Cairn

Skill index size reduction and retrieval strategies

NousResearch/hermes-agent · cluster 2045 · agent

Data as of

13 open items. Fix attempted, not merged.

The short answer

9open issues
4open PRs
23items grouped
Known?
Yes. 23 related items grouped here, 1 issue already closed.
Fix event
No fix has been merged to main. 9 PRs closed without merging; see the attempts below.
Tracker
The maintainers' tracker marks this unresolved. That is separate from the fix event.
Still open
9 issues and 4 PRs.

These issues and PRs explore various approaches to reducing token overhead from skill listings in system prompts, including lazy loading, category-level indexing, semantic/FTS5 retrieval, skill graphs, and options to suppress skill injection entirely.

Open issues9

  • Issue#2045[Feature]: Lazy skill loading: remove skill listing from system prompt, use on-demand tool instead
  • Issue#17649Feature: Semantic Skill Retrieval with SQLite FTS5 — Replace 4500-token broadcast with on-demand search
  • Issue#22620Feature Request: Skill list bloat causes massive context window inflation — need vector-based skill routing or lazy loading
  • Issue#26786perf: two-level skill index in system prompt to reduce fixed token overhead
  • Issue#26806[Feature] Suppress <available_skills> system_prompt injection for scripted/oneshot use
  • Issue#34823Feature Request: Semantic / Per-Message Skill Retrieval
  • Issue#37227[Feature]: Category-Aware Smart Skill Indexing with Automatic Scenario Matching + Lazy Loading (fusing #3879's trigger keywords)
  • Issue#49967[Feature]: Skill Graph — optional dynamic skill discovery mode to reduce system prompt size
  • Issue#63153[Feature]: Add Dynamic Skill Retrieval System (Skill-RAG) for Hermes Agent

Open PRs4

  • PR#12379feat: Lazy skill loading — skills.loading config option
  • PR#13980Add skills.loading: lazy config option (#2045)
  • PR#50057feat(skill-graph): add bundled plugin, skill_graph_mode config, and companion skills
  • PR#64528Feat/hybrid skill retrieval

9 PRs closed without merging

From the close comments: won't fix / by design 2 · done elsewhere 1 · stale or abandoned 1 · superseded by another PR 1 · other 4

  • #2089 feat(skills): add lazy skill loading to reduce system prompt tokens · other
  • #2420 feat: docker_extra_args, message timestamps, and lazy skill loading · other → ebf2ea5, #23599
  • #18316 feat: semantic skill retrieval with FTS5 + hybrid selector + skill enforcement · done elsewhere
  • #26815 feat(agent): add --no-skills-index to suppress <available_skills> system-prompt block · stale or abandoned
  • #26842 perf(skills): list categories in system prompt · other → ee1a744, #72813
Show 4 more
  • #28929 fix(anthropic): default skills catalog to names-only to reduce prompt token usage · superseded by another PR → f64e4f4
  • #35345 feat(skills): add category-level skill index to reduce per-turn token overhead by 90% · other → ee1a744, #26842
  • #83314 feat(skills): add configurable skill index injection · won't fix / by design
  • #130118 feat: skill-rag plugin — dynamic skill retrieval via embeddings (implementation for #63153) · won't fix / by design
Closed issues · 1
  • Closed#28902OAuth Anthropic Max: <available_skills> system-prompt injection on every turn triggers "out of extra usage" 400 when skills/session_search toolsets are active
How this cluster was grouped
  • Link evidence (partly structural links): some members are connected by structural evidence (shared changed files, or a closing/superseded reference); the rest are joined by an automated relevance judgement over their text.
  • Members outside that structural core may belong to a different underlying problem.
  • Pairwise link density 0.07: the share of item 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.

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At a glance

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agent
Closed issues
1
Attempts
9 PRs closed without merging

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