fix(chat): Hermes chat shows what its terminal shows, and /compress works like /compact

[banozz0]

What

Hermes chat gaps: a Hermes session's chat now shows what its terminal shows. Two parts, found while using Bot sessions daily after #167, #169 and #176. gxserver and gx-chat-core, plus one Help paragraph.

Part 1: chat shows what the Hermes terminal shows

• Prompts survive a compaction, in their original place. In place (the default), Hermes compaction archives older rows, hides the recent ones it carries forward and re-inserts them after the summary. With compression.in_place: false it ends the session and continues in a child session. The mirror read only the live rows of the session it followed, so a busy session lost earlier prompts and replies the moment it compacted (one Dobby session lost four of five prompts). The mirror now writes every message that still has a live or archived copy once, at its first row, follows a compression-rotated parent, and marks where each compaction happened. Its timestamps never go backwards, so a /steer message sits above the reply it steered, as in the terminal (session_chat_hermes.rs).
• Hermes' own user rows show the way the terminal prints them. Hermes stores several things it did not get from the user as user rows. A finished background subagent batch becomes one notice line (its display_text), a /steer message shows its text without the out-of-band wrapper, and a request restated after a compaction or a gateway notice ([System: …) stays hidden, as in the terminal. Older stores without display_kind are read from Hermes' prefixes (session_chat_decode_hermes.rs, external_sessions/hermes.rs).
• The red "Hermes could not finish the turn" card appears only on a real failure. When Hermes gives up on a turn it prints the reason on a ❌ line and stores little or nothing. The card now reads that line; a retry notice raises it only once Hermes gives up, and error text the terminal soft-wrapped is rejoined. A failed_turn row also ends the turn (session_chat_hermes_blocking.rs, session_chat_notice.rs).

Part 2: Hermes stays Hermes, and /compress works like /compact

• A Python-launched Hermes is recognised. Hermes runs as python3 -I -c "<bootstrap>" (installer) or python3 …/bin/hermes (pip). Left unrecognised, the first agent binary below it owned the row. Hermes' Claude-subscription fallback spawns the native claude for every turn, so a Hermes row turned into a Claude session mid-conversation, lost its Hermes conversation id, and its chat lost the history (zmx/process_identity.rs).
• "Context compacted" after a reply renders after the Worked for fold, not inside it, in verbose and summary mode. This also fixes Codex /compact (transcript/turns.rs, session/composition.rs, transcript/noise.rs).
• Hermes /compress uses the shared compaction card (user decision). Its progress lines stay out of chat. A chat-sent /compress that finds nothing shows a "Nothing to compress" pill. A compress that is skipped, refused, aborted, falls back or fails keeps its output (session_chat_terminal_activity.rs, transcript/noise.rs, features.md).
• Hermes slash-command output is captured. Hermes' status bar, its <profile> ❯ composer and its "command in progress" hint are stripped before the output anchor is matched, so a Hermes command sent from chat now gets its output. A new terminal stops any open capture, so a restore banner cannot overwrite a command's output (session_chat_local_command.rs, session_chat_composer.rs, session_chat_options.rs, zmx/provider.rs).

Scope

• gxserver, gx-chat-core and features.md only. No desktop, web or mobile renderer changes.
• 16 files changed: +630 −123.
• Known gaps, not fixed here:
  • With Hermes compression.in_place: false, a forked compress shows its "Context compacted" row only after the next turn.
  • A /compress typed in the terminal that changes nothing shows no line in chat.
  • The phone app (React Native on the same gx-chat-core) was not rebuilt or tested.

Verification

On this branch, on top of main (28229ce, 10.5.5):

• cargo test --lib in server/: 835 passed, 1 failed. The failure, select_remote_code_server_never_falls_through_to_monaco_or_machine_editor, also fails on main on this machine.
• cargo test in packages/gx-chat-core: 3 passed.
• rustfmt (editions 2021 and 2024) adds no format diff in any changed hunk. session_chat_options.rs keeps an older, unrelated format diff (line 1866) that main already has.
• Before the PR, every fix was proven in the GPUI web build against throwaway and real Hermes sessions (screenshots), and passed an independent review.

Tried by hand in the desktop app with a Dobby bot session:

1. A turn where Hermes fell back to its Claude subscription: the row stays Hermes and the chat keeps its history.
2. Hermes /compress from chat: the compaction card shows while it runs, with no progress lines in chat, then "Context compacted" appears under the answer, after the Worked for fold.
3. /compress again with nothing left to compact: a "Nothing to compress" pill.

