The runtime footer (`/footer`) shows what model ran and how full the context
is, but not how long the turn took. On a messaging platform there is no
progress bar and no shell timer — a turn that took 4 seconds and one that took
four minutes produce visually identical replies. Users comparing models,
providers, or reasoning levels have no at-a-glance signal for the one
dimension they most often care about, and "was that slow or did I imagine it?"
is unanswerable after the fact.
Adds a `latency` field to the existing footer machinery, rendering the
wall-clock duration of the agent run: `<1s`, `22s`, `1m05s`.
`gateway/run.py` measures with `time.monotonic()` immediately around the
`self._run_agent(...)` await in `_handle_message_with_agent` — the same
function that already builds the footer, so the value is the user-perceived
turn duration (monotonic, so it is immune to wall-clock/NTP adjustment).
`latency` is deliberately NOT in `_DEFAULT_FIELDS`. It is opt-in via
`display.runtime_footer.fields`. Every existing footer — and every footer a
user has today without touching config — renders byte-identically.
This is enforced by tests, not just asserted:
- `test_latency_not_in_default_fields` pins the default tuple.
- `test_resolve_footer_config_default_fields_exclude_latency` pins what
config resolution produces for an untouched config.
- `test_default_footer_renders_byte_identically` pins five exact output
strings for default-config renders **while supplying `turn_seconds`** —
proving that even when the caller measures timing, a default-configured
footer does not show it.
- `test_default_build_footer_line_ignores_turn_seconds` asserts
`build_footer_line(...) == build_footer_line(..., turn_seconds=125.0)`
under default fields.
Adding `latency` to `_DEFAULT_FIELDS` fails 11 of these tests.
No new config surface (reuses `display.runtime_footer.fields`), no new env
vars, no new core tool, no new model-facing schema. One new module-private
helper (`_format_latency`), one new keyword argument threaded through the two
existing footer functions, and 3 lines in `gateway/run.py`.
`turn_seconds` defaults to `None` and the field is skipped when it is `None`
or negative, so any call site that does not measure timing keeps working
unchanged.
`tests/gateway/test_runtime_footer.py` (+185): `_format_latency` boundary
table (sub-second, rounding at 59.4/59.6, the `m{:02d}s` zero-pad, 60m), the
render/skip/opt-in matrix, field-order placement, `build_footer_line`
threading, and the byte-stability block above.
RED-proved by mutation — each of these breaks tests:
- `latency` added to `_DEFAULT_FIELDS` → 11 failures
- dropping the `turn_seconds is not None and >= 0` guard → 2 failures
- `{sec:02d}` → `{sec}` → 6 failures
- `build_footer_line` not threading `turn_seconds` → 1 failure
51 passed in `tests/gateway/test_runtime_footer.py`; 54 passed across the
footer blast radius. `ruff check` clean.
Second, deeper pass over tools/gateway/hermes_cli plus first pass over
the trees wave 1 missed (acp, acp_adapter, skills, computer_use, docker,
dashboard, conformance, monitoring, secret_sources, hermes_state,
providers). Same rubric as wave 1 (AGENTS.md test policy); security,
alternation/caching invariants, issue-number regressions, and E2E kept.
Real test-quality fixes found and rooted out along the way:
- tests/tools/test_command_guards.py made real auxiliary-LLM HTTPS calls
(DEFAULT_CONFIG smart-approval leaked in) — pinned approval
mode=manual via autouse fixture: 17.4s → 0.4s.
- test_model_switch_custom_providers.py / test_user_providers_model_switch.py
silently probed live provider catalogs (~2s/test) — stubbed
cached_provider_model_ids/provider_model_ids/fetch_api_models.
- test_telegram_noise_filter.py: 15-platform copy-paste matrix over
shared gateway.run logic → 3 representative platforms (55s → 3.9s).
- test_gateway_shutdown.py: stop()'s 5s interrupt-deadline loop spun on
MagicMock agents — interrupt.side_effect now clears _running_agents
(22s → 1.0s).
- test_gateway_inactivity_timeout.py poll-harness timings shrunk 3-5x
(24s → 1.1s); test_mcp_stability.py backoff/SIGTERM-grace sleeps
patched (15.4s → 2.5s); test_async_delegation.py negative-drain wait
5s → 0.5s.
- test_telegram_init_deadline.py: loop-block margin restored to 1.0s
with rationale comment — the watchdog-dump assertion needs the loop
blocked well past deadline+grace under parallel load (flaked once in
the 40-worker verification run at a 0.2s margin).
Verification: full hermetic suite via scripts/run_tests.sh —
2,438 files, 21,718 tests passed, 0 failed, 293.9s wall.
Suite totals vs original baseline: 46,820 → 19,757 test functions
(−57.8%), wall 583.5s → 293.9s (−50%), subprocess CPU 13,564s → 11,623s.
Append a compact 'model · 68% · ~/projects/hermes' footer to the FINAL
message of each turn, disabled by default (display.runtime_footer.enabled).
Answers the Telegram-side parity ask: runtime context that the CLI status
bar already shows is now available in messaging replies when enabled.
Wiring:
- gateway/runtime_footer.py: resolve_footer_config + format_runtime_footer +
build_footer_line. Pure-function renderer; per-platform overrides under
display.platforms.<platform>.runtime_footer.
- gateway/run.py: appends footer to response right after reasoning prepend
so it lands only on the final message (never tool progress or streaming
chunks). When streaming already delivered the body (already_sent), the
footer is sent as a small trailing message instead.
- agent_result now exposes context_length alongside last_prompt_tokens so
the footer can compute the pct; both gateway return paths updated.
- /footer [on|off|status] slash command, wired in CLI (cli.py) and gateway
(gateway/run.py both running-agent bypass and main dispatch). Global
toggle only; per-platform overrides via config.yaml.
Graceful degradation:
- Missing context_length (unknown model) → pct field silently dropped
(no '?%' artifact).
- Empty final_response → no footer appended.
- Unknown field names in config → silently ignored.
Tests: 25-case unit suite (tests/gateway/test_runtime_footer.py) plus E2E
harness covering streaming vs non-streaming branches, per-platform override,
and the exact argument contract gateway/run.py uses.
Co-authored-by: teknium1 <teknium@users.noreply.github.com>
Kyzcreig
Teknium