fix: validate cron no-agent update invariants

[sgtworkman]

Summary

• Add regression coverage for cron no_agent update invariants.
• Validate script-only cron behavior stays intact across update paths.
• Refresh cron/kanban documentation for the script-only and no-agent semantics.

Test Plan

• scripts/run_tests.sh tests/cron/test_cron_no_agent.py tests/cron/test_cron_script.py

Branch State

• Rebases cleanly onto current origin/main.
• Local branch verified 1 ahead / 0 behind against origin/main before opening this PR.

[sgtworkman]

CI workflows are currently in GitHub action_required state for this fork PR, so no jobs/logs are available yet. Local validation before opening: scripts/run_tests.sh tests/cron -q → 323 passed; npm run lint:diagrams → 0 errors; npm run build completed successfully with existing unrelated broken-link warnings.

[sgtworkman]

Validation refresh

Rebased this stale/conflicting PR onto latest origin/main, resolved conflicts, and pushed the refreshed branch.

Head: 81b72a267
Branch divergence after rebase: 0 behind / 1 ahead vs origin/main.

Local validation:

scripts/run_tests.sh tests/cron/test_cron_no_agent.py tests/cron/test_cron_script.py -v

Result: 60 passed.

Additional checks:

• git diff --check: passed.
• Static added-line security scan: 0 findings.
• Independent final diff review: passed, no blocking security or logic issues.

Conflict resolution notes:

• Kept the upstream cron script-only docs additions, including webhook-related references.
• Kept/added coverage for empty script output skipping the agent prompt because that behavior now exists on origin/main.
• Added an extra data-layer regression for whitespace-only script updates while no_agent=True.

GitHub Actions for this fork PR may still require maintainer approval before remote CI runs.

[sgtworkman]

Validation refresh

Rebased onto latest origin/main after upstream advanced and force-pushed with lease.

Head: 51f138398
Branch divergence vs origin/main: 0 behind / 1 ahead.

Local validation:

scripts/run_tests.sh tests/hermes_cli/test_tools_config.py tests/cron/test_cron_no_agent.py tests/cron/test_cron_script.py -q

Result for shared validation slice: 125 passed.

This PR-specific cron coverage remains covered by that run: tests/cron/test_cron_no_agent.py and tests/cron/test_cron_script.py.

[sgtworkman]

Validation refresh

Current head: 29e789178
Branch state before this comment: 1 ahead / 0 behind vs origin/main; 0 ahead / 0 behind vs sgtworkman/fix/cron-no-agent-validation.

Local validation rerun:

scripts/run_tests.sh tests/cron/test_cron_no_agent.py tests/cron/test_cron_script.py

Result: 60 passed in 1.80s.

PR body refreshed to match the current scope. GitHub Actions/check rollup is currently empty for this fork PR; if Actions require maintainer approval, no remote CI logs will be available until that approval happens.

[sgtworkman]

Local integration validation

Validated the current open PR stack locally while GitHub Actions remain maintainer-gated for fork PRs.

Temporary stack from fresh origin/main (44cdf555a) merged these PR heads cleanly, with no conflicts:

• fix: run computer use post-setup when enabling tool #22776 — fix/computer-use-tools-installs-cua-driver
• fix: honor active repo and dashboard chat theme #22650 — fix/dashboard-chat-theme-update-check
• fix: validate cron no-agent update invariants #21031 — fix/cron-no-agent-validation

Combined targeted validation:

scripts/run_tests.sh \
  tests/hermes_cli/test_tools_config.py \
  tests/hermes_cli/test_update_check.py \
  tests/hermes_cli/test_web_server.py \
  tests/cron/test_cron_no_agent.py \
  tests/cron/test_cron_script.py -q

Result: 280 passed in 3.04s.

Dashboard build also passed:

cd web && npm run build

Result: passed; only the existing Vite chunk-size warning was emitted.

The temp worktree was removed after validation. No production/deploy action was performed.

[teknium1]

Thanks for moving the no-agent script requirement into cron/jobs.py; current main still allows a direct update to clear that script and leave a job that the scheduler rejects at cron/scheduler.py:2523-2528.

Problems

• cron/jobs.py:702 in this PR rejects a valid agent-mode job when it has a script but no prompt or skills. Current dashboard validation deliberately permits prompt or skills or script (hermes_cli/web_server.py:9998-10002), and the agent path injects non-empty script output into the prompt (cron/scheduler.py:2184-2203). The changed round-trip test at tests/cron/test_cron_no_agent.py:86 masks that supported transition by adding a prompt.

Suggested changes

• Retain the no_agent=True/script invariant, but remove the no_agent=False prompt-or-skills check and test the script-only agent transition instead.

Automated hermes-sweeper review.

[teknium1]

This rejects a supported agent-mode shape: a non-no_agent job may retain its pre-run script as the sole prompt source. Current dashboard validation accepts prompt or skills or script (hermes_cli/web_server.py:9998), and _build_job_prompt() injects non-empty script output before the agent runs (cron/scheduler.py:2184-2203). Remove this branch; keep only the no_agent=True requires-script invariant.

[GottZ]

This was generated by AI during triage.

Summary

Two PRs touch this complex: #21031 addresses the reported runtime invariant by normalizing script updates and rejecting script removal from no-agent jobs, while #21594 overlaps only in the cron and Kanban documentation diagrams and does not address the runtime cause. Both diffs currently require the corrections identified by contributor review.

Related pull requests

• #21031 related — (+137/-31) — keep open, changes required: The data-layer normalization and rejection of empty or whitespace-only scripts correctly prevent updates from leaving no-agent jobs unschedulable. The contributor keep_open review must be addressed before merge: remove the new no_agent=False prompt-or-skills restriction because script-only agent jobs are supported, and restore a regression test for that transition.
• #21594 related — (+19/-40) — keep open separately, changes required: This is primarily a fallback-provider and documentation-lint cleanup; its cron and Kanban Mermaid conversions overlap with #21031 but do not fix the cron update invariant. Per the contributor keep_open review, route Kanban live updates through the FastAPI WebSocket rather than directly from the DB to the UI, and preserve the legacy fallback_model compatibility note.

Duplicates

#21031 and #21594 contain substantially duplicate cron-script-only and Kanban ASCII-to-Mermaid documentation changes, but their overall scopes are not duplicates.

Suggested consolidation

Merge #21031 after removing the unsupported agent-mode prompt-or-skills validation and testing the valid script-only agent transition. Keep #21594 as the separate documentation PR after its contributor-review corrections, while retaining the overlapping diagram conversions in only one PR to avoid duplicate/conflicting edits; neither full PR should be closed as a duplicate of the other.

Cross-PR triage: Reviewed 2 pull requests and 0 issues in this complex. Each diff was read against this issue; Assessment working set: 19 kB of PR diffs, 1 kB of issue/PR text, 5 kB of discussion (7 comments), 0 verify verdicts. verdicts reflect diff content, not PR titles. Part of an automated triage batch.