feat(gateway): make still-working heartbeats configurable by thesammygit · Pull Request #7446 · NousResearch/hermes-agent

thesammygit · 2026-04-10T23:28:53Z

what

add display.still_working_interval for gateway long-running heartbeat cadence
add display.still_working_overrides for per-platform control (for example: disable Signal, shorten Telegram)
keep the default behavior at 600s / 10 minutes when unset
treat 0, false, or off as disable
ignore invalid per-platform overrides so they inherit the global interval
preserve the existing activity-detail fallback in heartbeat messages when no current tool is active
document the new config keys
add targeted tests for both config loading and runtime heartbeat behavior

why

Signal users can already quiet tool progress with display.tool_progress_overrides, but the separate hardcoded 10-minute ⏳ Still working... heartbeat remained noisy. This patch makes that heartbeat configurable without changing existing defaults.

related context:

how to test

targeted tests

python -m pytest tests/gateway/test_still_working_notifications.py tests/gateway/test_background_process_notifications.py tests/gateway/test_gateway_inactivity_timeout.py -q
local result on this branch after the latest fix: 36 passed in 16.09s

full suite

python -m pytest tests/ -v
local result on this branch (macOS 26.3 / Python 3.11.14): 9956 passed, 34 skipped, 55 failed, 35 errors in 164.68s
local result on a clean origin/main worktree on the same machine: 9896 passed, 34 skipped, 45 failed, 94 errors in 147.76s
current upstream main is therefore not green in this environment either; the changed-path targeted tests above pass

manual verification

exercised the gateway _run_agent path locally with a long-running fake agent
with display.still_working_interval: 0.05, Telegram emitted still-working heartbeats
with display.still_working_overrides.signal: off, Signal emitted zero still-working heartbeats

platforms tested

macOS 26.3 (build 25D125)
Python 3.11.14

cross-platform impact

pure Python config parsing / gateway notification scheduling only
no shell, path, or subprocess semantics changed
not manually tested on Windows or Linux

Copilot

Pull request overview

Adds configuration for the gateway’s long-running “⏳ Still working...” heartbeat so users can tune or disable it globally and per messaging platform, while preserving the existing default cadence (600s) when unset.

Changes:

Add display.still_working_interval (global) and display.still_working_overrides (per-platform) with disable semantics for 0/false/off.
Wire the configured interval into the gateway’s long-running heartbeat loop.
Document the new keys and add focused tests for config-loading behavior.

Reviewed changes

Copilot reviewed 5 out of 5 changed files in this pull request and generated 2 comments.

Show a summary per file

File	Description
`gateway/run.py`	Loads configurable heartbeat interval from `config.yaml` and uses it to schedule/disable periodic “still working” messages.
`hermes_cli/config.py`	Adds the new display keys to the default managed config structure.
`tests/gateway/test_still_working_notifications.py`	Adds unit tests covering interval parsing, disable values, and override inheritance behavior.
`website/docs/user-guide/messaging/index.md`	Documents how to configure long-running agent heartbeats in the messaging gateway guide.
`website/docs/user-guide/configuration.md`	Adds the new config keys to the display section and documents global + per-platform behavior.

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+### Long-running agent heartbeats
+
+When an agent turn itself runs for a long time (for example deep research, delegation, or many tool calls), the gateway can send periodic `⏳ Still working...` heartbeats. Control this with `display.still_working_interval`:


+                        _iter_n = _act.get("api_call_count", 0)
+                        _iter_max = _act.get("max_iterations", 0)
+                        if _cur_tool:
+                            _status_detail = f" — iteration {_iter_n}/{_iter_max}, running: {_cur_tool}"


thesammygit · 2026-04-11T01:25:01Z

addendum after another local verification pass on macos 26.3 / python 3.11.14.

