclay (3 PRs) — Docker — launch dashboard as side-process via HERMES_DASHBOARD=1
  • @austinpickett (3 PRs) — Dashboard Plugins page, TUI /model picker overhaul with inline auth, kanban button fix
  • @sprmn24 (2 PRs) — Contributor (2 PRs)
  • @asheriif (2 PRs) — Contributor (2 PRs)
  • @xxxigm (2 PRs) — Contributing docs — .venv preference and test runner alignment with AGENTS.md
  • @stephenschoettler (1 PR) — ACP — MCP E2E mock kwargs
  • @vincez-hms-coder (1 PR) — Dashboard — Profiles management page
  • @cdanis (1 PR) — Contributor
  • @briandevans (1 PR) — Toolsets test — kanban assertions post-#17805
  • @heyitsaamir (1 PR) — Contributor

All Contributors

Thanks to everyone who contributed to v0.13.0 — commits, co-authored work, and salvaged PRs. 295 contributors in one week.

@0oAstro, @0xDevNinja, @0xharryriddle, @0xKingBack, @0xsir0000, @0xyg3n, @0z1-ghb, @abhinav11082001-stack,
@acc001k, @acesjohnny, @adamludwin, @adybag14-cyber, @agentlinker, @agilejava, @ai-ag2026, @AJV20,
@alanxchen85, @albert748, @AllardQuek, @alt-glitch, @altmazza0-star, @ambition0802, @amitgaur, @amroessam,
@andrewhosf, @Asce66, @asheriif, @ashermorse, @asimons81, @Aslaaen, @Asunfly, @atongrun, @austinpickett,
@banditburai, @barteqpl, @Bartok9, @Beandon13, @beardthelion, @beibi9966, @benbarclay, @binhnt92, @bjianhang,
@BlackJulySnow, @bobashopcashier, @bogerman1, @Bongulielmi, @Brecht-H, @briandevans, @brooklynnicholson,
@c3115644151, @camaragon, @CashWilliams, @CCClelo, @cdanis, @CES4751, @cg2aigc, @changchun989, @ChanlerDev,
@CharlieKerfoot, @chengoak, @chenyunbo411, @chinadbo, @CIRWEL, @cixuuz, @cmcgrabby-hue, @colorcross,
@Contentment003111, @CoreyNoDream, @counterposition, @curiouscleo, @DaniuXie, @deep-name, @dengtaoyuan450-a11y,
@discodirector, @donramon77, @dpaluy, @ee-blog, @ehz0ah, @el-analista, @elmatadorgh, @EmelyanenkoK,
@Emidomenge, @emozilla, @Es1la, @EthanGuo-coder, @etherman-os, @ethernet8023, @EvilDrag0n, @exxmen, @Fearvox,
@Feranmi10, @firefly, @flobo3, @fmercurio, @Foolafroos, @formulahendry, @franksong2702, @ggnnggez, @GinWU05,
@giwaov, @glesperance, @gnanirahulnutakki, @GodsBoy, @Gosuj, @Grey0202, @guillaumemeyer, @Gutslabs, @h0tp-ftw,
@haidao1919, @halmisen, @happy5318, @hedirman, @helix4u, @hendrixfreire, @HenkDz, @hex-clawd, @heyitsaamir,
@hharry11, @Hinotoi-agent, @holynn-q, @hrkzogw, @Hypn0sis, @Hypnus-Yuan, @ideathinklab01-source, @IMHaoyan,
@Interstellar-code, @ishardo, @jacdevos, @jackey8616, @JanCong, @jasonoutland, @jatingodnani, @JayGwod,
@jethac, @JezzaHehn, @JiaDe-Wu, @jjjojoj, @jkausel-ai, @John-tip, @johnncenae, @jrusso1020, @jslizar,
@JTroyerOvermatch, @julysir, @Junass1, @JustinUssuri, @Kailigithub, @keepcalmqqf, @kiala9, @konsisumer,
@kowenhaoai, @Krionex, @kshitijk4poor, @kyan12, @leavrcn, @leon7609, @LeonSGP43, @leprincep35700, @lhysdl,
@likejudy, @lisanhu, @liu-collab, @liuguangyong93, @liuhao1024, @LucianoSP, @luoyuctl, @luyao618, @M3RCUR2Y,
@maciekczech, @Magicray1217, @magicray1217, @MaHaoHao-ch, @malaiwah, @manateelazycat, @masonjames, @megastary,
@memosr, @MichaelWDanko, @mikeyobrien, @millerc79, @Mind-Dragon, @mioimotoai-lgtm, @misery-hl, @molvikar,
@momowind, @Montbra, @MottledShadow, @mrbob-git, @mrcharlesiv, @mrcoferland, @ms-alan, @mwnickerson,
@nazirulhafiy, @nftpoetrist, @nicoloboschi, @nightq, @nikolay-bratanov, @NikolayGusev-astra, @nocturnum91,
@noOne-list, @nouseman666, @novax635, @npmisantosh, @nudiltoys-cmyk, @olisikh, @oluwadareab12, @Oxidane-bot,
@pama0227, @pander, @pasevin, @paul-tian, @pdonizete, @perlowja, @pingchesu, @PratikRai0101, @priveperfumes,
@probepark, @QifengKuang, @quocanh261997, @qWaitCrypto, @qxxaa, @r266-tech, @rames-jusso, @revaraver,
@Ricardo-M-L, @rob-maron, @Roy-oss1, @rxdxxxx, @SandroHub013, @Sanjays2402, @Sertug17, @shashwatgokhe,
@shellybotmoyer, @SHL0MS, @SimbaKingjoe, @simbam99, @simplenamebox-ops, @socrates1024, @sonic-netizen,
@sprmn24, @steezkelly, @stephen0110, @stephenschoettler, @stevenchanin, @stevenchouai, @stormhierta,
@subtract0, @suncokret12, @swithek, @taeng0204, @TakeshiSawaguchi, @tangyuanjc, @TheEpTic, @thelumiereguy,
@Tkander1715, @tmdgusya, @Tranquil-Flow, @TruaShamu, @UgwujaGeorge, @valda, @vincez-hms-coder, @VinVC,
@vominh1919, @wabrent, @WadydX, @wanazhar, @WanderWang, @warabe1122, @web-dev0521, @WideLee, @willy-scr,
@wmagev, @WuTianyi123, @wxst, @wysie, @Wysie, @xsfX20, @xxxigm, @xyiy001, @YanzhongSu, @ygd58, @Yoimex,
@yuehei, @Yukipukii1, @yuqianma, @YX234, @zeejaytan, @zhanggttry, @zhao0112, @zng8418, @zons-zhaozhy, @Zyproth

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