The Problem
Operators of Hermes need a quick visual reference to understand agent activity—sessions, tool calls, approvals, and skill usage—without building custom dashboards. Existing tooling provides raw logs but lacks a unified, read‑only UI that groups related events into journeys, crossings, and guideposts.
What This Does
hermes-labyrinth supplies a self‑contained dashboard plugin that normalizes Hermes state into six high‑level concepts (journeys, crossings, guideposts, skill atlas, cron gate, reports). The UI is deliberately minimal, rendering a top chrome, left rail, and several map panels as described in Hermes Labyrinth standalone.html.
Key implementation files:
dashboard/dist/index.js – bundled React entry point that drives the UI. dashboard/dist/labyrinth.css – stylesheet for the minimal visual layer. dashboard/pluginapi.py – Python bridge exposing Hermes data to the front‑end via the plugin API. theme/hermes-labyrinth.yaml – theme scaffold copied into ~/.hermes/dashboard-themes/ to register the plugin.
Documentation in docs/ (CONCEPT, DESIGNBRIEF, FUNCTIONALSPEC) spells out the data model and UI interactions, confirming the plugin is read‑only and applies secret redaction before rendering reports.
How To Use It
Setup – The plugin is discovered automatically when placed under the Hermes plugins/ directory. No build step is required because the JavaScript bundle is pre‑compiled.
Clone the repo (or copy the plugin folder) into your Hermes installation git clone https://github.com/yourorg/hermes-labyrinth.git cp -r hermes-labyrinth/plugins/hermes-labyrinth $HERMESROOT/plugins/
Configuration – Install the theme definition so Hermes can load the UI assets:
mkdir -p ~/.hermes/dashboard-themes cp plugins/hermes-labyrinth/theme/hermes-labyrinth.yaml ~/.hermes/dashboard-themes/
Running – Restart the Hermes dashboard service or trigger a plugin rescan:
Restart the dashboard process, then
curl http://127.0.0.1:9119/api/dashboard/plugins/rescan
Open the Hermes dashboard UI, select the Labyrinth tab, and the read‑only view will appear. No further environment variables or command‑line flags are required.
Real‑World Use
A data‑ops team monitors nightly batch jobs orchestrated by Hermes. By installing hermes-labyrinth, they can open the dashboard, click the cron gate panel, and instantly see which scheduled runs succeeded, which triggered tool calls, and any redacted secrets in the generated Markdown report. The UI surfaces the same information that would otherwise require digging through log files or API calls.
Code Health & Issues
Medium – Missing CI/CD – No .github/workflows, Makefile, or other automation; builds and tests are manual. (dashboard/dist/index.js is pre‑bundled, but changes lack verification pipeline.) Medium – No LICENSE – Repository lacks a license file, leaving usage and redistribution rights ambiguous. (root/README.md provides no licensing terms.) Low – Minimal test coverage – Only one test file is present, offering limited assurance of functional correctness. (tests/ not listed, but a single test file was detected.) Low – Documentation gaps – README explains installation but does not detail version compatibility with Hermes or required Python dependencies for pluginapi.py. Low – Hard‑coded paths – The theme install script assumes a Unix home directory (~/.hermes/dashboard-themes); Windows users must adapt manually.
No obvious security vulnerabilities are visible in the static assets, but the lack of input validation in pluginapi.py cannot be confirmed without reviewing its content.
The Bottom Line
hermes-labyrinth delivers a ready‑to‑use, read‑only dashboard for visualizing Hermes agent activity with minimal UI overhead. It is suitable for teams that need quick insight without developing custom tooling, provided they accept the current lack of CI automation, testing depth, and explicit licensing. Immediate adoption is feasible for internal use; external distribution should await a proper license and basic CI setup.