quote-ask

Ask about a selection, the way Codex does it — for Hermes Desktop.

Select text anywhere in a conversation (a message, a code block, a diff, a log pane) and a small pill appears above the selection:

• 引用提问 / Quote & ask — the selection lands in the message composer as a Markdown quote, with the caret on the line below, ready for your question.
• 复制 / Copy — the same Markdown quote goes to the clipboard instead.

There is also a command-palette entry, Quote selection into the prompt, for when the pill is out of reach.

Install

Clone and drop the file into the app-level desktop plugin root:

git clone https://github.com/freefate258/quote-ask /tmp/quote-ask
mkdir -p "$HERMES_HOME/desktop-plugins/quote-ask"      # ~/.hermes/desktop-plugins/quote-ask
cp /tmp/quote-ask/desktop/plugin.js "$HERMES_HOME/desktop-plugins/quote-ask/plugin.js"

The app watches that directory and hot-loads the plugin within a few seconds — no restart, no build step. ⌘K → Reload desktop plugins forces a re-scan.

The plugin is Desktop-only: it declares no tools, no hooks, no Python code, so nothing is installed into the agent's Python environment.

What it does with your text

• Reads window.getSelection() when you finish a selection — the rectangle for placement, the text for the quote.
• Turns the selection into Markdown: headings stay blocks, <pre> becomes a fenced code block with its language, lists keep their nesting, strong/em become **/*, links keep their href. Selections longer than 4000 characters are cut at a line break.
• Writes the quote into the live composer through host.composer (getDraft/setDraft, falling back to insertText). An existing draft is kept and separated by a blank line. When no composer can take it, the quote goes to the clipboard and a notice says so.
• No network calls, no files written, no telemetry. Nothing is stored.

Verification

tests/ holds a DOM harness (vitest + jsdom) covering the whole path: selection → Markdown → draft, the existing-draft case, the copy action, the composer-interior guard, collapse-to-hide, and the clipboard fallback. It runs against a stubbed @hermes/plugin-sdk, so no app build is needed. Run it from a checkout that has vitest and jsdom (the Hermes source checkout does):

cd <hermes-agent-checkout>
rm -rf .quote-ask-test && mkdir .quote-ask-test
cp tests/* .quote-ask-test/
cp desktop/plugin.js .quote-ask-test/
cd .quote-ask-test && ../node_modules/.bin/vitest run

10 tests, all passing against the content of this repo.

Layout

plugin.yaml          manifest (Desktop entry: desktop/plugin.js)
desktop/plugin.js    the whole plugin — plain ESM, SDK imports only
tests/               jsdom harness + SDK stub

desktop/plugin.js is also the file that gets installed as $HERMES_HOME/desktop-plugins/quote-ask/plugin.js; keep the two copies in sync (or symlink the directory) when editing.