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

https://claude.ai/code/session_01PzuHzZZaSv5rxRT7AfJY6v

Summary by CodeRabbit

• New Features

  • Added support for Hermes /compress activity, including progress feedback and a “Nothing to compress” status.
  • Improved Hermes conversation history handling across compaction, hidden messages, and failed turns.
  • Hermes errors are now surfaced as notices, and local command output is clearer during agent activity.

• Bug Fixes

  • Compaction records are displayed in the correct place relative to completed work.
  • Avoided duplicate conversation entries and preserved message ordering when updating Hermes history.

• Documentation

  • Updated compaction guidance with Hermes behavior and progress indicators.

Note

Add Hermes support for terminal mirroring, /compress, and failed-turn notices

• Rewrites Hermes transcript mirroring in session_chat_hermes.rs to track logical messages instead of active-row count. It rebuilds atomically when compaction or rewind changes visibility, emits compaction markers, and keeps mirror timestamps nondecreasing.
• Decodes Hermes transcripts in session_chat_decode_hermes.rs with distinct handling for prompts, steer messages, hidden synthetic rows, failed turns, and compaction records.
• Adds Hermes /compress support: classifies its local-command output in noise.rs (matching /compact), detects the compacting activity in session_chat_terminal_activity.rs, and renders trailing compaction records as turn outcomes in turns.rs.
• Detects failed Hermes turns from terminal errors in session_chat_hermes_blocking.rs, including soft-wrap reconstruction, and surfaces them as a non-blocking terminal notice with an open-terminal action.
• Also fixes Hermes-specific chrome stripping for command output and recognizes Python bootstrap processes as hermes-agent in ZMX process identity.
• Risk: sync_hermes_transcript_mirror changes its change-detection scheme (visible-row count + newest id instead of active-row count) and mirror records gain new display-metadata fields; check consumers of the mirror JSON and cursor state for compatibility.

Changes since #178 opened

• Added pre-check logic to session_chat_hermes_blocking::unwrap_terminal_rows to detect and prevent joining wrapped terminal output lines when the following line contains Hermes UI chrome [defed80]

📊 Macroscope summarized bc847e8. 16 files reviewed, 5 issues evaluated, 0 issues filtered, 3 comments posted

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📒 Files selected for processing (1)

• server/src/session_chat_hermes_blocking.rs

🚧 Files skipped from review as they are similar to previous changes (1)

• server/src/session_chat_hermes_blocking.rs

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📝 Walkthrough

Walkthrough

The change adds Hermes process and terminal-screen recognition, updates session transcript mirroring and decoding, and adds turn-error and compaction handling. It also changes how compaction records appear in completed-work summaries and documents Hermes /compress outcomes.

Changes

Hermes session support

Layer / File(s)	Summary
Recognize Hermes sessions and prepare screen output server/src/external_sessions*, server/src/session_chat_composer.rs, server/src/session_chat_options.rs, server/src/session_chat_local_command.rs, server/src/zmx/*	The server exposes Hermes injected prefixes, recognizes Python commands containing import hermes_bootstrap, and adds helpers to locate the composer and identify Hermes status lines and busy hints. Hermes screen captures are cleaned before local-command output extraction. Successful provider starts stop local command-output capture for the session.
Detect Hermes turn errors and compaction activity server/src/session_chat_hermes_blocking.rs, server/src/session_chat_notice.rs, server/src/session_chat_terminal_activity.rs	Terminal scanning detects qualifying Hermes errors and reconstructs wrapped error text. Hermes classification can return an agentError notice. The activity detector recognizes Hermes context compression from the status screen.
Mirror and decode Hermes logical messages server/src/session_chat_hermes.rs, server/src/session_chat_decode_hermes.rs	The transcript mirror reads compression-linked sessions and writes logical messages, display metadata, and compaction markers. Decoding classifies prompts, notices, and hidden rows, maps compaction and failed-turn rows, and updates turn lifecycle handling.
Classify and render compaction records packages/gx-chat-core/src/transcript/noise.rs, packages/gx-chat-core/src/transcript/turns.rs, packages/gx-chat-core/src/session/composition.rs, skills/ghostex-help/references/features.md	Hermes /compress output is classified as a no-op status or hidden turn in the specified cases. Compaction records are recognized for summary selection and rendered after completed-work folds. The compaction reference documents Hermes outcomes.

Priority: ➖ Normal

Estimated code review effort: 3 (Moderate) | ~35 minutes

Change: Bug fix

Suggested reviewers: maddada

Merge Risk: 🟡 Moderate · up to defed

An unrelated Python session can be treated as Hermes, and styled terminal chrome can interfere with slash-command output. These issues should be fixed or explicitly accepted before merging.

