What problem does it solve? Building plugins for the Hermes Agent involves many failure-prone details: hook registration semantics, YAML manifest wiring, profile detection, token routing, and live deployment verification. This Skill captures proven patterns and debugging workflows so plugins load, fire, and behave correctly the first time. ## Core Features & Use Cases - Plugin architecture guidance: Covers Python backend plugins (tools, hooks, routers, middleware) and JavaScript Hermes Desktop runtime plugins, including the two-surface pattern for Desktop slash commands. - Hook and YAML wiring rules: Enforces provides_hooks manifests, public hook function naming, profile-safe detection, and runtime hook-composition contracts that prevent silent registration failures. - Token router and prefetch patterns: Provides production-hardened designs for tool-surface routing, deterministic read-only prefetch, external model-gateway affinity, and fail-open classifier integration. - Deployment and debugging playbooks: Includes fail-closed policy plugin deployment, live API-server contract validation, public distribution checklists, and debugging checklists for plugins that load but do nothing. - Use Case: You wrote a Hermes plugin whose hooks never fire. This Skill walks you through checking provides_hooks vs hooks, verifying public function names, and adding correctly placed debug prints to confirm invocation. ## Quick Start Ask the agent to help you create a new Hermes backend plugin with a pre_llm_call hook and a valid plugin.yaml manifest.
