fix(cli): soft-fail missing force-loaded --skills skill (no exit-1 worker crash) - #76
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…exit-1
A missing force-loaded skill no longer raises ValueError("Unknown skill(s)")
and exit-1s before the agent starts. cli.main() now warns to stderr and
continues with the skills that resolved, so a dispatched kanban worker degrades
the run (can still work or block intelligently) rather than thrashing the
dispatcher into burning its whole retry budget on the identical wall.
Exit-1 is preserved for genuinely unusable invocations (no prompt, bad
profile); only the missing-skill case is softened. Unit test retargeted to
assert warn-not-raise.
Patch note: ~/.hermes/plans/hermes-patches/soft-fail-missing-force-loaded-skill.md
Ref: kanban t_d85833c1 (observed t_b04f835d ads-optimizer nano-banana-pro)
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Code Review
This pull request modifies the CLI behavior to soft-fail when a force-loaded skill cannot be resolved. Instead of raising a ValueError and exiting, it now prints a warning to stderr and continues execution. The corresponding test has been updated to verify this warning behavior. I have no feedback to provide as there are no review comments.
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Problem
A kanban worker spawned with
hermes -p <lane> chat -q ... --skills <name>exit-1s before the agent starts when<name>isn't in that lane's ownskills/dir (per-profile dirs don't fall back to global~/.hermes/skills/). The dispatcher reads exit-1 as a crash, retries, hits the identical wall, and burns the whole failure budget without the agent ever running.Observed: t_b04f835d (ads-optimizer,
nano-banana-pro). Same class as NousResearch#29415 (avoid-ai-writing).Fix
cli.main()no longer raises onmissing_skills. It warns to stderr (⚠ Skipping unknown force-loaded skill(s): ...) and continues starting the agent with the skills that resolved. A missing optional skill degrades the run; an agent that starts can still do the work orkanban_blockintelligently. Exit-1 is preserved for genuinely unusable invocations (no prompt, bad profile).Verification
pytest tests/cli/test_cli_preloaded_skills.py→ 3 passed (unit test retargeted to warn-not-raise).--skills does-not-exist→ exit 0, stderr warning, agent producedPONG. NoUnknown skill(s)string.--skills render-cli→ exit 0, no warning, agent ran (PONG2).Companion audit (kanban t_d85833c1 Part 2)
All currently force-loaded lane skills already resolve as symlinks into the global tree (ads-optimizer: meta-ads-cli + nano-banana-pro; dev: bloom-cli, all
enabled). This PR makes any future gap a warning, not a crash.Patch note:
~/.hermes/plans/hermes-patches/soft-fail-missing-force-loaded-skill.md