secret-drop

Give Hermes a password or token without putting it in the chat or showing it to the model.

This is a standalone Hermes plugin. It is not part of the Hermes core tree. Install the repository root into ~/.hermes/plugins/. That is the distribution path described in CONTRIBUTING.md and Build a Hermes Plugin.

What it does

Hermes Desktop shows a key button beside the composer and a command-palette entry, Give Hermes a secret. The masked field sends the value once, over the gateway connection you already use (local backend, remote gateway, or SSH tunnel), to this plugin's API at /api/plugins/secret-drop/drop.

On that gateway host the plugin:

1. opens a new owner-only file under secret-drops/,
2. writes the secret and reads those same bytes back,
3. saves them in the profile .env (mode 0600) under the name you chose, and checks the read-back,
4. deletes the file.

The response does not contain the value. Nothing is written into the transcript unless you leave Tell Hermes the variable name checked. That message names the variable only, for example $DEPLOY_PASSWORD. If storing succeeds and the follow-up message fails, the dialog says the secret is stored.

When the dashboard is serving more than one profile, the desktop profile query selects which profile receives the value. A request for another profile does not write the launch profile's .env.

Custom names are added to the raw terminal.env_passthrough list, so later sandboxed commands can expand $NAME. That write does not save the defaults-merged config, so ${...} templates already in config.yaml stay templates. Provider and platform credentials such as OPENAI_API_KEY or GITHUB_TOKEN are stored but not forwarded.

If a command prints the raw value, tool output replaces it with «redacted-vault-secret» only when the value is specific enough to redact: at least 8 characters and containing a digit or symbol, or at least 24 characters. A short value or a plain word such as password is stored, and is not used as a global search-and-replace. Hermes keeps at most 64 of these exact values in memory per profile; this plugin records the variable names in secret-drop-names and registers the values again on session start. A command that encodes the value first is not covered by that exact-match redaction.

The same guidance is added to the session prompt when Hermes supports plugin prompt sections. The bundled skill secret-drop:secret-drop is listed by skills_list and is not copied into ~/.hermes/skills/.

/secret in a local terminal asks for the name, then reads the value from a hidden prompt. On Telegram, Discord, and the other messaging platforms, /secret stores nothing and does not repeat the argument. Chat is the wrong place for a password.

Security model — what this does and does not guarantee

This plugin solves one specific problem: it keeps a secret out of the chat transcript, the model prompt, and prompt caches. It is not a sandbox that hides the value from the model.

What it guarantees:

• The value never enters the chat or the model context. The model only ever sees the variable name ($DEPLOY_PASSWORD), never the value.
• The value is stored in the profile .env with owner-only permissions (mode 0600), and the temporary drop file is deleted after storing.
• Tool output that prints the raw value is redacted («redacted-vault-secret») when the value is specific enough to match.

What it does NOT guarantee:

• The model has tools (terminal, file reads) and can read the value if it wants to — for example cat ~/.hermes/.env or echo $DEPLOY_PASSWORD. Redaction is exact-match only: a command that encodes the value first (base64, hex, character-by-character) is not covered.
• This is a convenience and a default-safety layer against accidental leaks, not a security boundary against a malicious or compromised model.

Rule of thumb: trust this plugin to keep secrets out of prompts and transcripts. Do not trust it as a security boundary against a model that deliberately tries to read the value — for that you need real secret isolation (for example secrets held in a separate process the model cannot reach).

Limits

The value must be non-empty ASCII, at most 8192 characters, and must not contain a line break or a NUL. Names have to be normal environment variable names. Hermes refuses names that steer a subprocess (PATH, LD_PRELOAD, PYTHONPATH, and the rest of that denylist).

Layout

plugin.yaml sits at the repository root. Hermes then records the allow-list entry as the manifest name secret-drop. That is the same string as the dashboard manifest and the desktop plugin id, and it is the path segment in POST /api/plugins/secret-drop/drop.

A plugin.yaml nested in a subdirectory is recorded as a path key (hermes-secret-drop/hermes-secret-drop/plugin). The dashboard gate compares the request path to plugins.enabled and does not accept that path key, so the call returns 404 Plugin not found.

hermes-secret-drop/
├── plugin.yaml                 # name: secret-drop
├── __init__.py                 # /secret, session-start redaction reload, session prompt
├── secret_drop.py              # file drop, .env store, wipe
├── skills/secret-drop/SKILL.md
├── dashboard/
│   ├── manifest.json           # name: secret-drop
│   └── plugin_api.py           # POST /api/plugins/secret-drop/drop
└── desktop/
    └── plugin.js               # id: secret-drop

The agent half follows plugins.enabled and needs a gateway restart so the route is mounted. The desktop half stays off until its own switch is on.

Install

Install the repository root, not a subdirectory.

hermes plugins install Goitonthefloor/hermes-secret-drop
hermes plugins enable secret-drop

hermes://plugin/install?repo=Goitonthefloor/hermes-secret-drop

plugins.enabled must contain secret-drop. Remove a path key such as hermes-secret-drop/hermes-secret-drop/plugin, and delete a leftover checkout under ~/.hermes/plugins/hermes-secret-drop/ that still has plugin/plugin.yaml inside it. Restart the gateway after enabling.

In Hermes Desktop, turn on Secret drop under Capabilities → Plugins. The key sits in the composer, to the left of the model pill.

A catalog entry is a separate reviewed pull request in NousResearch/hermes-agent plugin-catalog/, pinned to an exact commit of this repo. Do not add this plugin to the Hermes core tree.

Tests

From this directory, with the Hermes checkout importable:

PYTHONPATH=/path/to/hermes-agent python -m pytest tests/test_drop.py