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fix(agent): preserve thinking blocks in latest assistant message verbatim - #26959

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fix(agent): preserve thinking blocks in latest assistant message verbatim#26959
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benmont:fix/thinking-blocks-verbatim

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@benmont

@benmont benmont commented May 16, 2026

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Summary

  • The Anthropic API requires that `thinking` and `redacted_thinking` blocks in the latest assistant message are passed back exactly as received. Any modification — dropping a block, converting unsigned thinking to text, or substituting an `(empty)` placeholder — triggers HTTP 400: "thinking or redacted_thinking blocks in the latest assistant message cannot be modified."
  • The previous `else` branch in `convert_messages_to_anthropic()` had three paths that all violated this contract: dropping `redacted_thinking` blocks without a `data` field, converting unsigned `thinking` blocks to `{"type": "text"}`, and replacing empty content with a placeholder.
  • Fix: replace the entire branch body with `pass` — the latest assistant message's content passes through untouched. The existing `cache_control` stripping loop immediately after is preserved (that field is not part of the signed content and is safe to remove).

Partially addresses #17861 (the "latest message modification" case described there — the broader non-latest-turn reconstruction gap remains open). Related to #11096 Bug 2 (different symptom, same subsystem).

Test plan

  • Updated `test_unsigned_thinking_downgraded_to_text_on_last_turn` → now asserts the block passes through as `thinking` type (renamed `test_unsigned_thinking_preserved_on_last_turn`)
  • Updated `test_redacted_thinking_without_data_dropped` → now asserts the block passes through unchanged (renamed `test_redacted_thinking_without_data_preserved_on_last_turn`)
  • Added `test_all_thinking_block_types_preserved_on_last_turn`: regression test covering all four variants (signed thinking, unsigned thinking, redacted with data, redacted without data) on the latest assistant message
  • Added `test_thinking_stripped_from_non_latest_but_preserved_on_latest`: confirms the non-latest strip path (elif branch) still works correctly alongside the new pass-through behavior
  • `pytest tests/agent/test_anthropic_adapter.py -k "thinking or reasoning_config"` — 19/19 passed

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

benmont and others added 2 commits May 16, 2026 07:52
The Anthropic API requires that thinking/redacted_thinking blocks in the
last assistant message are passed back exactly as received. The previous
else branch was dropping redacted_thinking blocks without data, converting
unsigned thinking blocks to text, and substituting an (empty) placeholder
when nothing remained — all of which trigger HTTP 400.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Two tests documented old behaviour that the API forbids:
- test_unsigned_thinking_downgraded_to_text_on_last_turn assumed unsigned
  thinking blocks were converted to text; the API rejects any modification.
- test_redacted_thinking_without_data_dropped assumed blocks without a data
  field were dropped; the API requires them verbatim.

Both are renamed and updated to assert the correct pass-through behaviour.
Two new tests are added:
- test_all_thinking_block_types_preserved_on_last_turn: regression test
  covering all four block variants (signed, unsigned, redacted with data,
  redacted without data) on the latest assistant message.
- test_thinking_stripped_from_non_latest_but_preserved_on_latest: confirms
  the non-latest strip path still works alongside the latest pass-through.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>
@alt-glitch alt-glitch added type/bug Something isn't working P1 High — major feature broken, no workaround comp/agent Core agent runtime: loop, agent_init, prompt builder, context-compression, responses endpoint provider/anthropic Anthropic native Messages API labels May 16, 2026
0xyg3n added a commit to 0xyg3n/hermes-agent that referenced this pull request May 30, 2026
…retry actually omits thinking blocks

The thinking-signature recovery in agent/conversation_loop.py popped
reasoning_details from messages, then continued to retry. That had two
defects.

