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setup --host hermes is a help banner, not an installer — what does "host install" mean? #1201

@mayssamj

Description

@mayssamj

Summary

./setup --host hermes is a help banner — echo then exit 0 — not an installer. Compare with bun run gen:skill-docs --host hermes, which actually generates Hermes-flavoured skills into .hermes/skills/. As a downstream user trying to follow "step 5: Hermes host install" in a multi-agent platform, this leaves "host install" undefined.

Repro

~/.claude/skills/gstack/setup lines 72-81 (current master):

hermes)
  echo ""
  echo "Hermes integration uses the same model as OpenClaw — Hermes spawns"
  echo "Claude Code sessions, and gstack provides methodology artifacts."
  echo ""
  echo "To integrate gstack with Hermes:"
  echo "  1. Tell your Hermes agent: 'install gstack for hermes'"
  echo "  2. Or generate artifacts: bun run gen:skill-docs --host hermes"
  echo ""
  exit 0 ;;

By contrast, bun run gen:skill-docs --host hermes (script defined in package.jsonscripts/gen-skill-docs.ts) produces 44 skills under ~/.claude/skills/gstack/.hermes/skills/ (gstack-autoplan, gstack-browse, gstack-cso, etc.) — a real artifact tree.

The claude and codex host paths in setup write into ~/.claude/skills/ and ~/.codex/ respectively. Only openclaw and hermes (and gbrain) short-circuit to a banner.

Question

Is setup --host hermes supposed to:

  1. Print instructions for the user's Hermes agent to follow internally (current behaviour — but then "step 5: install gstack on the Hermes host" is a misdescription, the agent does the install at runtime, not the user via setup)?
  2. Write the generated .hermes/skills/ tree into a configurable target directory (e.g. --target /path/to/hermes-fork/skills/) so the user can commit it into their Hermes deployment?
  3. Something else (e.g. produce a tarball, hit an API)?

If (1), it would help to say so explicitly in the banner — "There is no host-side install for Hermes; tell your Hermes agent X" — so that downstream adoption docs don't carry a phantom step. If (2), I'd be happy to send a PR adding --target once the design is settled.

Use case

We run a multi-agent platform (mayssam-ai.vc) where Hermes — running in Docker — needs to call gstack skills the same way Claude Code does locally. The natural assumption from the banner is "I run setup --host hermes somewhere on the Hermes side and it lays down files." That's not what happens, so step 5 of our gstack adoption plan (D-057D-060 follow-ups) was deferred for ambiguity rather than blocked on a real artifact.

Happy to test or contribute.

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