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feat(compression): temporal anchoring in compaction summaries#41102

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feat/temporal-anchored-compression
Jun 7, 2026
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feat(compression): temporal anchoring in compaction summaries#41102
teknium1 merged 1 commit into
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feat/temporal-anchored-compression

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@teknium1 teknium1 commented Jun 7, 2026

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Summary

Compaction summaries now produce absolute, dated, past-tense facts instead of leaving completed work phrased as open instructions — so a resumed conversation never re-issues a task that already happened.

The summarizer is handed the current date and told to rewrite e.g. email John about the proposalSent the proposal email to John on 2026-06-07. Inspired by Poke's summarization layer (temporal anchoring + semantic preservation).

Changes

  • agent/context_compressor.py_generate_summary() resolves today's date via hermes_time.now() (date-only, user-configured timezone) and injects a TEMPORAL ANCHORING directive into the shared summary template. The rule rides the shared _template_sections, so both the first-compaction and iterative-update prompts carry it.
  • tests/agent/test_context_compressor_temporal_anchoring.py — new tests.

Why it's cache-safe

The compaction summary is a mid-conversation message that is never part of the cached prefix (compression is the one sanctioned mid-conversation mutation). The date here does not touch system_prompt.py and does not affect prompt-cache stability. This is deliberately distinct from the system-prompt timestamp, which stays byte-stable by design (PR #20451).

Robustness

Date resolution is best-effort. If hermes_time.now() raises, the rule is omitted and compaction proceeds normally — a clock failure can never block summarization.

Validation

Result
New tests (test_context_compressor_temporal_anchoring.py) 4/4 pass
Existing continuity tests 3/3 pass
py_compile OK

Test coverage: first-compaction path carries dated rule, iterative-update path carries dated rule, clock-failure omits rule but still summarizes, date is sourced from hermes_time.now().

Infographic

temporal-anchoring

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🔎 Lint report: feat/temporal-anchored-compression vs origin/main

ruff

Total: 0 on HEAD, 0 on base (➖ 0)

🆕 New issues: none

✅ Fixed issues: none

Unchanged: 0 pre-existing issues carried over.

ty (type checker)

Total: 10002 on HEAD, 10002 on base (➖ 0)

🆕 New issues: none

✅ Fixed issues: none

Unchanged: 5190 pre-existing issues carried over.

Diagnostics are surfaced as warnings — this check never fails the build.

@alt-glitch alt-glitch added type/feature New feature or request P3 Low — cosmetic, nice to have comp/agent Core agent loop, run_agent.py, prompt builder labels Jun 7, 2026
@teknium1 teknium1 force-pushed the feat/temporal-anchored-compression branch from 87af2ba to 0fb0dea Compare June 7, 2026 13:33
Compaction summaries now receive the current date and instruct the
summarizer to rewrite completed actions as absolute, dated, past-tense
facts (e.g. "email John about the proposal" -> "Sent the proposal email
to John on 2026-06-07"). A resumed conversation no longer re-issues work
that already happened or treats a finished action as still pending.

The date is resolved via hermes_time.now() (date-only, user-configured
timezone) inside _generate_summary. The compaction summary is a
mid-conversation message that is never part of the cached prefix, so the
date does not affect prompt-cache stability. Date resolution is
best-effort: a clock failure omits the rule rather than blocking
compaction. The rule rides the shared template, so both first-compaction
and iterative-update prompts carry it.

