Skill Library Management

Skill Library Management

Class-level skill for managing the Hermes Agent skill library — discovery, evaluation, installation, impact analysis, and organization.

When to Use

Reference: See references/discovered-repos.md for a catalog of verified skill repos with installation notes.

Knowledge Sources (Ranked by Quality)

| Source | Stars | What It Has |
|--------|-------|-------------|
| awesome-hermes-agent | 3K+ | Curated community list — skills, plugins, tools, deployment guides |
| hermeshub | 185 | 22 production skills with security scanning |
| felo-skills | — | 14 skills: search, web-fetch, x-search, slides, etc. |
| composio | — | 1,000+ SaaS integrations via CLI |
| Official Docs | — | Built-in and optional skills list |
| Blog roundups (Felo, Composio) | — | Sometimes surface hidden gems |

Full Upgrade Sweep (Repeatable Workflow)

When the user says "upgrade skills", "repeat", or "add more skills for X", run this end-to-end sweep:

1. AUDIT current state (count, categories, token impact)
REFRESH awesome-hermes-agent: cd /tmp/awesome-hermes-agent && git pull
GIT PULL all tracked repos (skill-repos + git-tracked skills)
MINE EXISTING PACKS — grep cloned repos for uninstalled skills matching user needs
DISCOVER new repos: parse awesome list, compare against installed
CLONE new repos in batches (use terminal() NOT execute_code background)
INSTALL new skills (handle large packs vs standalone)
VALIDATE all SKILL.md frontmatter + fix broken symlinks
MEASURE final token impact
RESTART gateway: systemctl restart hermes-gateway
UPDATE memory with final counts

Step 4 Detail: Mining Existing Packs (Fast Path)

Before cloning new repos, check what's already in /tmp/ from previous sessions. This is faster and avoids GitHub rate limits:

# 1. List all cloned repos with skill counts
for dir in /tmp/*/; do
    count=$(find "$dir" -name "SKILL.md" -type f 2>/dev/null | wc -l)
    [ "$count" -gt 0 ] && echo "$(basename $dir): $count skills"
done
2. For a user request like "document/proposal/tender/mindmap/design/graphics",
   grep all existing packs for matching skills
find /tmp/open-design -name "SKILL.md" -type f | xargs grep -l -iE "document|proposal|tender|mindmap|design|graphic|chart|diagram|presentation|pdf|excel" 2>/dev/null
3. Install matching skills that aren't already in ~/.hermes/skills/
for skill_dir in $(find /tmp/open-design -name "SKILL.md" -type f -exec dirname {} \;); do
    skill=$(basename "$skill_dir")
    if [ ! -d "$HOME/.hermes/skills/$skill" ]; then
        cp -r "$skill_dir" "$HOME/.hermes/skills/$skill"
        echo "INSTALLED $skill"
    fi
done

Key repos to mine for document/design/research skills:
| Repo | Best For |
|------|----------|
| open-design (134) | Documents, decks, reports, dashboards, design |
| orahermes-agent (168) | Finance models, data viz, blockchain |
| wondelai-skills (42) | Business strategy, marketing, UX |
| felo-skills (14) | Mindmaps, slides, search, web extraction |
| hermes-research-agent (92) | Research, literature review |
| MeiGen-AI-Design-MCP | Image/video generation, product photoshoots |

Key implementation notes:

Installation Procedure

Step 1: Evaluate Before Installing

Never install blind. For each candidate skill:

Step 2: Parallel Clone Independent Repos

When installing from multiple sources, clone in parallel since they're independent:

# Example: install 4 packs in parallel
cd ~/.hermes/skills && git clone https://github.com/org/repo1.git repo1 &
cd ~/.hermes/skills && git clone https://github.com/org/repo2.git repo2 &
wait

Use execute_code with multiple terminal calls for true parallelism.

Step 3: Handle Nested Repo Structures

Many repos (felo-skills, seo-geo-skills, taste-skill, reflexion/context-engineering-kit) nest skills inside subdirectories. The gateway scans ~/.hermes/skills/*/SKILL.md — it does NOT recurse into subdirectories by default.

Solution: Symlink sub-skills to top level for discoverability:

# Example: Felo skills are nested at felo-skills///
for skill in felo-search felo-web-fetch felo-x-search; do
    src="$HOME/.hermes/skills/felo-skills/$skill"
    dest="$HOME/.hermes/skills/$skill"
    if [ -d "$src" ] && [ ! -d "$dest" ]; then
        ln -s "$src" "$dest"
    fi
done

For reflexion/context-engineering-kit (different structure):
The repo uses plugins/reflexion/skills/{reflect,critique,memorize}/ layout. Create top-level SKILL.md manually AND symlink sub-skills:

# Create top-level SKILL.md
cat > ~/.hermes/skills/reflexion/SKILL.md << 'EOF'

name: reflexion
description: "Self-refinement loop..."