First, the strip never reached the wire payload. api_messages is built
once at the start of the turn by shallow-copying every entry in messages
(line 919 area). Each api_messages entry has its own reference to the
same reasoning_details list. When build_api_kwargs runs on every retry
iteration of the inner while-loop, it consumes api_messages, not
messages. Popping reasoning_details from messages left api_messages
untouched, so the retry's request still carried the same thinking
blocks Anthropic had just rejected. The classifier latched
thinking_sig_retry_attempted = True after the first attempt, and the
loop terminated with max_retries_exhausted on the same 400.

Second, the pop mutated the canonical message list. messages is the
same list _persist_session writes to state.db and the session
transcript, so a single recovery permanently wiped every signed
thinking block from the stored conversation. Subsequent turns reloaded
the stripped state, hit the same 400 ('invalid signature' or 'cannot
be modified', see NousResearch#24107), and the agent stopped responding entirely.
Cascading compaction-ended sessions then chained off the corrupted
parent and the affected chat could not produce a response on any
future turn.

Move the strip onto api_messages, which is the API-call-time list
rebuilt into kwargs on every retry. messages is no longer touched, so
disk I/O stays clean and the recovery actually reaches the wire.

Observed against the native Anthropic Messages API on claude-opus-4-7
and claude-opus-4-8 with the interleaved-thinking-2025-05-14 beta on
hermes-agent 0.12.0 and 0.14.0. PR NousResearch#24107 narrows the trigger; this
change makes the recovery do what it always claimed to do, and
prevents the destructive aftermath.

Tests cover the api_messages strip in isolation: pop on a shallow copy
does not affect the source, the canonical messages list survives the
strip, idempotency on a duplicate firing path, and a no-op when no
reasoning_details exist on the messages.

Related: NousResearch#24107, NousResearch#26959, NousResearch#17861.
teknium1 pushed a commit that referenced this pull request Jun 10, 2026
…retry actually omits thinking blocks

The thinking-signature recovery in agent/conversation_loop.py popped
reasoning_details from messages, then continued to retry. That had two
defects.

First, the strip never reached the wire payload. api_messages is built
once at the start of the turn by shallow-copying every entry in messages
(line 919 area). Each api_messages entry has its own reference to the
same reasoning_details list. When build_api_kwargs runs on every retry
iteration of the inner while-loop, it consumes api_messages, not
messages. Popping reasoning_details from messages left api_messages
untouched, so the retry's request still carried the same thinking
blocks Anthropic had just rejected. The classifier latched
thinking_sig_retry_attempted = True after the first attempt, and the
loop terminated with max_retries_exhausted on the same 400.

Second, the pop mutated the canonical message list. messages is the
same list _persist_session writes to state.db and the session
transcript, so a single recovery permanently wiped every signed
thinking block from the stored conversation. Subsequent turns reloaded
the stripped state, hit the same 400 ('invalid signature' or 'cannot
be modified', see #24107), and the agent stopped responding entirely.
Cascading compaction-ended sessions then chained off the corrupted
parent and the affected chat could not produce a response on any
future turn.

Move the strip onto api_messages, which is the API-call-time list
rebuilt into kwargs on every retry. messages is no longer touched, so
disk I/O stays clean and the recovery actually reaches the wire.

Observed against the native Anthropic Messages API on claude-opus-4-7
and claude-opus-4-8 with the interleaved-thinking-2025-05-14 beta on
hermes-agent 0.12.0 and 0.14.0. PR #24107 narrows the trigger; this
change makes the recovery do what it always claimed to do, and
prevents the destructive aftermath.

Tests cover the api_messages strip in isolation: pop on a shallow copy
does not affect the source, the canonical messages list survives the
strip, idempotency on a duplicate firing path, and a no-op when no
reasoning_details exist on the messages.

