Summary

Two test modules in v2026.5.7 import UNIX-only stdlib at module top with no Windows guard, hard-blocking pytest collection on sys.platform == "win32":

• tests/hermes_cli/test_gateway_service.py:4 — import pwd
• tests/tools/test_file_sync_back.py:3 — import fcntl

pwd and fcntl exist only in CPython on UNIX-family platforms (cpython/Lib/pwd.py, cpython/Lib/fcntl.py). Importing either at module top on Windows raises ModuleNotFoundError during pytest collection, which hard-stops the test run before any test executes.

Reproduction

# On Windows with hermes-agent v2026.5.7 + [dev,acp] installed
python -m pytest tests/hermes_cli/test_gateway_service.py -q
# ImportError while importing test module 'tests/hermes_cli/test_gateway_service.py'
# tests\hermes_cli\test_gateway_service.py:4: in <module>
#     import pwd
# E   ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'pwd'

Same failure pattern on test_file_sync_back.py for fcntl.

Why this matters

Hermes Agent now ships an in-product staged-update endpoint (POST /api/agents/update/staged) whose pytest gate hard-fails on the first collection error and auto-rolls back. On Windows, both test files prevent the staged update from ever reaching verified=true, even though the runtime itself runs fine on Windows.

Proposed fix

Two clean options, in order of preference:

Option 1 — pytest.importorskip (smallest patch, most idiomatic):

# tests/hermes_cli/test_gateway_service.py
import pytest
pwd = pytest.importorskip("pwd")        # skip cleanly on Windows

# tests/tools/test_file_sync_back.py
import pytest
fcntl = pytest.importorskip("fcntl")    # skip cleanly on Windows

Option 2 — module-level skipif:

import sys
import pytest
pytestmark = pytest.mark.skipif(sys.platform == "win32",
    reason="Tests for UNIX-only systemd/file-locking surface")
import pwd  # / import fcntl

importorskip is preferred because it self-documents the platform requirement at the import site and works for any platform that lacks the module (e.g. some embedded distributions).

Adjacent observation (drive-by; happy to file separately if preferred)

v2026.5.7 also shipped with the 50 stale tests later removed in 66320de52 ("test: remove 50 stale/broken tests to unblock CI (#22098)"). That cleanup is on main but no patch release tag (v2026.5.8+) yet includes it. Downstream consumers running the full pytest gate against the v2026.5.7 tag — Windows skip-guards or not — will still hit those 50 known-stale failures. A v2026.5.8 patch tag that includes 66320de52 would let staged consumers verify cleanly.

Context

Found while validating a downstream Hermes Agent integration's staged update path on both Windows (Python 3.14) and WSL2 Linux (Python 3.12.3). Lane A (Windows) hit the pwd import as the first hard blocker; lane B (Linux) got past it and reached the actual test suite. Happy to provide more reproduction detail if useful.

Filed under the user's authorization for "Option C — open upstream issue/PR for Windows skip guards" in a downstream coordination thread; not affiliated with NousResearch.