PR #14896: fix(/branch): redirect session_log_file and expose branch sessions in sessions list

• Repository: NousResearch/hermes-agent
• Author: octo-patch
• State: open | merged: False
• Link: https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/14896

Description (problem / solution / changelog)

Fixes #14854

Problem

Two bugs when using /branch:

1. JSON session log not created for the branch — _handle_branch_command updates self.agent.session_id to the new session ID but never updates self.agent.session_log_file. All messages written after branching still go to the original session's session_<id>.json, and the branch session never gets its own JSON log on disk.

2. Branch session invisible in sessions list / sessions browse — list_sessions_rich filters out every session with parent_session_id IS NOT NULL to hide sub-agent runs and compression continuations. Branch sessions set parent_session_id too, so they are silently excluded from hermes sessions list and hermes sessions browse, making it easy to lose the branch.

Solution

Fix 1 (cli.py): Mirror the compression-split path in run_agent.py (line 7579) — immediately after updating agent.session_id, also update agent.session_log_file to logs_dir / f"session_{new_session_id}.json".

Fix 2 (hermes_state.py): Expand the list_sessions_rich filter to also include branch sessions — those whose parent ended with end_reason='branched' and whose started_at >= parent.ended_at (the same timing condition get_compression_tip uses to distinguish compression continuations from live-spawned sub-agents). Sub-agent runs (spawned while the parent is still live) and compression continuations (parent end_reason='compression') remain hidden.

Testing

Added two new test cases:

• tests/cli/test_branch_command.py::test_branch_updates_agent_session_log_file — verifies agent.session_log_file is redirected to the new branch path
• tests/test_hermes_state.py::TestListSessionsRich::test_branch_session_visible_in_list — verifies branch sessions appear in the list
• tests/test_hermes_state.py::TestListSessionsRich::test_subagent_session_still_hidden — verifies sub-agent children are still excluded
• tests/test_hermes_state.py::TestListSessionsRich::test_compression_child_still_hidden — verifies compression continuations are still excluded

All three scenarios verified manually:

branch visible: True       # was False before fix
subagent hidden: True      # unchanged
compression continuation hidden: True  # unchanged

Changed files

• cli.py (modified, +6/-0)
• hermes_state.py (modified, +12/-1)
• tests/cli/test_branch_command.py (modified, +24/-0)
• tests/test_hermes_state.py (modified, +42/-0)