what i verified:

i found one real regression in this pr and fixed it before marking the pr ready: the new still-working path had dropped the old last_activity_desc fallback when current_tool was absent, which made some heartbeat messages lose useful activity detail. that is now restored.
after that fix, the heartbeat-adjacent targeted batch is green locally:
python -m pytest tests/gateway/test_still_working_notifications.py tests/gateway/test_background_process_notifications.py tests/gateway/test_gateway_inactivity_timeout.py -q
result: 36 passed in 16.17s

full-suite context from the same machine:

this branch: 9964 passed, 34 skipped, 51 failed, 33 errors
clean origin/main worktree: 9897 passed, 34 skipped, 43 failed, 96 errors

why i do not currently think this pr is introducing additional meaningful regressions in the area it touches:

the changed-path targeted gateway batch above is green after the fix.
a representative unrelated red file, tests/gateway/test_run_progress_topics.py, still fails on both this branch and clean origin/main with the same AttributeError: 'GatewayRunner' object has no attribute '_session_model_overrides' failure pattern.
so the repo is still not green in this local environment even on clean main, and the remaining red tests i rechecked are not specific evidence against the still-working heartbeat patch.

in other words: i did find one patch-local issue, fixed it, and after that i have not found evidence of further deterministic regressions tied to this change.

thesammygit · 2026-04-11T01:29:55Z

clarification on the local full-suite numbers, because looking only at failed counts is misleading.

on the same machine:

this branch: 51 failed, 33 errors
clean origin/main: 43 failed, 96 errors

so while this branch shows 8 more failed, it actually has far fewer total red tests locally (82 vs 139). a lot of cases that are hard errors on clean main show up as ordinary failed results on this branch instead.

for the 12 tests that appeared as branch-only failed in the full-suite summary:

7 are already broken on clean main too, just as error rather than failed
the remaining 5 all passed when rerun directly in isolation:
- tests/gateway/test_background_process_notifications.py::test_run_process_watcher_respects_notification_mode[error-sessions5-1-finished with exit code 1]
- tests/gateway/test_background_process_notifications.py::test_run_process_watcher_respects_notification_mode[result-sessions3-1-finished with exit code 0]
- tests/gateway/test_background_process_notifications.py::test_thread_id_passed_to_send
- tests/tools/test_managed_media_gateways.py::test_openai_tts_uses_managed_audio_gateway_when_direct_key_absent
- tests/tools/test_managed_media_gateways.py::test_transcription_uses_model_specific_response_formats

so i do not currently have evidence that this PR is introducing additional meaningful deterministic regressions beyond the one heartbeat-detail fallback issue i already fixed.

thesammygit · 2026-04-13T09:41:14Z

resolved the merge conflict by merging current origin/main into this branch and reconciling the touched gateway/config/docs areas.

what changed in the conflict resolution pass:

kept the configurable still-working heartbeat behavior
preserved backward compatibility with legacy agent.gateway_notify_interval / HERMES_AGENT_NOTIFY_INTERVAL when the new display keys are unset
carried forward the newer interim_assistant_messages / display.platforms config/docs changes from main
fixed the docs grammar nit from the copilot comment

local verification after the merge commit (497921a4):

uv run pytest tests/gateway/test_still_working_notifications.py tests/gateway/test_background_process_notifications.py tests/gateway/test_gateway_inactivity_timeout.py tests/hermes_cli/test_config.py -q
result: 80 passed in 16.15s

pr is no longer in a merge-conflict state on my side.

thesammygit · 2026-04-13T15:55:57Z

resolved the new origin/main merge conflict and pushed a follow-up merge commit.

what i changed:

merged current origin/main into this branch
reconciled the hermes_cli/config.py v16→17 migration so it keeps the still-working display defaults from this pr and the legacy compression.summary_* → auxiliary.compression migration from main
added a focused config regression test covering both behaviors together

validation:

uv run --active pytest tests/gateway/test_still_working_notifications.py tests/gateway/test_background_process_notifications.py tests/gateway/test_gateway_inactivity_timeout.py tests/gateway/test_display_config.py tests/hermes_cli/test_config.py -q
108 passed in 26.06s

thesammygit · 2026-04-16T04:36:26Z

resolved the current origin/main merge conflict and pushed a follow-up merge commit.

