# NousResearch/hermes-agent · Drop empty assistant messages before provider call

## Open now

- 1 issue, 1 PR open on GitHub.
- #82924: Pre-call sanitizer can emit an empty assistant message, causing a non-retryable HTTP 400
- PR #83038: fix(agent): drop empty assistant messages after tool_call_id dedup

These issues and PRs address a bug where the pre-call sanitizer or deduplication logic can produce empty assistant messages, which then cause a non-retryable HTTP 400 error from the provider. The fixes involve filtering out such empty messages before they are sent.

## TL;DR

- 4 member(s): 1 open issue(s), 0 closed issue(s), 1 open PR(s), 0 merged PR(s), 2 PR(s) closed without merging.
- No fix has been merged to main; one or more PRs were attempted (see below).
- **Recommended:** review the prior/competing PR(s) below. A fix was attempted but not merged; your case may extend or revive that work.

## Maintainer resolution verdict

- Internal-tracker verdict over this cluster's issue members: `unresolved`. 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evidence (`STRUCTURAL_SPANNING`): every member is connected by structural evidence: shared changed files, or a closing/superseded reference.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 `0.50`: 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.

## Open related issues

- #82924: Pre-call sanitizer can emit an empty assistant message, causing a non-retryable HTTP 400

## Prior & competing PRs

- **#83038: fix(agent): drop empty assistant messages after tool_call_id dedup**. open
  - maintainer direction: category `silent_close`; implication `active`
  - files: `agent/agent_runtime_helpers.py`
- **#83245: fix(agent): drop empty assistant messages after tool_calls dedup (#82924)**. closed without merge
  - maintainer direction: category `duplicate_of`; implication `duplicate`; refs `#83038`
- **#83748: fix(agent): drop empty assistant messages before they reach the provider**. closed without merge
  - maintainer direction: category `duplicate_of`; implication `duplicate`; refs `#83038`

## Fix status

- No merged fix on record.
- Subsystem: `agent`