Related: #24107, #26959, #17861.
@teknium1

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Closing after review against current main. The verbatim-pass idea is right for intact turns, but replacing the latest-assistant branch with a bare pass has two premise problems we verified in the code: (1) it would revert the orphan-strip signature-demotion guard (commit 64628ea) that lives in that exact branch — that guard prevents a documented crash-loop when a tool batch is interrupted mid-turn; (2) unsigned thinking blocks are not always Anthropic-originated — Hermes synthesizes them from reasoning_content on Kimi/DeepSeek paths, and passing those verbatim to direct Anthropic 400s, which is why the downgrade-to-text path exists. The underlying issue was instead fixed at the source by preserving original block order on replay (PR #43943, merged). Thanks for the careful test updates — the analysis of the API contract was useful in the review.

@teknium1 teknium1 closed this Jun 11, 2026
alt-glitch pushed a commit that referenced this pull request Jun 14, 2026
…retry actually omits thinking blocks

The thinking-signature recovery in agent/conversation_loop.py popped
reasoning_details from messages, then continued to retry. That had two
defects.

First, the strip never reached the wire payload. api_messages is built
once at the start of the turn by shallow-copying every entry in messages
(line 919 area). Each api_messages entry has its own reference to the
same reasoning_details list. When build_api_kwargs runs on every retry
iteration of the inner while-loop, it consumes api_messages, not
messages. Popping reasoning_details from messages left api_messages
untouched, so the retry's request still carried the same thinking
blocks Anthropic had just rejected. The classifier latched
thinking_sig_retry_attempted = True after the first attempt, and the
loop terminated with max_retries_exhausted on the same 400.

Second, the pop mutated the canonical message list. messages is the
same list _persist_session writes to state.db and the session
transcript, so a single recovery permanently wiped every signed
thinking block from the stored conversation. Subsequent turns reloaded
the stripped state, hit the same 400 ('invalid signature' or 'cannot
be modified', see #24107), and the agent stopped responding entirely.
Cascading compaction-ended sessions then chained off the corrupted
parent and the affected chat could not produce a response on any
future turn.

Move the strip onto api_messages, which is the API-call-time list
rebuilt into kwargs on every retry. messages is no longer touched, so
disk I/O stays clean and the recovery actually reaches the wire.

Observed against the native Anthropic Messages API on claude-opus-4-7
and claude-opus-4-8 with the interleaved-thinking-2025-05-14 beta on
hermes-agent 0.12.0 and 0.14.0. PR #24107 narrows the trigger; this
change makes the recovery do what it always claimed to do, and
prevents the destructive aftermath.

Tests cover the api_messages strip in isolation: pop on a shallow copy
does not affect the source, the canonical messages list survives the
strip, idempotency on a duplicate firing path, and a no-op when no
reasoning_details exist on the messages.

Related: #24107, #26959, #17861.
davidgut1982 pushed a commit to davidgut1982/hermes-agent that referenced this pull request Jun 17, 2026
…retry actually omits thinking blocks

The thinking-signature recovery in agent/conversation_loop.py popped
reasoning_details from messages, then continued to retry. That had two
defects.

First, the strip never reached the wire payload. api_messages is built
once at the start of the turn by shallow-copying every entry in messages
(line 919 area). Each api_messages entry has its own reference to the
same reasoning_details list. When build_api_kwargs runs on every retry
iteration of the inner while-loop, it consumes api_messages, not
messages. Popping reasoning_details from messages left api_messages
untouched, so the retry's request still carried the same thinking
blocks Anthropic had just rejected. The classifier latched
thinking_sig_retry_attempted = True after the first attempt, and the
loop terminated with max_retries_exhausted on the same 400.

Second, the pop mutated the canonical message list. messages is the
same list _persist_session writes to state.db and the session
transcript, so a single recovery permanently wiped every signed
thinking block from the stored conversation. Subsequent turns reloaded
the stripped state, hit the same 400 ('invalid signature' or 'cannot
be modified', see NousResearch#24107), and the agent stopped responding entirely.
Cascading compaction-ended sessions then chained off the corrupted
parent and the affected chat could not produce a response on any
future turn.