what i changed:

merged current origin/main into this branch
reconciled tests/hermes_cli/test_config.py so it keeps this pr's still-working heartbeat migration coverage and main's newer discord channel prompts migration coverage

validation:

uv run --active pytest tests/gateway/test_still_working_notifications.py tests/gateway/test_background_process_notifications.py tests/gateway/test_gateway_inactivity_timeout.py tests/gateway/test_display_config.py tests/hermes_cli/test_config.py -q
result: 127 passed in 27.88s

thesammygit · 2026-04-17T04:52:35Z

merged current origin/main into this branch to keep the heartbeat/config/docs/test area current with main.

what changed:

merged origin/main into sam/signal-heartbeat-config
carried forward main's newer updates across the touched gateway/config/docs/tests area

validation:

uv run --active pytest tests/gateway/test_still_working_notifications.py tests/gateway/test_background_process_notifications.py tests/gateway/test_gateway_inactivity_timeout.py tests/gateway/test_display_config.py tests/hermes_cli/test_config.py -q
result: 127 passed in 27.40s

thesammygit · 2026-04-17T21:44:21Z

merged current origin/main into this branch to keep the heartbeat/config/docs/test area current with main.

what changed:

merged origin/main into sam/signal-heartbeat-config
accepted the clean merge for the touched gateway/config/docs/tests files with no manual conflict edits needed

validation:

source .venv/bin/activate && uv run --active pytest tests/gateway/test_still_working_notifications.py tests/hermes_cli/test_config.py -q
result: 66 passed in 1.25s

thesammygit · 2026-04-18T11:12:45Z

merged current origin/main into this branch and fixed one stale test expectation from the touched config/test area.

what changed:

merged origin/main into sam/signal-heartbeat-config
updated tests/hermes_cli/test_config.py to assert against DEFAULT_CONFIG["_config_version"] after main moved the config schema to v19

validation:

uv run --active pytest tests/gateway/test_still_working_notifications.py tests/hermes_cli/test_config.py -q
result: 66 passed in 1.21s

thesammygit · 2026-04-18T17:17:46Z

merged current origin/main into this branch to keep the heartbeat/config/docs/test area current with main.

what changed:

merged origin/main into sam/signal-heartbeat-config
accepted the clean merge; the touched pr file that moved on main was gateway/run.py

validation:

uv run --active pytest tests/gateway/test_still_working_notifications.py tests/gateway/test_background_process_notifications.py tests/gateway/test_gateway_inactivity_timeout.py tests/gateway/test_display_config.py tests/hermes_cli/test_config.py -q
result: 127 passed in 26.62s

thesammygit · 2026-04-19T05:26:53Z

merged current origin/main into this branch to keep the heartbeat/config area current with main.

what changed:

merged origin/main into sam/signal-heartbeat-config
accepted the clean merge after main moved both gateway/run.py and hermes_cli/config.py

validation:

source .venv/bin/activate && uv run --active pytest tests/gateway/test_still_working_notifications.py tests/gateway/test_background_process_notifications.py tests/gateway/test_gateway_inactivity_timeout.py tests/gateway/test_display_config.py tests/hermes_cli/test_config.py -q
result: 127 passed in 26.88s

thesammygit · 2026-04-19T11:31:31Z

merged current origin/main into this branch to keep the heartbeat/config/docs/test area current with main.

