# NousResearch/hermes-agent · Inverted liveness checks causing false dead reports

## Open now

- Nothing open on GitHub.

A cluster of bugs and fixes around liveness/health checks that were incorrectly inverted or misapplied, causing running processes (cron gateway, stdio MCP children) to be falsely reported as dead or not running. Fixes address the probe logic and lock-based liveness detection.

## TL;DR

- 4 member(s): 0 open issue(s), 1 closed issue(s), 0 open PR(s), 2 merged PR(s), 1 PR(s) closed without merging.
- A fix was merged to main in PR #96214. Verify it addresses your case.
- **Recommended:** read PR #96214 (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: `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evidence (`STRUCTURAL_SPANNING`): every member is connected by structural evidence: shared changed files, or a closing/superseded reference.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.

## Closed / duplicate issues

- #94143: bug(cron): cronjob tool reports gateway_running: false from inside a running gateway (systemd user unit) — jobs DO fire

## Prior & competing PRs

- **#94339: fix(mcp): un-invert the stdio children liveness check**. merged to main · fix tier `verified`
  - maintainer direction: category `merged`
  - files: `tests/tools/test_mcp_stdio_children_dead.py`, `tools/mcp_tool.py`
- **#96214: fix(cron): trust the gateway runtime lock for builtin-ticker liveness (salvage #95947)**. merged to main · fix tier `verified`
  - maintainer direction: category `merged`
  - files: `contributors/emails/[redacted:email]`, `hermes_cli/cron.py`, `tests/cron/test_87033_cronjob_gateway_liveness.py`
- **#94155: fix(cron): stop the cronjob tool probing its own gateway as dead**. closed without merge
  - maintainer direction: category `superseded_by_pr`; implication `superseded`; refs `#96214`, `#95947`, `#13242`, `#94143`, `#94339`

## Fix status

- Merged to main in PR #96214 (cited above). No release data is tracked. Verify downstream.
- Fix last verified (merged) `2026-08-27`.