Hermes Plugin Interface Gets a Community-Driven Expansion Roadmap
NOTE: X API v2 was fully paywalled today (HTTP 402 on all search and lookup queries). This roundup is sourced from GitHub activity -- merged PRs, tracking issues, and community contributions.
The biggest story on July 17 is a tracking issue, not a merged PR. @teknium1's Plugin Interface Expansion plan (issue #64182) distills weeks of community discussion from the #plugins-interface-ideas Discord thread into a concrete 4-phase roadmap. The goal: contributors with long-queued PRs can ship stable, publishable features as plugins instead of waiting on core merges.
The plan covers 26 sub-issues across 4 phases. Phase 0 covers the foundation -- API versioning, hook delivery parity, plugin lifecycle ownership, and a research spike on Pi and OpenCode plugin architectures. Phase 1 adds contracts and registries: manifest v2, an inter-plugin event bus, cache-safe context injection, a config and state bridge, and capability declarations with an install consent flow. Phase 2 ships higher-risk surfaces: streaming LLM output hooks and pluggable approval. Phase 3 covers ecosystem plumbing: plugin packs, a community plugin index, and developer tooling.
Every sub-issue carries a concrete design sketch, code citations against the current codebase, backward-compat analysis, and security notes. The ground rules are explicit: no breaking changes to existing plugin APIs, prompt caching stays sacred, observer-first design, and fail-closed on anything security-adjacent.
Community contributions
The plugin tracker landed alongside a wave of community code. @SHL0MS shipped an Unreal Engine MCP companion skill (#65989) -- 1,741 lines of new code across 6 files. It is the same catalog-entry/companion-skill split as the existing blender-mcp. Epic's editor-embedded MCP server (UE 5.8, experimental) gives an agent the wiring; the skill supplies the craft. A prompt like "make it golden hour and put a monument on the hill" turns into correct discovery calls and a verified screenshot.
@ethernet8023's desktop keybind settings PR (#65204) adds 1,078 additions across 47 files. Every icon-only button in the Electron desktop now shows a themed tooltip with keybind hints. The keyboard shortcuts panel moves from a Radix dialog into a settings tab with search. Worktree creation dialogs got unified into a single shared component.
Salvaged features
@teknium1 salvaged an attachments toolset for Kanban (#65698), originally proposed by @otsune in issue #36019. Kanban tasks can now carry file attachments via kanban_attach (base64) and kanban_attach_url (server-side fetch). The URL fetch path routes through the canonical SSRF guard. The PR adds 1,172 lines across 11 files.
@OutThisLife isolated heavy turns in the dashboard's compute host (#65895), salvaging @Kyzcreig's earlier work in #63096. GIL-heavy agent turns now run in a dedicated child process so they cannot stall unrelated WebSocket and REST requests. Dark by default with a dashboard.turn_isolation toggle.
@teknium1 also added inline choice pickers for /reasoning and /fast (#65799), matching the existing /model picker UX across Telegram (inline keyboard), Discord (select menu), and Matrix (reactions). 970 additions across 22 files. Platforms without picker support fall back to the text status card automatically.
Today's fresh merges
Three PRs merged on July 17 itself. Codex commentary streaming (#66115) surfaces Codex's phase="commentary" progress narration as visible mid-turn interim messages, with a display.show_commentary toggle. Browser snapshot truncation (#65923) stores full snapshots on truncation and makes the eval denylist opt-in. Cron execution audit history (#61791) adds durable execution audit records for cron jobs.
The morning post covered the reasoning-effort control surface (three PRs, 2,103 additions, 35 files). Everything else above is new signal from the past 48 hours. The plugin expansion tracker is the through-line -- a structural investment that changes where community features land: in plugins, not in the core merge queue.
[^1]: Teknium. "Plugin Interface Expansion -- Tracking Issue (#64182)" NousResearch/hermes-agent. July 14, 2026.
[^2]: SHL0MS. "feat(optional-skills): unreal-mcp (#65989)" NousResearch/hermes-agent. July 17, 2026.
[^3]: Ethernet8023. "feat(desktop): button tooltip keybind hints (#65204)" NousResearch/hermes-agent. July 16, 2026.
[^4]: Teknium. "feat(kanban): attachment toolset (#65698)" NousResearch/hermes-agent. July 16, 2026. Salvages #36019 by @otsune.
[^5]: OutThisLife. "feat(dashboard): isolate heavy turns in compute host (#65895)" NousResearch/hermes-agent. July 16, 2026. Salvages #63096 by @Kyzcreig.
[^6]: Teknium. "feat(gateway): inline choice pickers (#65799)" NousResearch/hermes-agent. July 16, 2026.
[^7]: Teknium. "feat(agent): stream Codex commentary (#66115)" NousResearch/hermes-agent. July 17, 2026.