Reflexion
Sub-skills
reflexion-reflect — Reflect on previous response
reflexion-critique — Multi-perspective review
reflexion-memorize — Curate insights into CLAUDE.md
EOF
Symlink sub-skills
for skill in reflect critique memorize; do
    ln -s "$HOME/.hermes/skills/reflexion/plugins/reflexion/skills/$skill" \
          "$HOME/.hermes/skills/reflexion-$skill"
done

Step 4: Validate All SKILL.md Files

After installation, verify frontmatter is valid:

for skill_dir in ~/.hermes/skills//*/; do
    f="$skill_dir/SKILL.md"
    if [ -f "$f" ]; then
        name=$(grep -m1 "^name:" "$f" | sed 's/name: *//' | tr -d '"')
        desc_len=$(grep -m1 "^description:" "$f" | wc -c)
        echo "✅ $(basename $skill_dir) → $name (${desc_len}c desc)"
    else
        echo "❌ $(basename $skill_dir) → SKILL.md missing!"
    fi
done

Step 5: Measure Token Impact

Before restarting, measure the cost:

# Total description text (what enters context per turn)
CRITICAL: use -maxdepth 2 — the gateway only scans top-level SKILL.md files
Recursive find massively overestimates (e.g., 219K chars vs actual 67K)
find ~/.hermes/skills -maxdepth 2 -name "SKILL.md" -type f -exec grep "^description:" {} \; | wc -c
Rule of thumb: 1 token ≈ 4 chars (English)
So 56,000 chars of descriptions ≈ 14,000 tokens per turn
On 128K context model: 14K/128K = 11% — acceptable

Token budget thresholds (measured at maxdepth 2):

Massive skill packs (>50 sub-skills): Do NOT install individually at the top level. Use the indexed-pack pattern — create a single top-level SKILL.md and place sub-skills in a skills/ subdirectory. The gateway's maxdepth-2 scan means nested files are invisible to the description catalog but available for on-demand skill_view loading. Examples: cybersecurity-mitre-pack (753 skills), open-design (134 skills).

Step 6: Restart Gateway

# Check for active sessions first (other users chatting)
ps aux | grep "slash_worker" | grep -v grep | wc -l
Restart
systemctl restart hermes-gateway
Verify
sleep 8
systemctl is-active hermes-gateway
Check memory freed (restart often releases stale worker memory)
free -h | head -2

Impact of restart:

Pitfalls

    # 1. Create the indexed pack directory
    mkdir -p ~/.hermes/skills/cybersecurity-mitre-pack
    
    # 2. Write a top-level SKILL.md index (this is what the gateway scans)
    #    Include: name, description, usage instructions, category listing
    #    Keep description under 500 chars to control token budget
    
    # 3. Copy the skills/ subdirectory for on-demand access
    cp -r /tmp/repo/skills ~/.hermes/skills/cybersecurity-mitre-pack/skills
    
    # 4. The nested skills are NOT scanned (maxdepth 2) but ARE accessible
    #    via skill_view(name='cybersecurity-mitre-pack', file_path='skills/...')
    

    # 1. Parse awesome list for GitHub URLs
    grep -oP 'https://github\.com/[^)\s"]+' /tmp/awesome-hermes-agent/README.md | sort -u
    
    # 2. For each repo, check if already installed
    for repo_url in $urls; do
        name=$(echo "$repo_url" | sed 's|.*/||')
        if [ ! -d ~/.hermes/skills/$name ] && [ ! -d ~/.hermes/skill-repos/$name ]; then
            echo "NEW: $name"
        fi
    done
    
    # 3. Clone new repos in batches of 10
    # 4. Scan for SKILL.md files
    # 5. Install unique skills (skip duplicates)
    

    # Fix missing name: field
    with open(path, 'r') as f:
        content = f.read()
    if not content.startswith('---'):
        fm = '---\nname: \ndescription: "..."\n---\n\n'
        with open(path, 'w') as f:
            f.write(fm + content)
    

    # Find skills that exist in multiple repos
    for skill in $(ls /tmp/new-repo/skills/); do
        if [ -d ~/.hermes/skills/$skill ]; then
            echo "DUP: $skill (already installed)"
        else
            echo "NEW: $skill"
        fi
    done
    

    [ -d /tmp/repo-name ] || git clone --depth 1  /tmp/repo-name
    

Related Skills

# Clone repo
cd /tmp && git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/org/repo.git
Install all skills except unwanted ones
for skill in $(ls /tmp/repo/skills/); do
    if [ "$skill" != "skip-this" ]; then
        cp -r /tmp/repo/skills/$skill ~/.hermes/skills/$skill
    fi
done
Validate
find ~/.hermes/skills -name "SKILL.md" -newer /tmp/repo -exec grep -l "^name:" {} \;
Cleanup
rm -rf /tmp/repo
Restart
systemctl restart hermes-gateway