Move the strip onto api_messages, which is the API-call-time list
rebuilt into kwargs on every retry. messages is no longer touched, so
disk I/O stays clean and the recovery actually reaches the wire.

Observed against the native Anthropic Messages API on claude-opus-4-7
and claude-opus-4-8 with the interleaved-thinking-2025-05-14 beta on
hermes-agent 0.12.0 and 0.14.0. PR NousResearch#24107 narrows the trigger; this
change makes the recovery do what it always claimed to do, and
prevents the destructive aftermath.

Tests cover the api_messages strip in isolation: pop on a shallow copy
does not affect the source, the canonical messages list survives the
strip, idempotency on a duplicate firing path, and a no-op when no
reasoning_details exist on the messages.

Related: NousResearch#24107, NousResearch#26959, NousResearch#17861.
T02200059 pushed a commit to T02200059/hermes-agent that referenced this pull request Jun 18, 2026
…retry actually omits thinking blocks

The thinking-signature recovery in agent/conversation_loop.py popped
reasoning_details from messages, then continued to retry. That had two
defects.

First, the strip never reached the wire payload. api_messages is built
once at the start of the turn by shallow-copying every entry in messages
(line 919 area). Each api_messages entry has its own reference to the
same reasoning_details list. When build_api_kwargs runs on every retry
iteration of the inner while-loop, it consumes api_messages, not
messages. Popping reasoning_details from messages left api_messages
untouched, so the retry's request still carried the same thinking
blocks Anthropic had just rejected. The classifier latched
thinking_sig_retry_attempted = True after the first attempt, and the
loop terminated with max_retries_exhausted on the same 400.

Second, the pop mutated the canonical message list. messages is the
same list _persist_session writes to state.db and the session
transcript, so a single recovery permanently wiped every signed
thinking block from the stored conversation. Subsequent turns reloaded
the stripped state, hit the same 400 ('invalid signature' or 'cannot
be modified', see NousResearch#24107), and the agent stopped responding entirely.
Cascading compaction-ended sessions then chained off the corrupted
parent and the affected chat could not produce a response on any
future turn.

Move the strip onto api_messages, which is the API-call-time list
rebuilt into kwargs on every retry. messages is no longer touched, so
disk I/O stays clean and the recovery actually reaches the wire.

Observed against the native Anthropic Messages API on claude-opus-4-7
and claude-opus-4-8 with the interleaved-thinking-2025-05-14 beta on
hermes-agent 0.12.0 and 0.14.0. PR NousResearch#24107 narrows the trigger; this
change makes the recovery do what it always claimed to do, and
prevents the destructive aftermath.

Tests cover the api_messages strip in isolation: pop on a shallow copy
does not affect the source, the canonical messages list survives the
strip, idempotency on a duplicate firing path, and a no-op when no
reasoning_details exist on the messages.

Related: NousResearch#24107, NousResearch#26959, NousResearch#17861.
waefrebeorn pushed a commit to waefrebeorn/slermes that referenced this pull request Jul 2, 2026
…retry actually omits thinking blocks

The thinking-signature recovery in agent/conversation_loop.py popped
reasoning_details from messages, then continued to retry. That had two
defects.

First, the strip never reached the wire payload. api_messages is built
once at the start of the turn by shallow-copying every entry in messages
(line 919 area). Each api_messages entry has its own reference to the
same reasoning_details list. When build_api_kwargs runs on every retry
iteration of the inner while-loop, it consumes api_messages, not
messages. Popping reasoning_details from messages left api_messages
untouched, so the retry's request still carried the same thinking
blocks Anthropic had just rejected. The classifier latched
thinking_sig_retry_attempted = True after the first attempt, and the
loop terminated with max_retries_exhausted on the same 400.

Second, the pop mutated the canonical message list. messages is the
same list _persist_session writes to state.db and the session
transcript, so a single recovery permanently wiped every signed
thinking block from the stored conversation. Subsequent turns reloaded
the stripped state, hit the same 400 ('invalid signature' or 'cannot
be modified', see NousResearch#24107), and the agent stopped responding entirely.
Cascading compaction-ended sessions then chained off the corrupted
parent and the affected chat could not produce a response on any
future turn.

