# NousResearch/hermes-agent · Kanban worker silent failure on protocol violation

## Open now

- Nothing open on GitHub.

These items concern a scenario where a Kanban worker violates its protocol and is silently respawned in a loop, with no mechanism to surface or display the worker's own final output when the violation or crash occurs. The work focuses on exposing that last output to aid diagnosis.

## 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 #112618. Verify it addresses your case.
- **Recommended:** read PR #112618 (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-112618`. 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evidence (`STRUCTURAL_SPANNING`): every member is connected by structural evidence: shared changed files, or a closing/superseded reference.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

- #88603: \[Bug\]: A Kanban worker that cannot satisfy its protocol has no way to say so — silent protocol_violation and a respawn loop instead

## Prior & competing PRs

- **#112618: Kanban board shows the worker's own last output on protocol violations and crashes (#88603, #46593, salvage #88815)**. merged to main · fix tier `verified`
  - maintainer direction: category `merged`
  - files: `hermes_cli/kanban_db_dispatch.py`, `tests/hermes_cli/test_kanban_core_functionality.py`, `website/docs/user-guide/features/kanban.md`
- **#88815: fix(kanban): surface worker's own final text on protocol_violation**. closed without merge
  - maintainer direction: category `merged_via`; implication `superseded`; refs `2cfb655d52`, `#112618`

## Fix status

- Merged to main in PR #112618 (cited above). No release data is tracked. Verify downstream.
- Fix last verified (merged) `2026-09-16`.
- Subsystem: `cron`