What is hardproof AGENTS.md?

A project instruction file defines how to work on Hardproof, a persistent engineering protocol and opt-in Hermes Agent plugin. It includes the required reading order, architecture, security, configuration, and release guidance.

Use it to follow Hardproof’s development process, understand its plugin architecture, and check its release and security rules.

It gives coding agents the project identity, boundaries, and required background before they change the code.

hardproof AGENTS.md — Instructions file by asimons81

Install

Getting it into your agent

One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.

agentmods

npx agentmods add instructions/asimons81/hardproof/agents-md

Clone the repo

git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/asimons81/hardproof

Made for: Codex, OpenCode.

Per session 3,105 This file is loaded in full into every session.

When invoked 3,105 The same file — it is already loaded in full.

Security scan A 0 findings. Scan, not verified.

Origin original No closer match found in the catalogue.

Token cost

What it costs to keep this loaded

Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.

Model	Per session	Once invoked
Fable 5	$0.03105	$0.03105
Opus 5	$0.01553	$0.01553
Sonnet 5	$0.00621	$0.00621
Haiku 4.5	$0.00311	$0.00311

Measured 2d ago against content hash d0f09b4f737f, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

hardproof AGENTS.md scanned grade A with 0 findings against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured 2d ago.

A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.

Nothing flagged

None of the 26 patterns this scan looks for appear in this file: no shell pipes, no recursive deletes, no credential paths, no hidden text, no instruction-override or anti-refusal phrasing, no agent-config snooping. That is not a guarantee, it is the absence of the things that are checkable.

AGENTS.md · 297 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 297 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Hardproof Agent Instructions

This file loads as project context when Hermes Agent starts in the Hardproof repository root. Read it before making any changes.

Project Identity

Hardproof is a persistent, risk-aware engineering protocol for Hermes Agent.
Current public release: v1.0.1 Proven (PyPI, GitHub).
Current development boundary: none scheduled; the v0.4.0–v1.0.1 arc is released.
Hardproof is a standalone Hermes plugin discovered through the hermes_agent.plugins entry-point group.
It uses only public Hermes registration, hook, command, skill, and dispatch APIs.
The plugin remains opt-in. Hardproof does not modify Hermes core files.

Read Order

Inspect these files in order before changing code:

AGENTS.md — this file
README.md — project overview and quick start
STATUS.md — current release and maintenance state
ROADMAP.md — roadmap and version plan
CONTRIBUTING.md — development workflow
docs/architecture.md — system architecture
docs/profiles.md — run profiles (Quick, Standard, Critical)
docs/security-model.md — security boundary
docs/configuration-and-migrations.md — config and migration guide
docs/policy-packs.md — language policy packs
Relevant ADRs in docs/adr/
Relevant tests in tests/

Do not assume the README is the entire specification.

Architecture Map

hardproof/
├── __init__.py              # Package version and public API
├── plugin.py                # Plugin registration entry point
├── compat.py                # Hermes API compatibility checks
├── config.py                # Configuration loading and defaults
├── constants.py             # Shared constants
├── errors.py                # Error types
├── paths.py                 # Project-local path resolution
├── commands/
│   ├── cli.py               # hermes hardproof CLI adapter
│   ├── slash.py             # /hardproof slash-command adapter
│   └── shared.py            # Shared command implementation
├── domain/
│   ├── enums.py             # RunStage, RunProfile, ApprovalGate, etc.
│   ├── models.py            # Run, VerificationCheck, SessionBinding, etc.
│   ├── snapshots.py         # Workspace state snapshots
│   ├── transitions.py       # Stage transition logic
│   └── workcells.py         # Workcell task/attempt state machines
├── hooks/
│   ├── context.py           # Pre-turn context injection
│   ├── sessions.py          # Session lifecycle hooks
│   ├── tool_policy.py       # Tool-call policy enforcement
│   └── verification.py      # Verification hook
├── isolation/
│   ├── guard.py             # Workspace isolation guard
│   └── adapters.py          # Execution backend adapters
├── kanban/
│   ├── worker.py            # Workcell implementer subagent contract
│   └── approvals.py         # Workcell approval routing
├── migrations/              # SQL migration files
├── policy/
│   ├── packs.py             # Language policy packs (Python, Node, Rust, Go)
│   ├── profiles.py          # Profile definitions
│   ├── stage_graph.py       # Stage graph configuration
│   ├── stage_rules.py       # Stage-aware rules
│   ├── terminal.py          # Terminal normalization
│   ├── tool_rules.py        # Tool-call rules
│   ├── trace.py             # Policy trace model
│   ├── verification_rules.py# Verification-specific rules
│   └── waivers.py           # Waiver logic
├── services/
│   ├── approvals.py         # Human approval service
│   ├── artifacts.py         # Run artifact service
│   ├── authority.py         # Human authority registry
│   ├── decisions.py         # Policy decision persistence
│   ├── evidence.py          # Verification evidence service
│   ├── fix_re_review.py     # Challenge Chamber fix/re-review loop
│   ├── hermes_children.py   # Public Hermes child-session adapter
│   ├── packages.py          # Package metadata services
│   ├── reports.py           # Report generation
│   ├── review_dispatch.py   # Challenge Chamber reviewer dispatch
│   ├── risks.py             # Risk classification
│   ├── runs.py              # Run management
│   ├── sessions.py          # Session binding
│   ├── tasks.py             # Task management
│   ├── waivers.py           # Waiver service
│   ├── workcell_artifacts.py# Workcell artifact handling
│   └── workcells.py         # Workcell scheduling and claims
├── skills/                  # 9 stage skill modules
│   ├── orchestrate/
│   ├── discover/
│   ├── design/
│   ├── plan/
│   ├── implement/
│   ├── review/
│   ├── verify/
│   ├── deliver/
│   └── learn/
├── storage/
│   ├── database.py          # SQLite database wrapper
│   ├── migrations.py        # Migration engine
│   └── repository.py        # Run repository
├── templates/               # Report templates
│   ├── completion.md
│   ├── design.md
│   ├── discovery.md
│   ├── plan.md
│   └── review.md
├── validation/              # Protocol SDK validation interfaces
├── vault/
│   └── lease.py             # Vault lease state
└── tools/
    ├── handlers.py          # Tool handler implementations
    └── schemas.py           # Exact JSON schemas for 6 tools

Read the full file on GitHub · 297 lines

Changes

What this file has done since we first saw it

Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.

2d ago First seen · 297 lines · 3,105 tokens per session scan A d0f09b4f737f

Subscribe to this mod's changes

hardproof AGENTS.md is an instructions file published in the GitHub repository asimons81/hardproof (5 stars, last pushed 3d ago), licensed Apache-2.0. It adds 3,105 tokens to every session, about $0.0155 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-31.

Git and workflow Planning Security agentic-coding coding-agents developer-tools hermes-agent open-source python

hardproof AGENTS.md

Getting it into your agent

What it costs to keep this loaded

Grade A, and why

Nothing flagged

How it starts

Hardproof Agent Instructions

Project Identity

Read Order

Architecture Map

What this file has done since we first saw it

Other instructions, from other repositories

dograh AGENTS.md

Patter AGENTS.md

windmill AGENTS.md

mainbranch AGENTS.md

basic-memory CLAUDE.md

wet-mcp AGENTS.md