Description

Hermes Agent v0.7.0 gets stuck on "initializing agent" for extended periods. Startup takes 2+ minutes before the agent is ready to respond.

Root Cause

The Honcho memory provider is blocking initialization sequentially, with each step taking ~60 seconds:

20:38:46 INFO agent.memory_manager: Memory provider 'honcho' registered (4 tools)
20:38:46 INFO plugins.memory.honcho.client: Initializing Honcho client (host: hermes, workspace: hermes)
20:39:47 INFO plugins.memory.honcho.session: Honcho session 'Lynk' retrieved (47 existing messages)  # ~60s
20:40:45 INFO agent.auxiliary_client: Auxiliary auto-detect: using main provider...                   # ~60s more

Second startup shows the same pattern:

21:01:59 INFO run_agent: Loaded environment variables
21:02:08 INFO agent.memory_manager: Memory provider 'honcho' registered (4 tools)
21:02:09 INFO plugins.memory.honcho.client: Initializing Honcho client
21:03:12 INFO plugins.memory.honcho.session: Honcho session retrieved (67 existing messages)         # ~63s

Related Errors in Logs

The Honcho provider also produces repeated errors during normal operation:

• Rate limiting: Rate limit exceeded: 5 per 1 second (multiple occurrences for session sync, dialectic queries, uploads)
• Timeouts: Honcho session add_peers failed (non-fatal): Request timed out after 60.0s
• Upload failures: Failed to upload MEMORY.md to Honcho: An unexpected error occurred
• Context fetch failures: Honcho session loaded (failed to fetch context: An unexpected error occurred)

Environment

• Hermes Agent: v0.7.0 (2026.4.3)
• OS: macOS (Darwin 25.3.0, Apple Silicon)
• Python: 3.11.14
• Memory provider: honcho
• Config: memory.memory_enabled: true, memory.provider: honcho

Expected Behavior

Agent initialization should complete in a few seconds. The Honcho client/session retrieval should either:

1. Have a shorter timeout and fail fast with a fallback to local memory
2. Initialize asynchronously so it doesn't block the agent from becoming interactive
3. Cache session data locally to avoid slow remote fetches on every startup

Workaround

Switching memory.provider from honcho to local in ~/.hermes/config.yaml resolves the startup delay.