Two Windows agent-loop friction fixes:
1. tools/mcp_tool.py (#56536): shutil.which(cmd, path=env_path) reads
executable extensions from the PARENT process PATHEXT, not the MCP
subprocess env — a stdio MCP config supplying both PATH and PATHEXT
could fail to resolve a command its own env can locate, and startup
then got a bare command name. On Windows, when the first which() call
misses and the config env carries PATHEXT (any key casing), retry the
resolution with the config's PATHEXT temporarily applied.
2. skills/ + optional-skills/ (#50606): 42 SKILL.md files that declare
platforms: [.., windows] used python3 in their command examples.
python3 does not exist on native Windows (the toolchain probe in the
system prompt reports python3=missing), so every copy-pasted example
burned a failed agent turn before self-correction. Replaced the
command word python3 -> python (python3-config / python3.x version
strings untouched). python is the spelling that exists in every
Hermes-managed environment (Windows native, uv-managed venvs on all
three OSes); agents on POSIX hosts additionally see the probed
toolchain line and adapt either way.
Widening pass on top of the #38820 salvage: a full-graph audit of every
SKILL.md (bundled + optional) found 13 more references to skills that
no longer exist. Classes:
- deleted in the 38d3c49aaf bundled-skill cleanup: generative-widgets,
spotify, cloudflared-quick-tunnel, webhook-subscriptions,
debugging-hermes-tui-commands -> dropped
- native-mcp absorbed into the hermes-agent hub skill -> re-pointed
- toolset names that were never skills: browser, image_gen -> dropped
Audit now reports zero broken related_skills references.
Every SKILL.md description over 60 chars was silently truncated to
57 chars + '...' in the system-prompt skill index
(extract_skill_description, agent/skill_utils.py), destroying the
routing signal for 69 of 179 skills — some descriptions ran to
1,005 chars.
Rewrites follow the authoring standard: <=60 chars, one sentence,
ends with a period, trigger front-loaded, no marketing words, no
skill-name repetition. Excess detail already lives in each skill's
body.
Includes the touchdesigner-mcp trim from PR #32361 (credit:
@JeliTron) and aligns with the router-precision direction of PR
#48780 (@John-Lussier). Docs catalogs + per-skill pages regenerated
via website/scripts/generate-skill-docs.py.
Co-authored-by: JeliTron <287797501+JeliTron@users.noreply.github.com>
Extends the Windows-gating work to the optional-skills/ tree. Every
SKILL.md that previously omitted the platforms: field now carries an
explicit declaration, which Hermes's loader (agent.skill_utils.
skill_matches_platform) honors to skip-load on incompatible OSes.
58 skills declared cross-platform (platforms: [linux, macos, windows]):
autonomous-ai-agents/blackbox, autonomous-ai-agents/honcho
blockchain/base, blockchain/solana
communication/one-three-one-rule
creative/blender-mcp, creative/concept-diagrams, creative/hyperframes,
creative/kanban-video-orchestrator, creative/meme-generation
devops/cli (inference-sh-cli), devops/docker-management
dogfood/adversarial-ux-test
email/agentmail
finance/3-statement-model, finance/comps-analysis, finance/dcf-model,
finance/excel-author, finance/lbo-model, finance/merger-model,
finance/pptx-author
health/fitness-nutrition, health/neuroskill-bci
mcp/fastmcp, mcp/mcporter
migration/openclaw-migration
mlops/accelerate, mlops/chroma, mlops/clip, mlops/guidance,
mlops/hermes-atropos-environments, mlops/huggingface-tokenizers,
mlops/instructor, mlops/lambda-labs, mlops/llava, mlops/modal,
mlops/peft, mlops/pinecone, mlops/pytorch-lightning, mlops/qdrant,
mlops/saelens, mlops/simpo, mlops/stable-diffusion
productivity/canvas, productivity/shop-app, productivity/shopify,
productivity/siyuan, productivity/telephony
research/domain-intel, research/drug-discovery, research/duckduckgo-search,
research/gitnexus-explorer, research/parallel-cli, research/scrapling
security/1password, security/oss-forensics, security/sherlock
web-development/page-agent
5 skills gated from Windows (platforms: [linux, macos]):
mlops/flash-attention - Flash Attention wheels are Linux-first; Windows
install requires building from source with CUDA
mlops/faiss - faiss-gpu has no Windows wheel; gate rather than
leak partial (faiss-cpu) support
mlops/nemo-curator - NVIDIA NeMo ecosystem has no first-class Windows path
mlops/slime - Megatron+SGLang RL stack is Linux-only in practice
mlops/whisper - openai-whisper + ffmpeg setup on Windows is
non-trivial; gate until Windows install stanza lands
Methodology: scanned every SKILL.md for Windows-hostile signals
(apt-get, brew, systemd, osascript, ptrace, X11 binaries, POSIX-only
Python APIs, Docker POSIX $(pwd) bind-mounts, explicit 'linux-only' /
'macos-only' text). 3 skills flagged as having hard signals on review:
docker-management and qdrant only had POSIX $(pwd) docker examples and
the tools themselves (Docker Desktop, Qdrant) run fine on Windows —
declared ALL. whisper had an apt/brew ffmpeg install path and nothing
else but the openai-whisper Windows install story is rough enough to
warrant gating.
Strict-over-lenient policy: when in doubt, gate. Easier to un-gate after
verified Windows support lands than to leak partial support that
manifests as mid-task failures for Windows users.
Add FastMCP skill to optional-skills/mcp/fastmcp/ with:
- SKILL.md with workflow, design patterns, quality checklist
- Templates: API wrapper, database server, file processor
- Scaffold CLI script for template instantiation
- FastMCP CLI reference documentation
Moved to optional-skills (requires pip install fastmcp).
Based on work by kshitijk4poor in PR #2096.
Closes#343
Teknium
kshitijk4poor