feat: add Hermes Agent as a first-class backend and transcript source

[fgscaglioni]

This adds full support for Nous Research's Hermes Agent across all three SkillOpt layers — core model backend, sleep-cycle backend, and transcript harvesting.

Core model layer (skillopt/model/):

• Register the Hermes CLI as a chat backend (hermes_chat) alongside the existing Claude, Codex, Qwen, and MiniMax backends.
• All chat entry points (optimizer, target, messages, deployment) route through the Hermes adapter.

Sleep-cycle backend (skillopt_sleep/backend.py):

• Add HermesBackend extending CliBackend, driving hermes --profile chat -Q -q for attempt / judge / reflect calls.
• CLI output is filtered to strip notices, warnings, and traceback debris so the pipeline sees only the model response.
• Registered under get_backend("hermes") with aliases hermes_chat and hermes_cli.

Transcript harvesting (skillopt_sleep/harvest_hermes.py):

• New harvest source reads Hermes session data from ~/.hermes/state.db (SQLite), building SessionDigest objects from sessions + messages.
• Skips engine-internal sessions (temp dirs matching skillopt_sleep_*) so the mine step only sees real user sessions.
• Supports the standard harvest contract: scope, since, limit, project.

Config additions (skillopt_sleep/config.py):

• memory_filename — controls the project memory file name. Defaults to "CLAUDE.md" for backward compatibility. Set to "AGENTS.md" for Codex and Hermes.
• hermes_home — path to Hermes state directory, defaults to ~/.hermes, overridable via $HERMES_HOME.

Tests:

• 7 new tests in TestHermesBackendCli covering backend registration, command construction, error capture, output filtering, and env vars.

Backward compatible — defaults unchanged, all existing backends intact.

[fgscaglioni]

@microsoft-github-policy-service agree

[Yif-Yang]

Thanks for the substantial Hermes integration. Supporting another agent/backend can improve SkillOpt, and we would like to preserve the work under your authorship, but the current PR is too broad and has several correctness issues that block merge.

Confirmed issues:

• The branch conflicts with current backend registry files. Please rebase onto the latest main.
• set_*_backend accepts hermes_chat, but is_optimizer_chat_backend() and is_target_chat_backend() still return false.
• The public deployment setters do not dispatch to Hermes, and the Hermes setter changes a deployment variable while calls use profile constants.
• Hermes and Claude share the same global token tracker, then both summaries are aggregated, so usage is double-counted.
• Message APIs discard tools, tool_choice, retries, and return_message; return_message=True still returns a string. This violates the backend contract for tool-using environments.
• Sleep CLI launch exceptions are swallowed without last_call_error, recreating the silent-zero failure fixed for other backends.
• Output beginning with Exception can be a legitimate answer but is filtered to empty.
• Harvesting filters legitimate /tmp projects, caps limit=0 at 200, drops tool-role messages, and never produces feedback signals.
• New tests cover only a mocked Sleep CLI subset, not core routing, setters, token accounting, message/tool contracts, database schema compatibility, or secret handling.

We recommend splitting this into three reviewable PRs: core model backend, Sleep CLI backend, and transcript harvester. Each should include contract tests and one opt-in real Hermes smoke test. Please ensure backend invocations disable unintended tools/plugins/MCP when processing harvested untrusted text.

We are not rejecting the feature direction; we are asking for a rebase and a narrower, test-backed design so it can be merged safely while keeping your contribution attribution.

[Yif-Yang]

Requesting changes based on the backend-contract, routing, token-accounting, error-surfacing, harvesting, and test gaps detailed in the maintainer comment above. Please rebase and narrow or split the implementation before re-review.

[fgscaglioni]

Thanks for the thorough review, Yif-Yang. I've split the implementation into three branches as suggested and will open separate PRs shortly.