Roadmap

Roadmap

v0.2.0 — Safety Hardening (Next Release)

Item	Priority	Description
enabled field on patterns	High	enabled: false skips pattern at load; re-enable without rewriting regex
group tag on patterns	High	Optional label for bulk filtering; supports --group testing and future bulk enable/disable
deny_patterns top-level list	High	New action tier: matched commands blocked immediately, no prompt (below hardline, above block patterns). Respects --yolo/mode=off.
Protected pattern tier (protected: true)	High	At load: protected patterns must be present and their regex must match the stored hash. Missing/changed → CRITICAL log with details.
Config hash tracking	High	SHA-256 of config at load, persisted in ~/.hermes/.custom-patterns-hash. Changed → security warning with delta.
New-allow shadowing warning	Medium	When a new allow pattern matches a built-in dangerous pattern with no overlapping custom block pattern, log WARN.
Directory config support	High	*.d/ directory loading with alphabetic precedence
AGENTS.md safety guard	High	Add testing safety and self-modification risk sections to project AGENTS.md
Test pattern collection	Medium	Ship the [TEST] patterns as examples/test-patterns.yaml, all enabled: false, group: testing

Expanded Config Format

patterns:
  - pattern: '\brm\s+-rf\b'
    description: 'Recursive delete'
    enabled: true          # optional, default true
    protected: false       # optional, default false
    guidance: 'Use `rm -rf` only after confirming with `ls` first.'  # optional
    group: filesystem      # optional tag for grouping

allow_patterns:
  - pattern: '\bvultr\s+account\s+info\b'
    description: 'Read-only Vultr commands'
    enabled: true

deny_patterns:             # NEW: blocked immediately, no prompt
  - pattern: '\bruby\s+-e\s+.*system\b'
    description: 'Ruby system() exec via -e'
    guidance: 'Use subprocess.run() instead.'

Evaluation Order with v0.2.0

1. Hardline (unconditional, immutable)
2. Sudo stdin guard (unconditional)
3. Yolo / mode=off / cron_mode
4. Allow patterns (enabled only)
5. Deny patterns (enabled only) → immediate block, no prompt
6. Custom block patterns (enabled only) → approval prompt
7. Built-in DANGEROUS_PATTERNS → approval prompt
8. Tirith scan

v0.3.0 — Usability

Note: Hermes plugins can register CLI subcommands via ctx.register_cli_command().

Item	Priority	Description
hermes custom-patterns CLI	High	add, remove, list, test, enable, disable, enable --group testing subcommands
Pattern test runner	High	hermes custom-patterns test "vultr instance create" → shows which patterns match, outcome, and whether the prompt would appear
Config syntax validation	Medium	hermes custom-patterns validate — check YAML + regex validity without running
Built-in pattern reference	Medium	hermes custom-patterns builtins — list Hermes's ~47 hardcoded patterns
Pattern description search	Low	hermes custom-patterns search "terraform" — find all patterns matching a keyword

v0.4.0 — Power Features

Item	Priority	Description
Pattern profiles	Medium	Named config sets: profiles/work.yaml (strict), profiles/personal.yaml (relaxed), switchable via env var
Include/import directive	Medium	patterns: ["#include: community/cloud-aws.yaml"] for YAML-level composition
Community pattern packs	Low	Curated sets published as GitHub repos, installable via hermes custom-patterns install scross01/cloud-patterns
Pattern audit log	Low	Record which patterns triggered, how often, user's decision — helps users refine their config

v0.5.0 — Hermes Core Integration (Out of Scope for Plugin)

These require Hermes core changes:

• register_dangerous_pattern() API on PluginContext — eliminates the need for monkey-patching
• Sensitive-write gate for plugin config — _SENSITIVE_WRITE_TARGET should cover custom-dangerous-patterns.yaml
• pre_tool_execution hook — pre-execution veto without monkey-patching
• Structured logging for approval events — standardized event format for analytics

Future Considerations

• GUI config editor: hermes custom-patterns add "vultr" "Vultr CLI" CLI command
• Pattern groups: Pre-defined pattern sets (e.g., cloud: [aws, gcp, azure])
• Pattern testing: hermes custom-patterns test "vultr account info" → shows which patterns match
• Community patterns: Share pattern sets via GitHub (e.g., "common cloud CLI patterns")