what changed:

merged origin/main into sam/signal-heartbeat-config
accepted the clean merge after main moved files in the touched heartbeat/config/docs/test area

validation:

uv run --active pytest tests/gateway/test_still_working_notifications.py tests/gateway/test_background_process_notifications.py tests/gateway/test_gateway_inactivity_timeout.py tests/gateway/test_display_config.py tests/hermes_cli/test_config.py -q
result: 127 passed in 26.68s

thesammygit · 2026-04-19T23:38:45Z

merged current origin/main into this branch to keep the heartbeat/config/docs/test area current with main.

what changed:

merged origin/main into sam/signal-heartbeat-config
accepted the clean merge after main moved the touched heartbeat/config/docs/test files, including gateway/run.py, hermes_cli/config.py, the focused tests, and the docs pages

validation:

source .venv/bin/activate && uv run --active pytest tests/gateway/test_still_working_notifications.py tests/gateway/test_background_process_notifications.py tests/gateway/test_gateway_inactivity_timeout.py tests/gateway/test_display_config.py tests/hermes_cli/test_config.py -q
result: 127 passed in 26.63s

thesammygit · 2026-05-02T16:13:13Z

merged current origin/main into sam/signal-heartbeat-config to keep the gateway heartbeat/config/docs/tests branch current after origin/main moved gateway/run.py, hermes_cli/config.py, and website/docs/user-guide/messaging/index.md.

what changed:

merged origin/main at 5d3be89 into the pr branch
clean merge; no unresolved conflict markers in the pr-touched files

validation:

uv run --active python -m pytest tests/gateway/test_still_working_notifications.py tests/hermes_cli/test_config.py -q → 69 passed in 2.16s

thesammygit · 2026-05-06T16:20:45Z

merged current origin/main into sam/signal-heartbeat-config to keep the gateway heartbeat/config/docs/tests branch current after origin/main moved the pr-touched files.

what changed:

merged origin/main at cd2cbc7 into the pr branch and pushed merge commit 2b503c1
merge was clean; no line-anchored conflict markers in the pr-touched files

validation:

command (sanitized): source .venv/bin/activate && uv run --active python -m pytest tests/gateway/test_still_working_notifications.py tests/gateway/test_background_process_notifications.py tests/gateway/test_gateway_inactivity_timeout.py tests/gateway/test_display_config.py tests/hermes_cli/test_config.py -q
result: 131 passed, 8 warnings in 28.97s

thesammygit · 2026-05-08T16:27:07Z

merged current origin/main into sam/signal-heartbeat-config to keep the gateway heartbeat/config/docs/tests branch current after origin/main moved the pr-touched files.

what changed:

merged origin/main at 839cdd1 into the fork branch (merge commit 390e8dd)
merge was clean; line-anchored conflict marker scan over the pr-touched files found none
validation-induced uv.lock dirt was discarded before pushing

validation:

source .venv/bin/activate && uv run --active python -m pytest tests/gateway/test_still_working_notifications.py tests/gateway/test_background_process_notifications.py tests/gateway/test_gateway_inactivity_timeout.py tests/gateway/test_display_config.py tests/hermes_cli/test_config.py -q
result: 137 passed in 29.04s

thesammygit · 2026-05-10T16:32:22Z

merged current origin/main into sam/signal-heartbeat-config to keep the gateway heartbeat/config/docs/tests branch current after main touched overlapping files.

validation: uv run --active python -m pytest tests/gateway/test_still_working_notifications.py tests/hermes_cli/test_config.py -q → 69 passed.

thesammygit · 2026-05-12T16:41:08Z

cron watcher update:

merged current origin/main into sam/signal-heartbeat-config to keep the pr branch current after upstream touched the same gateway/config/test/docs files.
validation: source .venv/bin/activate && uv run --active python -m pytest tests/gateway/test_still_working_notifications.py tests/hermes_cli/test_config.py -q -> 72 passed.

thesammygit · 2026-05-14T16:48:10Z

maintenance update: merged current origin/main into sam/signal-heartbeat-config after main moved through the same gateway/config/docs areas touched by this PR.

