PR #25140: fix(skills): exclude .bak-/.backup- directories from skill discovery (#25113)

• Repository: NousResearch/hermes-agent
• Author: briandevans
• State: open | merged: False
• Link: https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/25140

Description (problem / solution / changelog)

Summary

hermes profile and hermes update leave .bak-<timestamp> (or <skill>.bak-<suffix>) snapshots alongside live skills. The skill loader walks the tree and yields them in alphabetic order, so a backup SKILL.md can shadow the live one — reporter saw hermes-profile-convergence load its v2.0.0 backup instead of the live v3.1.0.

The bug

agent/skill_utils.py:iter_skill_index_files excludes .git, .github, .hub, .archive but not backup directories. The os.walk descends into .bak-20260510_233500, finds its SKILL.md, and yields it before the live skill's. Discovery is centralised here, so every caller (skills_tool._find_all_skills, prompt_builder, the skill_commands platform scan) inherits the bug.

The fix

Add _is_backup_dir(name) — a narrow substring check on .bak- and .backup- (with the trailing dash, so notebook / lookback-tool / bak-without-dot are NOT collateral) — and apply it alongside EXCLUDED_SKILL_DIRS in the dir-pruning step. Two-line change at the walk site; the helper sits next to EXCLUDED_SKILL_DIRS with a comment explaining the upgrade-path origin.

Test plan

• Focused: tests/agent/test_skill_utils.py — three concrete patterns from the issue (.bak-<ts> sibling, <skill>.bak-<suffix> peer, .backup-<ts>) all confirm the live skill is the only one yielded.
• Non-regression: bak-without-dot, lookback-tool, notebook-skill are all still picked up.
• Adjacent: tests/agent/test_skill_utils.py tests/agent/test_external_skills.py tests/agent/test_external_skills_dirs_cache.py tests/test_plugin_skills.py — 53 passed locally.
• Regression guard: with the fix reverted, the three new tests fail with result == ['stale', 'live'] (backup shadows live). With the fix, all 8 pass.

Related / Positioning

• Fixes #25113.

• Competing PR: #25143 (zccyman). Same root cause, different approach. Honest comparison for the maintainer:

  aspect	this PR (#25140)	#25143
  scope	agent/skill_utils.py only	agent/skill_utils.py + tools/skills_tool.py (helper duplicated, kept in sync by comment)
  match logic	.bak- / .backup- substring (trailing dash, conservative)	.bak / .backup- / backup- case-insensitive substring (broader; foo.bakery would be excluded)
  also excludes	(none added)	__pycache__
  diff size	+47 / -2	+164 / -4

• Why this PR is correct without touching tools/skills_tool.py: that file already calls iter_skill_index_files for its scan, so fixing the walker covers it. The local _EXCLUDED_SKILL_DIRS check in tools/skills_tool.py:_find_all_skills is a redundant secondary filter on already-yielded paths — backup dirs are pruned before they reach it.

Sibling code paths that may need the same fix if the maintainer prefers defense-in-depth: the duplicated _EXCLUDED_SKILL_DIRS frozenset in tools/skills_tool.py (and __pycache__ could be added to EXCLUDED_SKILL_DIRS in agent/skill_utils.py as a separate small change). Intentionally left out of this PR's scope to keep the diff small — happy to widen if preferred.

Changed files

• agent/skill_utils.py (modified, +15/-2)
• tests/agent/test_skill_utils.py (modified, +64/-1)

PR #25143: fix(skills): exclude .bak-* and backup directories from skill discovery

• Repository: NousResearch/hermes-agent
• Author: zccyman
• State: open | merged: False
• Link: https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/25143

Description (problem / solution / changelog)

Summary

The skill loader's EXCLUDED_SKILL_DIRS only excluded .git, .github, .hub, and .archive. Backup directories matching patterns like my-skill.bak-20260510 were not excluded, causing the stale backup version to be discovered and loaded instead of (or alongside) the live skill.

Before

EXCLUDED_SKILL_DIRS = frozenset((".git", ".github", ".hub", ".archive"))

A directory like hermes-profile-convergence.bak-20260510_234206 would pass the filter and its SKILL.md would be discovered as a valid skill.

After

Two-layer exclusion:

1. Static set — added __pycache__ to the existing frozenset
2. Pattern matching — new _is_excluded_skill_dir() checks for .bak, .backup-, and backup- anywhere in the directory name (case-insensitive)

EXCLUDED_SKILL_DIRS = frozenset((".git", ".github", ".hub", ".archive", "__pycache__"))
_EXCLUDED_DIR_PREFIXES = (".bak", ".backup-", "backup-")

Applied to both discovery paths:

• agent/skill_utils.py — iter_skill_index_files()
• tools/skills_tool.py — inline scan in skill listing

Impact

Testing

• 8 new tests:
  • 5 unit tests for _is_excluded_skill_dir() (exact, normal, .bak, .backup, case-insensitive)
  • 3 integration tests for iter_skill_index_files() (bak dirs, pycache, nested)
• 2827 existing agent tests (7 pre-existing env failures unrelated to this change)
• 0 regressions

Files changed

Closes #25113

Changed files

• agent/skill_utils.py (modified, +25/-2)
• tests/agent/test_skill_discovery_excludes.py (added, +123/-0)
• tools/skills_tool.py (modified, +16/-2)