Move the strip onto api_messages, which is the API-call-time list
rebuilt into kwargs on every retry. messages is no longer touched, so
disk I/O stays clean and the recovery actually reaches the wire.

Observed against the native Anthropic Messages API on claude-opus-4-7
and claude-opus-4-8 with the interleaved-thinking-2025-05-14 beta on
hermes-agent 0.12.0 and 0.14.0. PR NousResearch#24107 narrows the trigger; this
change makes the recovery do what it always claimed to do, and
prevents the destructive aftermath.

Tests cover the api_messages strip in isolation: pop on a shallow copy
does not affect the source, the canonical messages list survives the
strip, idempotency on a duplicate firing path, and a no-op when no
reasoning_details exist on the messages.

Related: NousResearch#24107, NousResearch#26959, NousResearch#17861.
santhreal pushed a commit to santhreal/hermes-agent that referenced this pull request Jul 13, 2026
…retry actually omits thinking blocks

The thinking-signature recovery in agent/conversation_loop.py popped
reasoning_details from messages, then continued to retry. That had two
defects.

First, the strip never reached the wire payload. api_messages is built
once at the start of the turn by shallow-copying every entry in messages
(line 919 area). Each api_messages entry has its own reference to the
same reasoning_details list. When build_api_kwargs runs on every retry
iteration of the inner while-loop, it consumes api_messages, not
messages. Popping reasoning_details from messages left api_messages
untouched, so the retry's request still carried the same thinking
blocks Anthropic had just rejected. The classifier latched
thinking_sig_retry_attempted = True after the first attempt, and the
loop terminated with max_retries_exhausted on the same 400.

Second, the pop mutated the canonical message list. messages is the
same list _persist_session writes to state.db and the session
transcript, so a single recovery permanently wiped every signed
thinking block from the stored conversation. Subsequent turns reloaded
the stripped state, hit the same 400 ('invalid signature' or 'cannot
be modified', see NousResearch#24107), and the agent stopped responding entirely.
Cascading compaction-ended sessions then chained off the corrupted
parent and the affected chat could not produce a response on any
future turn.

Move the strip onto api_messages, which is the API-call-time list
rebuilt into kwargs on every retry. messages is no longer touched, so
disk I/O stays clean and the recovery actually reaches the wire.

Observed against the native Anthropic Messages API on claude-opus-4-7
and claude-opus-4-8 with the interleaved-thinking-2025-05-14 beta on
hermes-agent 0.12.0 and 0.14.0. PR NousResearch#24107 narrows the trigger; this
change makes the recovery do what it always claimed to do, and
prevents the destructive aftermath.

Tests cover the api_messages strip in isolation: pop on a shallow copy
does not affect the source, the canonical messages list survives the
strip, idempotency on a duplicate firing path, and a no-op when no
reasoning_details exist on the messages.

Related: NousResearch#24107, NousResearch#26959, NousResearch#17861.
donbowman pushed a commit to donbowman/hermes-agent that referenced this pull request Jul 13, 2026
…retry actually omits thinking blocks

The thinking-signature recovery in agent/conversation_loop.py popped
reasoning_details from messages, then continued to retry. That had two
defects.

First, the strip never reached the wire payload. api_messages is built
once at the start of the turn by shallow-copying every entry in messages
(line 919 area). Each api_messages entry has its own reference to the
same reasoning_details list. When build_api_kwargs runs on every retry
iteration of the inner while-loop, it consumes api_messages, not
messages. Popping reasoning_details from messages left api_messages
untouched, so the retry's request still carried the same thinking
blocks Anthropic had just rejected. The classifier latched
thinking_sig_retry_attempted = True after the first attempt, and the
loop terminated with max_retries_exhausted on the same 400.

