v2026.8.13

AIWG 2026.8.13 - Hermes profile-aware deployment

Release date: 2026-08-20
Channel: stable

AIWG 2026.8.13 aligns the Hermes provider with the runtime's active profile,
native skill metadata, and first-match context behavior. It also makes the npm
publication path less dependent on third-party setup actions and remote install
scripts.

What changed

• Hermes deployments honor the process HERMES_HOME value, falling back to
  the platform-native Hermes home only when it is unset. Framework, kernel,
  managed-skill, user-scope, provider, and quickref paths now agree on that
  location.
• Deployed Hermes skills omit AIWG's provider-oriented platforms field,
  which Hermes otherwise interprets as an operating-system compatibility gate.
• Portable metadata.hermes-tags source values become native
  metadata.hermes.tags in deployed copies without weakening source-format
  validation.
• The generated .hermes.md bridge matches Hermes's first-found project
  context behavior and explicitly routes the agent to the shared AGENTS.md
  project context.
• Publication installs pinned Cosign and Syft binaries only after checking
  their repository-tracked SHA-256 digests, reducing exposure to action
  codeload and remote-installer outages.

Verification

• Hermes-focused unit and integration coverage exercises custom, relative,
  literal-tilde, and platform-default home resolution; native frontmatter
  transformation; managed skills; kernel deployment; and quickrefs.
• The complete local suite passed with 615 test files and 9,174 tests; the PR's
  metadata, documentation, strict skill-lint, Test, and Build workflows passed.
• Release validation checks synchronized package/plugin versions, TypeScript,
  production builds, generated documentation, metadata, Fortemi discovery
  parity, and the full CI suite.

Package matrix

aiwg@2026.8.13
@aiwg/cli@2026.8.13
@aiwg/cockpit@2026.8.13

Upgrade

Install all AIWG packages at version 2026.8.13. Operators using Hermes should
redeploy with the same HERMES_HOME value used by the running Hermes profile:

HERMES_HOME=/path/to/profile aiwg use --provider hermes

Rollback

Roll all three npm packages back together to 2026.8.12, then redeploy the
project's provider assets. Hermes profiles with a non-default HERMES_HOME
should remain on 2026.8.13 or later to preserve profile-aware deployment.