Security Architecture Review

Security architecture risk: 🟡 Moderate · up to bc847

Older Hermes messages without display metadata can be hidden or shown as system notices based only on their text. This changes the trustworthiness of the chat history, although an access-control bypass has not been established.

Retained concerns

• Medium · security · inferred: For Hermes user rows without displayKind, a matching text prefix alone now hides the row or presents it as a system notice. If an ordinary sender can persist such a row, the chat can conceal their prompt or misattribute its origin. Remote reachability and any downstream authorization effect remain unproven.

Security review details

Security Blast Radius

• inferred — The classification concern is scoped to Hermes chats containing untyped user rows. Compression reconstruction can make older rows available in chat again; the inspected query does not traverse unrelated, non-compression parents.

Security Findings and Attack Paths

• inferred — An ordinary untyped user row beginning with a recognized prefix would cross the presentation-role boundary: some prefixes suppress the message, while others display its text as a system notice. The inspected evidence does not establish an attacker-controlled persisted-row path or a privileged consumer of that role.

Trust Boundaries and Controls

• observed — The mirror validates session-ID syntax and selects a store by session ID; its SQL limits lineage to compression-linked sessions. Those controls do not, by themselves, demonstrate caller-level ownership authorization.

Resilience and Maintainability Implications

• observed — Rebuilds use file replacement and failed writes force a later rebuild. The zero-visible-row return and direct live-file append warrant care when evaluating transcript freshness, but both behaviors predate this PR and are not asserted as introduced security regressions.

Hardening Proposals

• proposed — For legacy rows, distinguish synthetic-row provenance from text supplied by a user before suppressing a prompt or assigning it a system presentation role.

🚥 Pre-merge checks | ✅ 4 | ❌ 1

❌ Failed checks (1 warning)

Check name	Status	Explanation	Resolution
Docstring Coverage	⚠️ Warning	Docstring coverage is 49.06% which is insufficient. The required threshold is 80.00%. Docstring coverage is scoped to functions touched by this diff. Analyzed 53 functions across 15 files.	Write docstrings for the functions missing them to satisfy the coverage threshold.

✅ Passed checks (4 passed)

Check name	Status	Explanation
Description Check	✅ Passed	Check skipped - CodeRabbit’s high-level summary is enabled.
Title check	✅ Passed	The title clearly and concisely summarizes the main changes: aligning Hermes chat with terminal output and supporting /compress like /compact.
Linked Issues check	✅ Passed	Check skipped because no linked issues were found for this pull request.
Out of Scope Changes check	✅ Passed	Check skipped because no linked issues were found for this pull request.

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Actionable comments posted: 3

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🤖 Prompt to fix review comments

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Inline comments:
Review comments at @server/src/session_chat_hermes_blocking.rs:
- Around line 375-377: Update the row reconstruction logic around terminal_cells
so it rejects terminal chrome, including rules, composer rows, and status rows,
as continuations before appending the next row. Ensure reconstruction stops at
that point so the notice detail contains only the error.

Review comments at @server/src/session_chat_local_command.rs:
- Around line 554-556: Update the line filter in strip_hermes_chrome to strip
ANSI SGR sequences before trimming and checking with is_hermes_statusline and
is_hermes_busy_hint, so decorated Hermes chrome is still excluded.

Review comments at @server/src/zmx/process_identity.rs:
- Around line 243-244: Update the Python detection condition using
executable_name and command so hermes-agent is assigned only when the parsed
`-c` argument is the Hermes bootstrap invocation or the executable is a known
Hermes launcher; do not match `import hermes_bootstrap` appearing elsewhere in
the command.

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⚙️ Run configuration

Configuration used: defaults

Review profile: CHILL

Plan: Advanced

Run ID: 9062f51f-a140-4bfe-95c7-7992008c3e45

📥 Commits

Reviewing files that changed from the base of the PR and between 28229ce and bc847e8.

📒 Files selected for processing (16)

• packages/gx-chat-core/src/session/composition.rs
• packages/gx-chat-core/src/transcript/noise.rs
• packages/gx-chat-core/src/transcript/turns.rs
• server/src/external_sessions.rs
• server/src/external_sessions/hermes.rs
• server/src/session_chat_composer.rs
• server/src/session_chat_decode_hermes.rs
• server/src/session_chat_hermes.rs
• server/src/session_chat_hermes_blocking.rs
• server/src/session_chat_local_command.rs
• server/src/session_chat_notice.rs
• server/src/session_chat_options.rs
• server/src/session_chat_terminal_activity.rs
• server/src/zmx/process_identity.rs
• server/src/zmx/provider.rs
• skills/ghostex-help/references/features.md

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