Second, the pop mutated the canonical message list. messages is the
same list _persist_session writes to state.db and the session
transcript, so a single recovery permanently wiped every signed
thinking block from the stored conversation. Subsequent turns reloaded
the stripped state, hit the same 400 ('invalid signature' or 'cannot
be modified', see NousResearch#24107), and the agent stopped responding entirely.
Cascading compaction-ended sessions then chained off the corrupted
parent and the affected chat could not produce a response on any
future turn.

Move the strip onto api_messages, which is the API-call-time list
rebuilt into kwargs on every retry. messages is no longer touched, so
disk I/O stays clean and the recovery actually reaches the wire.

Observed against the native Anthropic Messages API on claude-opus-4-7
and claude-opus-4-8 with the interleaved-thinking-2025-05-14 beta on
hermes-agent 0.12.0 and 0.14.0. PR NousResearch#24107 narrows the trigger; this
change makes the recovery do what it always claimed to do, and
prevents the destructive aftermath.

Tests cover the api_messages strip in isolation: pop on a shallow copy
does not affect the source, the canonical messages list survives the
strip, idempotency on a duplicate firing path, and a no-op when no
reasoning_details exist on the messages.

Related: NousResearch#24107, NousResearch#26959, NousResearch#17861.
Gravezzz pushed a commit to Gravezzz/hermes-agent that referenced this pull request Jul 21, 2026
…retry actually omits thinking blocks

The thinking-signature recovery in agent/conversation_loop.py popped
reasoning_details from messages, then continued to retry. That had two
defects.

First, the strip never reached the wire payload. api_messages is built
once at the start of the turn by shallow-copying every entry in messages
(line 919 area). Each api_messages entry has its own reference to the
same reasoning_details list. When build_api_kwargs runs on every retry
iteration of the inner while-loop, it consumes api_messages, not
messages. Popping reasoning_details from messages left api_messages
untouched, so the retry's request still carried the same thinking
blocks Anthropic had just rejected. The classifier latched
thinking_sig_retry_attempted = True after the first attempt, and the
loop terminated with max_retries_exhausted on the same 400.

Second, the pop mutated the canonical message list. messages is the
same list _persist_session writes to state.db and the session
transcript, so a single recovery permanently wiped every signed
thinking block from the stored conversation. Subsequent turns reloaded
the stripped state, hit the same 400 ('invalid signature' or 'cannot
be modified', see NousResearch#24107), and the agent stopped responding entirely.
Cascading compaction-ended sessions then chained off the corrupted
parent and the affected chat could not produce a response on any
future turn.

Move the strip onto api_messages, which is the API-call-time list
rebuilt into kwargs on every retry. messages is no longer touched, so
disk I/O stays clean and the recovery actually reaches the wire.

Observed against the native Anthropic Messages API on claude-opus-4-7
and claude-opus-4-8 with the interleaved-thinking-2025-05-14 beta on
hermes-agent 0.12.0 and 0.14.0. PR NousResearch#24107 narrows the trigger; this
change makes the recovery do what it always claimed to do, and
prevents the destructive aftermath.

Tests cover the api_messages strip in isolation: pop on a shallow copy
does not affect the source, the canonical messages list survives the
strip, idempotency on a duplicate firing path, and a no-op when no
reasoning_details exist on the messages.

Related: NousResearch#24107, NousResearch#26959, NousResearch#17861.
leewenjie pushed a commit to leewenjie/hermes-agent that referenced this pull request Aug 7, 2026
…retry actually omits thinking blocks

The thinking-signature recovery in agent/conversation_loop.py popped
reasoning_details from messages, then continued to retry. That had two
defects.