Inspired by Poke's summarization (temporal anchoring + semantic
preservation).
@teknium1 teknium1 force-pushed the feat/temporal-anchored-compression branch from 0fb0dea to 4c7c35e Compare June 7, 2026 15:27
@teknium1 teknium1 merged commit d87f293 into main Jun 7, 2026
23 checks passed
@teknium1 teknium1 deleted the feat/temporal-anchored-compression branch June 7, 2026 15:36
agogo233 added a commit to agogo233/hermes-agent that referenced this pull request Jun 8, 2026
* upstream/main: (430 commits)
  fix(yuanbao): bound ws.close() so an idle server can't stall shutdown ~5s (NousResearch#40607)
  docs: add Urdu translation of README (NousResearch#40578)
  fix(hindsight): send only new-turn delta on append retains instead of whole session (NousResearch#40605)
  feat(gateway): render terminal tool calls as native bash code blocks on markdown platforms (NousResearch#41215)
  feat(desktop): stop the chat viewport from following streaming output (NousResearch#41414)
  chore(release): map AlchemistChaos co-author email for NousResearch#40135 salvage
  fix(desktop): recover chat after sleep/wake by revalidating a stale remote backend
  fix(web): make _has_env config-aware so SEARXNG_URL auto-detect honors Hermes config
  fix(web): honor Hermes config-aware SEARXNG_URL lookup
  install.sh: hint at root-owned npm cache when desktop npm install fails (NousResearch#39688)
  fix(tools): percent-encode non-ascii URL components
  fix(skills): browse shows full catalog, not first 5000 (NousResearch#41413)
  feat(desktop+gateway): remote media relay — attach images/PDFs and display gateway images over the network
  feat(desktop): full tool-backend config (pickers + per-backend settings) in Settings (NousResearch#41232)
  hardening(api-server): scan cron prompts on REST create/update for parity with the agent tool
  fix: skip MCP preflight content-type probe on reconnect when already ready (NousResearch#40604)
  fix(kanban): sweep deferred scratch parent on non-scratch child completion + tests
  fix: defer scratch workspace cleanup when task has active children (NousResearch#33774)
  feat(onboarding): opt-in structured profile-build path on first contact (NousResearch#41114)
  feat(compression): temporal anchoring in compaction summaries (NousResearch#41102)
  test(discord): align clarify/model-picker tests with fail-closed component auth (NousResearch#41338)
  chore(release): map Dusk1e and LaPhilosophie for approval fail-closed salvage (NousResearch#33844, NousResearch#33866, NousResearch#30964)
  fix(discord): fail closed for component button auth when no allowlist set
  fix(feishu): fail closed for update prompt card actions
  fix(slack): re-check gateway auth on approval and slash-confirm buttons
  fix: guard int(os.getenv()) casts against malformed env vars (NousResearch#40598)
  fix: respect Honcho env var fallback in doctor and honcho status
  chore(release): add synapsesx to AUTHOR_MAP for NousResearch#40495 salvage
  fix(research): keep tool_call/tool_response pairs intact when compressing trajectories
  fix(simplex): accept display name in SIMPLEX_ALLOWED_USERS
  fix(desktop): make the running-turn timer per-session (NousResearch#41182)
  test(approval): regression for shell-escape denylist bypass (NousResearch#36846, NousResearch#36847)
  fix(security): strip shell escapes in denylist normalizer; fail-closed on missing approval module
  fix(stream+output-cap): guard empty streams and parse OpenRouter output-cap errors (NousResearch#40589)
  fix(desktop): bootstrap falls back to installed agent install.sh on GitHub 404
  feat(dashboard): change UI font from the theme picker, independent of theme (NousResearch#41145)
  fix(cli): return bool (not None) when a destructive-slash confirmation is cancelled (NousResearch#40583)
  fix(desktop): preserve configured base_url on same-provider model switch (NousResearch#41121)
  fix(desktop): stop bare-URL autolinker swallowing trailing emphasis asterisks (NousResearch#41093)
  fix(cron): bound the desktop run-history query to one job (NousResearch#41088)
  fix(desktop): scope in-session /model switch per-session, stop process-env leak (NousResearch#41120)
  chore: map bmoore210 author email for PR NousResearch#40550 salvage
  fix(desktop): scope session list to active profile + longer timeout
  fix: harden gateway startup and turn persistence
  fix(computer_use): honor custom vision routing
  fix(aux): honor model.default_headers on auxiliary client too (NousResearch#40033)
  fix(agent): honor model.default_headers for custom OpenAI-compatible providers (NousResearch#40033)
  docs(i18n): port deep-audit corrections to zh-Hans mirror (NousResearch#41104)
  fix(compression): don't overwrite the -1 post-compression sentinel in preflight seed (NousResearch#36718)
  chore(release): map singhsanidhya741@gmail.com to sanidhyasin (NousResearch#41094)
  ...
changman pushed a commit to changman/hermes-agent that referenced this pull request Jun 10, 2026
…search#41102)

Compaction summaries now receive the current date and instruct the
summarizer to rewrite completed actions as absolute, dated, past-tense
facts (e.g. "email John about the proposal" -> "Sent the proposal email
to John on 2026-06-07"). A resumed conversation no longer re-issues work
that already happened or treats a finished action as still pending.

The date is resolved via hermes_time.now() (date-only, user-configured
timezone) inside _generate_summary. The compaction summary is a
mid-conversation message that is never part of the cached prefix, so the
date does not affect prompt-cache stability. Date resolution is
best-effort: a clock failure omits the rule rather than blocking
compaction. The rule rides the shared template, so both first-compaction
and iterative-update prompts carry it.

Inspired by Poke's summarization (temporal anchoring + semantic
preservation).
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comp/agent Core agent loop, run_agent.py, prompt builder P3 Low — cosmetic, nice to have type/feature New feature or request

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