# NousResearch/hermes-agent · Negative session retention days causes mass deletion

## Open now

- Nothing open on GitHub.

A bug where negative values for sessions.retention_days incorrectly cause all ended sessions to be deleted during auto-pruning. The members cover the bug report and related fix attempts addressing validation or correction of negative retention bounds.

## TL;DR

- 3 member(s): 0 open issue(s), 1 closed issue(s), 0 open PR(s), 1 merged PR(s), 1 PR(s) closed without merging.
- A fix was merged to main in PR #116735. Verify it addresses your case.
- **Recommended:** read PR #116735 (and any competing PRs below) before filing. Confirm the merged change covers your symptom.

## Maintainer resolution verdict

- Internal-tracker verdict over this cluster's issue members: `resolved` · deciding PR(s): `pr-116735`. This is distinct from the fix status above. Weigh it yourself.

## How this cluster was grouped

- Link evidence (`STRUCTURAL_SPANNING`): every member is connected by structural evidence: shared changed files, or a closing/superseded reference.
- Pairwise link density `0.67`: the share of member pairs that carry a link, counting a structural link in full and a relevance-only link at 0.36. `1.00` means every pair is linked.

## Closed / duplicate issues

- #116361: \[Bug\]: Negative sessions.retention_days turns the auto-prune cutoff into mass deletion of ended sessions

## Prior & competing PRs

- **#116735: fix(state): negative sessions.retention_days no longer deletes every ended session (#116361, salvage #116362)**. merged to main · fix tier `verified`
  - maintainer direction: category `merged`
  - files: `hermes_state_gateway.py`, `hermes_state_maintenance.py`, `tests/hermes_cli/test_session_vacuum_config.py`, `tests/hermes_state/test_hermes_state.py`, `website/docs/user-guide/sessions.md`
- **#116362: fix(state): reject negative retention bounds in session prune paths**. closed without merge
  - maintainer direction: category `merged_via`; implication `superseded`; refs `77737667785d`, `#116735`, `#116361`, `#116362`

## Fix status

- Merged to main in PR #116735 (cited above). No release data is tracked. Verify downstream.
- Fix last verified (merged) `2026-09-20`.