First, the strip never reached the wire payload. api_messages is built
once at the start of the turn by shallow-copying every entry in messages
(line 919 area). Each api_messages entry has its own reference to the
same reasoning_details list. When build_api_kwargs runs on every retry
iteration of the inner while-loop, it consumes api_messages, not
messages. Popping reasoning_details from messages left api_messages
untouched, so the retry's request still carried the same thinking
blocks Anthropic had just rejected. The classifier latched
thinking_sig_retry_attempted = True after the first attempt, and the
loop terminated with max_retries_exhausted on the same 400.

Second, the pop mutated the canonical message list. messages is the
same list _persist_session writes to state.db and the session
transcript, so a single recovery permanently wiped every signed
thinking block from the stored conversation. Subsequent turns reloaded
the stripped state, hit the same 400 ('invalid signature' or 'cannot
be modified', see NousResearch#24107), and the agent stopped responding entirely.
Cascading compaction-ended sessions then chained off the corrupted
parent and the affected chat could not produce a response on any
future turn.

Move the strip onto api_messages, which is the API-call-time list
rebuilt into kwargs on every retry. messages is no longer touched, so
disk I/O stays clean and the recovery actually reaches the wire.

Observed against the native Anthropic Messages API on claude-opus-4-7
and claude-opus-4-8 with the interleaved-thinking-2025-05-14 beta on
hermes-agent 0.12.0 and 0.14.0. PR NousResearch#24107 narrows the trigger; this
change makes the recovery do what it always claimed to do, and
prevents the destructive aftermath.

Tests cover the api_messages strip in isolation: pop on a shallow copy
does not affect the source, the canonical messages list survives the
strip, idempotency on a duplicate firing path, and a no-op when no
reasoning_details exist on the messages.

Related: NousResearch#24107, NousResearch#26959, NousResearch#17861.
melon-xf added a commit to melon-xf/hermes-agent that referenced this pull request Sep 3, 2026
…retry actually omits thinking blocks

The thinking-signature recovery in agent/conversation_loop.py popped
reasoning_details from messages, then continued to retry. That had two
defects.

First, the strip never reached the wire payload. api_messages is built
once at the start of the turn by shallow-copying every entry in messages
(line 919 area). Each api_messages entry has its own reference to the
same reasoning_details list. When build_api_kwargs runs on every retry
iteration of the inner while-loop, it consumes api_messages, not
messages. Popping reasoning_details from messages left api_messages
untouched, so the retry's request still carried the same thinking
blocks Anthropic had just rejected. The classifier latched
thinking_sig_retry_attempted = True after the first attempt, and the
loop terminated with max_retries_exhausted on the same 400.

Second, the pop mutated the canonical message list. messages is the
same list _persist_session writes to state.db and the session
transcript, so a single recovery permanently wiped every signed
thinking block from the stored conversation. Subsequent turns reloaded
the stripped state, hit the same 400 ('invalid signature' or 'cannot
be modified', see NousResearch#24107), and the agent stopped responding entirely.
Cascading compaction-ended sessions then chained off the corrupted
parent and the affected chat could not produce a response on any
future turn.

Move the strip onto api_messages, which is the API-call-time list
rebuilt into kwargs on every retry. messages is no longer touched, so
disk I/O stays clean and the recovery actually reaches the wire.

Observed against the native Anthropic Messages API on claude-opus-4-7
and claude-opus-4-8 with the interleaved-thinking-2025-05-14 beta on
hermes-agent 0.12.0 and 0.14.0. PR NousResearch#24107 narrows the trigger; this
change makes the recovery do what it always claimed to do, and
prevents the destructive aftermath.

Tests cover the api_messages strip in isolation: pop on a shallow copy
does not affect the source, the canonical messages list survives the
strip, idempotency on a duplicate firing path, and a no-op when no
reasoning_details exist on the messages.

Related: NousResearch#24107, NousResearch#26959, NousResearch#17861.
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comp/agent Core agent runtime: loop, agent_init, prompt builder, context-compression, responses endpoint P1 High — major feature broken, no workaround provider/anthropic Anthropic native Messages API type/bug Something isn't working

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