hermes - 💡(How to fix) Fix Windows terminal: cd fails with 'No such file or directory' for Windows native paths

Bug Description

On Windows 11, every terminal tool call fails immediately with:

/bin/bash: line 2: cd: C:\\Users\\<user>: No such file or directory

This has been persistent since at least 2026-05-28. No terminal command works — the failure is at the cd step before the actual command runs.

Evidence from Logs

From ~/.hermes/logs/agent.log:

2026-05-31 00:54:10,673 WARNING agent.tool_executor: Tool terminal returned error: 
  {"output": "/bin/bash: line 2: cd: C:\\Users\\liush: No such file or directory"}

Same error also appears with paths like:

• C:\Users\liush (Windows native)
• C:\Users\liush\.hermes\hermes-agent (Windows native)
• /c/Users/liush/.hermes/hermes-agent (POSIX — also fails)

Root Cause Analysis

On Windows, os.getcwd() returns native Windows paths (C:\Users\x). Hermes passes this to builtin cd in Git Bash. Git Bash's cd builtin may not understand Windows paths on some configurations, requiring POSIX form (/c/Users/x).

The existing _msys_to_windows_path() handles POSIX→Windows conversion, but the reverse (Windows→POSIX) for cd is missing.

Reproduction Difficulty

⚠️ Cannot reproduce on all setups. On some Git Bash installations, cd 'C:\Users\x' works fine. The failure appears to depend on:

• Git for Windows version
• MSYS2 pathconv settings
• Possibly the MSYSTEM environment variable

Environment

• OS: Windows 11
• Git Bash: Git for Windows 2.x (system install)
• Terminal backend: local
• Hermes branch: main

Related

• #23846 — cwd missing on disk warning on Windows (related but different — that issue's commands still work)
• #18454 — Windows terminal exit code 126 (different root cause — missing Git Bash)