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hermes - 💡(How to fix) Fix Silent failure of auxiliary tasks (title_generation/session_search) with no user notification or escalation [1 participants]

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NousResearch/hermes-agent#15775•Fetched 2026-04-26 05:25:07
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Error Message

When auxiliary tasks (title_generation, session_search, compression) fail — e.g. due to provider 402 errors or network timeouts — Hermes logs a WARNING and silently drops the operation. There is no notification to the user, no Telegram alert, no error escalation, and no way to detect the failure until manually inspecting logs.

  • Deliver a warning to the active platform (Telegram message / CLI inline notice) naming the failing task and error type
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Describe the bug

When auxiliary tasks (title_generation, session_search, compression) fail — e.g. due to provider 402 errors or network timeouts — Hermes logs a WARNING and silently drops the operation. There is no notification to the user, no Telegram alert, no error escalation, and no way to detect the failure until manually inspecting logs.

In practice: 45 interactive sessions accumulated NULL titles over 19 days (April 6–24) due to OpenRouter 402 errors on auxiliary calls. The main conversation continued normally, making the failure completely invisible.

Steps to reproduce

  1. Configure an auxiliary provider with insufficient credits or that is unreachable (e.g. OpenRouter key with monthly token cap)
  2. Complete several sessions normally — they appear to work fine
  3. Run: sqlite3 ~/.hermes/state.db "SELECT COUNT(*) FROM sessions WHERE title IS NULL AND message_count > 2"
  4. Sessions silently accumulate with no titles and no search summaries

Expected behavior

After N consecutive auxiliary task failures (suggested: 3+), Hermes should:

  • Deliver a warning to the active platform (Telegram message / CLI inline notice) naming the failing task and error type
  • Surface this in hermes doctor output and hermes status
  • Ideally provide a hermes sessions retitle or similar backfill command for recovery

Actual behavior

Failure is logged at WARNING level only in agent.log. No user-visible notification. No recovery path. Affected sessions are permanently unsummarized and unsearchable unless a custom backfill script is written manually.

Affected components

  • agent/title_generator.py — swallows None return silently
  • agent/auxiliary_client.py — call_llm() failure handling never escalates to user
  • run_agent.py — session end flow has no failure counter or alert threshold

Environment

  • Platform: macOS 25.5.0 (Darwin)
  • Shell: zsh
  • Hermes version: v0.11.0

extent analysis

TL;DR

Modify the agent/title_generator.py, agent/auxiliary_client.py, and run_agent.py components to implement failure handling and notification mechanisms for auxiliary task failures.

Guidance

  • Review the agent/title_generator.py and agent/auxiliary_client.py files to understand how errors are currently handled and identify areas where failure notifications can be added.
  • Introduce a failure counter in run_agent.py to track consecutive auxiliary task failures and trigger notifications when a threshold (e.g., 3+) is reached.
  • Consider adding a hermes sessions retitle command to provide a recovery path for affected sessions.
  • Update the hermes doctor and hermes status outputs to surface auxiliary task failure information.

Example

# Example failure counter and notification in run_agent.py
failure_count = 0
def on_auxiliary_task_failure(error):
    global failure_count
    failure_count += 1
    if failure_count >= 3:
        # Send notification to user (e.g., Telegram message or CLI inline notice)
        notify_user("Auxiliary task failed: " + str(error))

Notes

The provided solution is a starting point, and the actual implementation may vary depending on the specific requirements and constraints of the Hermes system.

Recommendation

Apply workaround: Implement the suggested failure handling and notification mechanisms in the affected components to improve the system's robustness and user experience.

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FAQ

Expected behavior

After N consecutive auxiliary task failures (suggested: 3+), Hermes should:

  • Deliver a warning to the active platform (Telegram message / CLI inline notice) naming the failing task and error type
  • Surface this in hermes doctor output and hermes status
  • Ideally provide a hermes sessions retitle or similar backfill command for recovery
#prompt template#agent execution#callback error#memory management#API rate limit

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hermes - 💡(How to fix) Fix Silent failure of auxiliary tasks (title_generation/session_search) with no user notification or escalation [1 participants]