Infographic

Summary

Gives the default ~/.hermes profile the same blank-slate opt-out that named profiles already had, and adds an interactive way to toggle it on an already-installed profile — no reinstall needed.

Two parts:

1. Install-time flag — start empty from the curl install:

curl -fsSL https://hermes-agent.nousresearch.com/install.sh | bash -s -- --no-skills

2. Runtime commands — opt in/out of bundled skills on any existing profile:

hermes skills opt-out            # stop future seeding (touches nothing on disk)
hermes skills opt-out --remove   # also delete UNMODIFIED bundled skills (with confirm)
hermes skills opt-in --sync      # undo: remove marker and re-seed now

Why

hermes profile create <name> --no-skills already gave named profiles a blank slate with a durable opt-out marker. The default profile had no equivalent, and two gaps remained:

1. No way to do a fresh-install blank slate without creating a named profile.
2. hermes update kept injecting newly-bundled skills into the default profile every run, with no way to suppress it permanently.

How

• New --no-skills install flag writes $HERMES_HOME/.no-bundled-skills and skips the install-time seed.
• sync_skills() now honors that marker with an early return (skipped_opt_out=True). This is the key fix: the marker was previously only checked by seed_profile_skills() (named profiles), so the default profile still got re-seeded on every hermes update. Now the installer, hermes update, and any direct sync all respect it.
• hermes skills opt-out / opt-in toggle the marker at runtime via set_bundled_skills_opt_out().
• --remove calls remove_pristine_bundled_skills(), which deletes a bundled skill only when it is manifest-tracked AND byte-identical to its recorded origin hash. User-edited bundled skills, hub-installed skills, and hand-written skills are never touched — they're reported as kept. Previews the list and confirms before deleting (--yes to skip).

Net result: opting out means no bundled skills ever — not at install, not on update — until you opt back in. Removal is explicit, reversible, and never destroys your own work.

Safety

The destructive --remove path is gated three ways: skill must be in the manifest (genuinely bundled), still present in the bundled source (hash-comparable), and unmodified vs origin hash. Anything else is skipped. Verified live (below).

Tests

tests/tools/test_skills_sync.py (55 pass):

• TestNoBundledSkillsOptOut — marker present → no-op; absent → normal seed.
• TestOptOutToggleAndRemove — marker toggle idempotency; --remove deletes pristine bundled skills while a user-modified bundled skill AND a hand-written local skill both survive.

Verified end-to-end against a temp HERMES_HOME: seed 90 → opt-out keeps all 90 → opt-out --remove deletes 89 pristine and keeps the 1 edited skill → opt-in --sync restores to 90. Install --no-skills writes the marker and a later update-style sync stays empty. bash -n clean on install.sh; both new subcommands parse and render --help.