How to audit Hermes Agent background skill writes
Karlesnine reports 133 background writes into a shared, Git-versioned Hermes skills repository in one day. Their commit-time audit passed on the last commit but failed on the working tree, leaving cleanup and commits to the human.
reddit.com
Suggested prompt
Suggested prompt written by Agents In Use, not the source author. Replace bracketed inputs and review tool permissions first.
Audit [shared skills repository] for edits by background agents. Compare the last committed state with the working tree using [audit command]. Attribute each write only where logs support it. Identify which processes can edit, validate and commit, and explain any proposed configuration change's trade-offs before applying it.
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See placements →Evidence at a glance
Sourced account- Source author
- u/Karlesnine
- Original account
- Read the source ↗
- Published
- Source link checked
- Reported result
- Karlesnine reports 133 uncommitted skill writes in one day, three skills exceeding line limits and a fourth exceeding its character limit. The committed state passed an audit while the working tree failed. The author reported an all-or-nothing mitigation that also disables unattended memory upkeep.
- Human involvement
- The author set up the shared repository and pre-commit checks, investigated the writes and changed configuration. Cleanup remained a human task. The reported mitigation has a memory-maintenance trade-off and was not independently tested here.
A linked account supports attribution. It does not mean we independently reproduced its result.
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How the agent did it
- The author configured six Hermes profiles to share a Git-versioned skills repository.
- Background review and curator processes wrote skills without running the commit-time audit.
- The author counted 133 uncommitted writes and compared audit results for the committed and working-tree states.
Reddit user Karlesnine runs six Hermes profiles against one Git-versioned skills repository. Each profile reads the shared directory, and new skills go there too. A pre-commit hook checks changed skills for required fields, hardcoded paths, broken references and size limits. This setup exposed a mismatch between background AI editing and the repository's commit process.
For 15 October 2026, the author reports 133 skill writes that nobody committed. Three skills exceeded line limits, and another exceeded a character limit. Their last commit passed the audit, while the working tree failed. The source attributes these writes to background review and curator processes that can use skill_manage but lack terminal access to run the audit or make commits.
The author also found that setting the skills creation-nudge interval to zero did not remove skill-writing capability from memory-triggered reviews. A running session retained its earlier interval after a configuration change. The author reports disabling background review and curator consolidation across the profiles, while acknowledging that this also sacrifices unattended memory upkeep.
Who it's for: people running agents against a shared, versioned skills library. This is a documented failure case with a reported mitigation, not a successful autonomous maintenance workflow. The evidence is the author's account and measurements; the configuration behaviour has not been independently reproduced here.
Prompt
Suggested prompt (written by Agents In Use, not the author's)
Source: Reddit · u/Karlesnine
Frequently asked questions
Did Hermes commit and validate its background edits?
Not in this setup. The author says those background toolsets could write skills but had no terminal access to run the audit or commit. The last commit passed the audit while the modified working tree failed.
What was the reported mitigation's trade-off?
The author disabled background review and curator consolidation across six profiles. They explicitly note that disabling background review also removes unattended memory upkeep. This account is not a general recommendation to disable those features.
More details
Remaining steps
- They traced the skill-writing capability and session-start configuration behaviour in the background processes.
- They reported disabling background review and curator consolidation, with the loss of unattended memory upkeep.
About this account
Background Hermes processes edited the shared skills repository through skill_manage. The author reports that their toolsets lacked terminal access, so those processes could neither run the repository audit nor commit the changes.
Firsthand failure report by u/Karlesnine: https://www.reddit.com/r/hermesagent/comments/1x6xg8e/background_review_wrote_into_my_gitversioned/. Full public RSS evidence re-read on 16 October 2026; repaired-policy body gate passed at 0.80. Counts, diagnosis and mitigation are author-reported and not reproduced here. Suggested prompt by Agents In Use, not the author's original prompt. Original title-stage rejection is preserved.
Credit: u/Karlesnine on Reddit
Source published
Added to Agents In Use
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Tools and topics
Hermes Agent · skill_manage · Git · pre-commit audit · shared skills repository
skill maintenance · background agents · git audit · failure analysis
Editorial completeness: 100/100. Measures documented fields, not agent performance or verified outcomes.