The pane, in-app browser, and reaction tools were gated on HERMES_DESKTOP=1 —
an env var set only on backends Electron spawns itself (local and SSH). A
desktop client connected to a plain URL gateway or Hermes Cloud lost all six:
they were stripped from the schema before the model saw them, on the same
backend whose platform hint was telling it "you are chatting inside the Hermes
desktop app". open_preview, read_preview, read_terminal, close_terminal,
focus_pane, and react_to_message were all silently absent.
The client is not the host. Capability now resolves from the session's own
source, which session.create already carries:
- The six tools move into a `desktop_ui` toolset, off _HERMES_CORE_TOOLS so no
other platform pays their schema.
- _gui_surface_toolsets(platform) folds `desktop_ui` (and the existing
`project` tools) into the GUI gateway's resolution when the session's
platform is the desktop app — the same answer on every topology.
- check_fn drops the env probe. It kept the one thing that is genuinely a
per-process/user fact: react_to_message's display.message_reactions opt-in,
which the desktop mirrors onto whichever gateway it is connected to.
react_to_message was doubly broken: it read that toggle behind the env gate, so
even a local-backend user's Settings toggle could not reach a remote session.
The embedded terminal pane keeps working correctly the other way round: it runs
`hermes --tui` against a desktop-spawned backend, and a tui-sourced session
gets no GUI tools even though HERMES_DESKTOP=1 is set on that process.
One lever, every surface. The renderer toggle persists locally and mirrors
into display.message_reactions; the backend gates the agent's
react_to_message tool (check_fn) and the model-context annotation on the same
key, and the ':' composer trigger reads the store at detection time. Off
means off everywhere: no ☺ slot, no right-click picker, no :shortcode:
popover, no agent reactions, and the model hears nothing — while reactions
already persisted keep rendering so history doesn't lose data. Also fixes the
import-order lint error CI flagged in composer/index.tsx.
Reactions live in the existing messages.display_metadata JSON column (no new
table), with iOS Tapback semantics enforced DB-side: one reaction per author
per message, re-tap retracts, different emoji replaces. The desktop catches up
to the reaction contract five platform adapters already ship.
- SessionDB: set/get_message_reaction, latest_message_row_id (role + offset +
require_text so invisible tool-call-only rows are never targeted),
take_unseen_reactions (announce-exactly-once), get_message_role
- message.react RPC: accepts row_id or newest_role for live messages that
haven't learned their durable id yet
- react_to_message tool: desktop-gated (check_fn), defaults to the user's
latest visible message, messages_back for retroactive reactions
- Model context rides run_message only (beside the speech-interrupted note):
the persisted prompt stays clean, so no [The user reacted …] scaffolding in
transcripts, and no cached prefix ever changes
- Resume projection forwards row_id + reactions; _row_id is stripped from
outgoing API copies next to display_metadata
Brooklyn Nicholson