hermes - 💡(How to fix) Fix Gateway: text messages while agent is busy are silently queued — no interrupt, no feedback [4 pull requests]

Summary

When the agent is actively running (executing tool calls), incoming text messages from the user are silently queued with no interruption and no feedback. The user has no way to stop the agent except by using /stop. Natural language stop requests ("stop", "para", "frena") are treated as regular messages and enqueued.

Impact

High — the user loses control of the agent during long tool-call sequences. The only escape hatch is knowing about /stop, which is not discoverable in the moment.

Reproduction

1. Send a message that triggers a multi-tool-call response (e.g. a complex coding task)
2. While the agent is running, send a plain text message like "stop" or "wait"
3. Observe: no feedback, no interruption. The message is queued silently.
4. The agent continues until it finishes or /stop is used.

Root Cause

gateway/platforms/base.py lines ~3317-3339:

When session_key in self._active_sessions and the message is not a recognized slash command (checked via should_bypass_active_session), the message enters the queue path:

if self._is_queue_text_debounce_candidate(event):
    await self._queue_text_debounce(session_key, event)
else:
    merge_pending_message_event(self._pending_messages, session_key, event, ...)
return  # Don't process now - will be handled after current task finishes

No feedback is sent to the user. No interrupt is triggered.

Evidence from logs

19:08:21 INFO [Telegram] Flushing text batch ...session... (6 chars)
19:09:56 INFO [Telegram] Flushing text batch ...session... (24 chars)
19:10:49 INFO [Telegram] Flushing text batch ...session... (13 chars)
19:11:04 INFO [Telegram] Flushing text batch ...session... (4 chars)
19:11:48 INFO Invalidated run generation [...] (stop_command)  <- /stop finally worked

Four messages received and flushed but never delivered as interrupts. Only /stop broke through.

Proposed Solutions (not mutually exclusive)

1. Feedback on queue: When a message is enqueued during an active session, send a brief acknowledgment: "⏳ Agent busy — message queued. Use /stop to interrupt."
2. Natural stop-word detection: Recognize bare stop-intent messages (configurable list: "stop", "para", "halt", "cancel", etc.) and treat them as /stop equivalents.
3. Configurable busy_text_mode: interrupt: Add an option where ANY incoming text interrupts the running agent (current behavior is queue-only unless busy_input_mode: steer).

Solution 1 is the minimum viable fix — the user at least knows their message did not interrupt anything.

Environment

• Hermes Agent (latest main as of 2026-05-24)
• Platform: Telegram DM
• Model: claude-opus-4.6 via gateway