validation: uv run --active python -m pytest tests/gateway/test_still_working_notifications.py tests/hermes_cli/test_config.py -q -> 72 passed.

pushed merge commit 5af6fbecb.

thesammygit · 2026-05-16T16:56:02Z

merged current origin/main into sam/signal-heartbeat-config because upstream moved through files touched by this pr (gateway/run.py, hermes_cli/config.py, and website/docs/user-guide/configuration.md).

validation: uv run --active python -m pytest tests/gateway/test_still_working_notifications.py tests/hermes_cli/test_config.py -q -> 72 passed.

teknium1 · 2026-07-12T10:13:03Z

Thanks for carrying the per-platform cadence idea through repeated gateway/config changes. As @alt-glitch noted, #8572 already landed the global interval; current main also already supports per-platform heartbeat suppression via display.platforms.<platform>.long_running_notifications (gateway/run.py:19222-19228, gateway/display_config.py:191-225).

Problems

The added loader reads import-time _hermes_home, but multiplexed turns enter _profile_runtime_scope before loading the per-turn config (gateway/run.py:16826-16920; _hermes_home is initialized at gateway/run.py:1301-1305). Secondary-profile settings would be ignored.
The patch restores a 600-second effective fallback, while current main intentionally defaults to 180 seconds in both hermes_cli/config.py:1124-1131 and gateway/run.py:19215-19221.

Suggested changes

Rework cadence resolution to consume the already loaded user_config and extend the existing display.platforms resolver rather than add a raw-file loader/parallel override namespace.
Preserve the current 180-second fallback and add multiplex-profile regression coverage.

This is an automated hermes-sweeper review.

feat(gateway): make still-working heartbeats configurable

3b910aa

Copilot AI review requested due to automatic review settings April 10, 2026 23:28

Copilot started reviewing on behalf of thesammygit April 10, 2026 23:29 View session

Copilot AI reviewed Apr 10, 2026

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thesammygit marked this pull request as draft April 11, 2026 00:24

fix(gateway): preserve still-working activity detail

4694c21

thesammygit marked this pull request as ready for review April 11, 2026 01:05

Merge origin/main into sam/signal-heartbeat-config

497921a

Merge origin/main into sam/signal-heartbeat-config

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Merge origin/main into sam/signal-heartbeat-config

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Merge origin/main into sam/signal-heartbeat-config

2850a8e

Merge origin/main into sam/signal-heartbeat-config

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thesammygit added 2 commits April 18, 2026 06:53

Merge remote-tracking branch 'origin/main' into HEAD

54308a8

test: sync config migration assertion after main merge

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Merge origin/main into sam/signal-heartbeat-config

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Merge remote-tracking branch 'origin/main' into HEAD

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Merge remote-tracking branch 'origin/main' into HEAD

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chore: merge origin/main into signal heartbeat config branch

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Merge remote-tracking branch 'origin/main' into HEAD

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chore: merge origin/main into signal heartbeat config

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Hermes Agent added 10 commits May 18, 2026 13:05

Merge remote-tracking branch 'refs/remotes/origin/main' into HEAD

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Merge remote-tracking branch 'origin/main' into HEAD

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chore: merge origin/main into heartbeat config branch

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chore: merge origin/main into heartbeat config branch

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chore: merge origin/main into signal heartbeat config branch

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chore: merge origin/main into signal heartbeat config

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alt-glitch added P3 Low — cosmetic, nice to have sweeper:risk-message-delivery Sweeper risk: may drop, duplicate, misroute, or suppress messages labels Jul 12, 2026

alt-glitch removed the sweeper:risk-session-state Sweeper risk: may lose/corrupt/mis-associate session or context state label Jul 12, 2026


		### Long-running agent heartbeats

		When an agent turn itself runs for a long time (for example deep research, delegation, or many tool calls), the gateway can send periodic `⏳ Still working...` heartbeats. Control this with `display.still_working_interval`:

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