hermes-loop-engineering

Hermes Loop Engineering

Core Principle

Turn delivery failures into reusable governance improvements only after evidence, observation, and forward-testing support the change.

This is human-in-the-loop self-improvement, not automatic model training.

When To Use

Use this skill after an intake, evidence-boundary, acceptance-scope, or owner-boundary review surfaces a pattern that may recur.

Typical triggers:

• the same kind of UAT reopen appears again,
• an agent repeats an evidence overclaim,
• a verifier repeatedly accepts beyond scope,
• owner routing fails for the same reason,
• a candidate rule may need to become wording, a template field, or a hard gate,
• a trial observation needs a keep / revise / promote / drop decision.

Loop

1. Capture the delivery failure or disputed outcome.
2. State the evidence boundary.
3. Identify the smallest failed gate or missing evidence.
4. Decide whether the signal is one-off, repeated, or systemic.
5. Fill or reference a trial_observation.
6. Choose the smallest improvement:
   • keep as observation,
   • revise wording,
   • add or revise a template field,
   • add an example,
   • forward-test a candidate,
   • consider a hard gate.
7. Record false-positive, false-negative, and maintenance risks.
8. Return keep / revise / promote / drop.

Output Contract

verdict:
failure_signal:
evidence_boundary:
candidate_pattern:
reuse_scope:
not_reuse_scope:
observed_repetition:
agent_rationalization:
recommended_change:
forward_test_needed:
forward_test_result:
behavior_change_evidence:
promotion_level:
false_positive_risk:
maintenance_cost:
rollback_condition:
next_owner:
must_not_claim:

Verdict Vocabulary

Verdict	Use When
record_observation	The signal is useful but not yet reusable.
revise_wording	A light wording change can reduce a repeated mistake.
revise_template	A missing field or template shape causes repeated gaps.
add_example	A concrete scenario would teach the judgment better than a rule.
forward_test_candidate	The candidate looks useful but needs pressure testing.
promote_to_hard_gate_candidate	The pattern is repeated, high-risk, low-noise, and cheap to check.
drop_candidate	The candidate is too broad, noisy, stale, or misleading.