feat: DiDAL Phase 2 — dialectical orchestrator + direct hermes.ecoseek.org

[alrobles]

Summary

DiDAL Phase 2 — the dialectical dual-agent orchestrator for Emily (Alpha, local) ↔ Hermes (Beta, remote on reumanlab).

Key changes:

Emily Plugin (Alpha side) — emily/plugins/ecoseek/

• Refactored to talk directly to hermes.ecoseek.org (no broker needed)
• Added dialectical_exchange tool — structured Alpha↔Beta debate (plan → execute → critique → refine → loop)
• Added hermes_status tool — check if Beta is available before escalating
• Uses HERMES_ECOSEEK_API_KEY for auth (replaces legacy ECOSEEK_BROKER_KEY)
• Model default: hermes (was openclaw/main)
• Plugin version: 0.5.0

Emily Config — emily/config.yaml

• Enhanced system prompt with DiDAL delegation instructions
• Emily now prefers delegating heavy tasks to Beta (SDMs, HPC, GBIF bulk, code execution)
• Clear guidance: when to escalate vs handle locally
• Three tools documented: escalate_remote, dialectical_exchange, hermes_status

Frontend — CORS fix + DiDAL UI

• nginx reverse proxy at /api/hermes-health → hermes.ecoseek.org/health (fixes the CORS bug from PR feat: Emily avatar + Hermes Remote health check in info panel #56)
• Remote health check now works in the browser (was always "Disconnected")
• Info panel shows "DiDAL Phase 2 Active" when Beta is connected
• Shows available tools: eco_analyze, ku_hpc, escalate_remote, dialectical_exchange
• About section updated to describe Alpha↔Beta architecture

Startup — emily-start.sh + entrypoint.sh

• Accepts HERMES_ECOSEEK_API_KEY env var
• Passes HERMES_REMOTE_URL and API key through to container
• Startup output shows DiDAL enabled/disabled status

Architecture

User → localhost:4000 (frontend)
  → localhost:8642 (Emily/Alpha, DeepSeek v4 Flash)
    → hermes.ecoseek.org (Hermes/Beta on reumanlab)
      → eco_analyze (GBIF, SDM, diversity, taxonomy)
      → ku_hpc (Slurm → A100/MI210 GPUs)
      → shell, GitHub CLI, DeepSeek v4 Pro

Review & Testing Checklist for Human

• Test CORS fix: Run bash emily-start.sh, open localhost:4000, check that "Hermes Beta" shows "Connected" (green) in the info panel — this was broken before
• Test DiDAL delegation: Set HERMES_ECOSEEK_API_KEY=agenticplu... and ask Emily "Query GBIF for jaguar occurrences in Costa Rica" — she should escalate to Beta
• Test without API key: Run without HERMES_ECOSEEK_API_KEY — Emily should still work locally but show "DiDAL: Unavailable" in info panel
• Test startup output: Verify emily-start.sh shows "DiDAL: Enabled" when key is set, "DiDAL: Disabled" when not

# Full test:
DEEPSEEK_API_KEY=sk-... HERMES_ECOSEEK_API_KEY=agenticplu-... bash emily-start.sh
# Open http://localhost:4000

Notes

• Companion PR on hermes-agent: updates the remote-side plugin to also prefer hermes.ecoseek.org over broker
• The dialectical_exchange tool breaks on Beta critique type to return control to Alpha, enabling multi-round refinement
• The nginx proxy is a clean CORS workaround — no changes needed on the remote Hermes gateway config

Link to Devin session: https://app.devin.ai/sessions/6e7495b7d2e2416ba3f9626d6dcb9a2e
Requested by: @alrobles

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