NousResearch · andrexibiza · Jul 13, 2026 · Jul 17, 2026 · Aug 6, 2026 · Aug 6, 2026
diff --git a/CONTRIBUTING.fr.md b/CONTRIBUTING.fr.md
diff --git a/CONTRIBUTING.md b/CONTRIBUTING.md
@@ -723,7 +723,6 @@ that touches the OS, assume *any* platform can hit your code path.
    For process enumeration: PowerShell's `Get-CimInstance Win32_Process` is
    the modern replacement for `wmic process`. See
    `hermes_cli/gateway.py::_scan_gateway_pids` for the pattern.
-   ```
 
 3. **File encoding.** Windows may save `.env` files in `cp1252`. Always
    handle encoding errors:

diff --git a/README.fr.md b/README.fr.md
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
@@ -14,6 +14,7 @@
   <a href="README.zh-CN.md"><img src="https://img.shields.io/badge/Lang-中文-red?style=for-the-badge" alt="中文"></a>
   <a href="README.ur-pk.md"><img src="https://img.shields.io/badge/Lang-اردو-green?style=for-the-badge" alt="اردو"></a>
   <a href="README.es.md"><img src="https://img.shields.io/badge/Lang-Español-orange?style=for-the-badge" alt="Español"></a>
+  <a href="README.fr.md"><img src="https://img.shields.io/badge/Lang-Français-blue?style=for-the-badge" alt="Français"></a>
 </p>
 
 **The self-improving AI agent built by [Nous Research](https://nousresearch.com).** It's the only agent with a built-in learning loop — it creates skills from experience, improves them during use, nudges itself to persist knowledge, searches its own past conversations, and builds a deepening model of who you are across sessions. Run it on a $5 VPS, a GPU cluster, or serverless infrastructure that costs nearly nothing when idle. It's not tied to your laptop — talk to it from Telegram while it works on a cloud VM.

diff --git a/SECURITY.fr.md b/SECURITY.fr.md
diff --git a/contributors/emails/iacker@users.noreply.github.com b/contributors/emails/iacker@users.noreply.github.com
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+iacker
diff --git a/docs/developer-guide/docs-i18n-germination-spec.md b/docs/developer-guide/docs-i18n-germination-spec.md
@@ -0,0 +1,106 @@
+# Cross-Language Docs Germination — Spec & Runbook
+
+**Status: LIVE.** Enforced by `tests/conformance/test_docs_i18n_germination.py`
+(CI). The gate imports the canonical pipeline from
+`scripts/docs_germination.py` — the same module the CLI ships.
+
+## The model
+
+Root documentation (`README.md`, `CONTRIBUTING.md`, `SECURITY.md`) is a
+**technical graph**: every code fence, every backtick identifier, every link
+target, every heading is an edge. A localized document must reproduce that
+graph with the same structure — translated prose is the only thing that may
+change.
+
+| Edge | Localized rule |
+|---|---|
+| Code fences | Byte-identical sequence: marker, info string, body hash. **Code is never translated.** |
+| Backtick spans | Every English span must survive verbatim (or, for root-doc names, as the locale twin). |
+| Link targets | Every English target present under its locale-rewritten form (`CONTRIBUTING.md` → `CONTRIBUTING.fr.md`); fragments must resolve against the locale doc's own headings. |
+| Headings | Same level sequence as English (structure fingerprint). |
+| Hub edges | Locale README links back to `README.md`; a germinated locale is linked **from** `README.md` (badge hub). |
+
+A locale is **germinated** when it passes every class with zero errors.
+Locales whose translation predates the pipeline (`zh-CN`, `es`, `ur-pk`) run
+the same checks at **warning** severity — debt is visible in every CI run and
+measured in the debt report below — and are re-germinated through the
+pipeline when adopted. `manual` is grandfathered debt for those three
+translations only; new locales have no manual waiver.
