hermes - 💡(How to fix) Fix fix(kanban): dispatcher worker spawn broken in headless/no-TTY environments

Description

The kanban dispatcher spawns workers using hermes chat -q "work kanban task <id>". This fails when the dispatcher runs in a headless environment (no TTY) — the chat command initializes the TUI (ui-tui/src/entry.tsx), which detects the missing TTY, prints hermes-tui: no TTY to stderr, and exits without ever running the model or calling kanban_complete.

The result: every dispatched worker immediately exits with protocol_violation ("worker exited cleanly without calling kanban_complete"), and the task is auto-blocked after failure_limit consecutive crashes.

Root cause

In hermes_cli/kanban_db.py:_spawn_worker() (line ~3648), the worker is spawned as:

hermes -p <profile> --skills kanban-worker chat -q "work kanban task <id>"

The chat command initializes the TUI subsystem, which requires a TTY. When spawned via subprocess.Popen(stdin=subprocess.DEVNULL, ...), there is no TTY, and the TUI bails immediately.

Expected behavior

Dispatched workers should run their task (call kanban_show, execute work, call kanban_complete) regardless of whether a TTY is present.

Proposed fix

Replace chat -q with -z (one-shot mode) in _spawn_worker(). The one-shot mode:

1. Does not initialize the TUI (no TTY dependency)
2. Is documented as "intended for scripts/pipes"
3. Auto-bypasses approvals (correct for a worker)
4. Supports --skills and all env vars (HERMES_KANBAN_TASK, etc.)
5. Has been tested end-to-end and works correctly

The change is in hermes_cli/kanban_db.py, lines 3648-3650:

# Before:
cmd.extend(["chat", "-q", prompt])

# After:
cmd.extend(["-z", prompt])

Environment

• Hermes v0.12.0
• macOS 14
• Python 3.11.13
• Dispatcher running via launchd gateway (headless)