Skill Promotion and Dedup (Hermes)

Use this when users import many custom skills (e.g. under ~/.hermes/skills/imported-codex) and want better discoverability/reliability.

When to use

• User says imported skills are hard to trigger/find.
• Same skill names exist in multiple categories (imported + official), causing inconsistent selection.
• User wants to keep imported originals, but use promoted copies as active skills.

Core idea

1. Promote imported skills to first-class categories (social-media, research, media, etc.).
2. Keep imported originals as archive.
3. Disable duplicate active entries in archive (avoid two SKILL.md files with same name:).

Procedure

1. Inventory and mapping

• Enumerate source skills under ~/.hermes/skills/imported-codex/*/SKILL.md.
• Create an explicit mapping: skill_name -> target_category.
• Do not proceed with unmapped skills.

2. Backup and promote

• Create backup root: ~/.hermes/skill-promotions/<timestamp>/.
• For each skill:
  • If target exists, backup existing target first.
  • Copy imported skill folder to target category path.
• Save a manifest: promotion-manifest.json with source/target/backups.

3. Configure defaults where needed

• If there are competing skills for same domain, clarify routing in descriptions.
• Example used successfully:
  • bird-twitter: default for read-only Twitter via browser login.
  • xitter: official API / write actions.

4. Deduplicate active discovery

• In archive category (imported-codex), rename SKILL.md -> SKILL.imported.md.
• Keep scripts/assets/references intact.
• Optionally add imported-codex/DESCRIPTION.md stating this is archive-only.
• Important: if duplicate active definitions remain, skills_list may surface unstable/partial results (some promoted skills appear missing by category). Disable archive SKILL.md first, then re-check.

4b) Optional deletion mode (when user wants no archive)

• Create a one-file archive first (safety):
  • tar -czf ~/.hermes/skill-promotions/archive-before-delete/imported-codex-<ts>.tgz -C ~/.hermes/skills imported-codex
• Delete archive directory:
  • rm -rf ~/.hermes/skills/imported-codex
• Verify:
  • skills_list(category='imported-codex') returns empty
• If user asks for zero backup retention, delete the tarball too.

5. Verify

• skills_list(category=...) for all target categories.
• skills_list(category='imported-codex') should be empty or non-active.
• skill_view(<key_skill>) resolves to promoted category path.
• Smoke-check critical runtime tools (e.g. bird check --plain).

6. Rollback support

• Generate rollback script from manifest:
  • Restore archive SKILL.md from SKILL.imported.md.
  • Remove promoted target copies.
• Store script under ~/.hermes/skill-promotions/rollback-*.sh.

Pitfalls

• Duplicate skill names across categories cause non-deterministic discoverability.
• Moving without backups risks losing custom local edits in existing targets.
• Forgetting to disable archive copies keeps the conflict alive.

Success criteria

• User’s common skills appear in expected first-class categories.
• Archive remains preserved and recoverable.
• No duplicate active definitions for same skill name.
• A documented rollback path exists.