+
+## The versioned target-locale contract
+
+The roadmap is the **top 10 non-English documentation locales** by worldwide
+usage in **Ethnologue 200, 29th Edition (2026)**, using the `All Users` metric
+(first-language plus second-language users, L1+L2). English is the canonical
+source graph, not a translation target, so it is intentionally excluded from
+the count. This keeps both Indonesian and Russian in scope: Russian is 11th in
+the worldwide table but tenth after excluding canonical English.
+
+`scripts/docs_germination.py` holds this contract and the manifest. The
+canonical target-locale tuple is the only completeness authority; tests must
+iterate it directly rather than repeat a hardcoded subset.
+
+| Locale | Status | Provenance / interlock |
+|---|---|---|
+| zh-CN | manual | existing translation |
+| hi | pending | PR #4763 in flight |
+| es | manual | existing translation |
+| ar | pending | RTL review required |
+| fr | **germinated** | seed: iacker (#63660), refreshed by pipeline |
+| bn | pending | PR #51306 in flight |
+| pt | pending | — |
+| id | pending | claimed implementation: #92191 / #92192; full trio, gate first |
+| ur-pk | manual | existing translation |
+| ru | pending | PR #69658 in flight; retained as tenth non-English target |
+
+Every new locale must ship the complete `README` / `CONTRIBUTING` / `SECURITY`
+trio and pass the gate before merge. A claimed lane is recorded in the
+manifest so contributors extend the existing authority instead of opening a
+duplicate implementation.
+
+## Germination runbook (new language)
+
+1. Claim or adopt the locale's existing issue/PR and record that authority in
+   the manifest; do not open a duplicate lane.
+2. `python scripts/docs_germination.py extract --doc README.md --locale <xx>`
+   — the span inventory (fences, spans, links, headings).
+3. `python scripts/docs_germination.py template --doc README.md --locale <xx>`
+   — prose-placeholder template; translate the prose, keep every technical
+   span and code block verbatim.
+4. Repeat extraction/template/translation for the full `README.md`,
+   `CONTRIBUTING.md`, and `SECURITY.md` trio.
+5. **Automatic path:** `python scripts/docs_germination.py germinate --locale
+   <xx> --doc README.md --llm "hermes chat -Q -q"` — renders the template,
+   pipes it to the LLM command (stdin → stdout), writes the locale file, and
+   runs the parity gate on the output. **The gate is the arbiter**: a
+   translation that drops a technical edge fails and is not shipped. (Manual
+   translation is allowed; manual *status* is not available to a new locale.)
+6. `python scripts/docs_germination.py check` — iterate until all three locale
+   documents pass every class. **Do not ship a locale that fails the gate.**
+7. Add the language badge to `README.md` (the gate enforces this).
+8. Set the locale to `status: germinated` and preserve its contributor and PR
+   provenance in the manifest (credit ledger).
+
+## Why this exists
+
+Before the pipeline, every translation was a one-shot copy: `README.es.md`
+was missing `hermes config get`, `README.fr.md` said "six backends" after
+English added Vercel Sandbox (seven), and `CONTRIBUTING.es.md` had drifted to
+602 lines against 1,009 in English. The gate turns that drift class into CI
+failures with the exact edge named.
+
+## Debt report (measured 2026-08-06, current main)
+
+`python scripts/docs_germination.py check` → 35 warnings, 0 errors.
+
+| File | Drift classes (warnings) |
+|---|---|
+| README.zh-CN.md | fence sequence (9 vs 7 blocks), 9 missing code spans, missing external targets, heading levels |
+| README.es.md | fence sequence (9 vs 8), 13 missing spans, missing external targets, heading levels |
+| README.ur-pk.md | fence sequence (9 vs 8), 9 missing spans, missing external targets, heading levels |
+| CONTRIBUTING.es.md | fence sequence (22 vs 13), 173 missing spans, missing external targets, heading levels |
+| SECURITY.es.md | `CONTRIBUTING.md` span not localized |
+| CONTRIBUTING.zh-CN.md / ur-pk | missing files |
+
+Re-germination of es is the highest-value next step (Spanish is the
+largest manual locale and the deepest drift).