oikos/docs/adr/0012-hermes-oikos-interactions.md

ADR 0012 — Hermes/Oikos interaction architecture

Status: Accepted Date: 2026-07-08

Context

Hermes (the AI agent) is the primary operator interface for the hubris homelab. It communicates with Oikos via the MCP protocol. The MCP tools map to the OODA loop phases (Observe, Orient, Decide, Act). A thin client model distributes agent context via API deltas instead of git clones.

Decision

Hermes interacts with Oikos through three surface layers: MCP tools (agent-facing), REST API endpoints (operator-facing and agent-facing), and the SSH actuator (internal). All read paths go through the Postgres DB as the single source of truth. All writes go through the API with audit logging and policy classification.

Hermes → Oikos interaction flow

sequenceDiagram
    participant H as Hermes (AI Agent)
    participant MCP as MCP Server (:8090/mcp)
    participant API as REST API (:8090/api/v1)
    participant DB as Postgres (TimescaleDB)
    participant Act as Actuator
    participant PVE as Proxmox Hosts
    participant Matrix as Matrix Notifier

    Note over H,Matrix: ── OODA: Observe ──

    H->>MCP: get_entity("service:caddy")
    MCP->>DB: SELECT * FROM entities WHERE slug=$1
    DB-->>MCP: {slug, type, state, health, attrs}
    MCP-->>H: entity record

    H->>MCP: get_state_snapshot()
    MCP->>DB: SELECT e.slug, st.health, st.disk_usage_pct FROM entities e LEFT JOIN entity_status st
    DB-->>MCP: [{slug, health, disk_pct, drift_count}, ...]
    MCP-->>H: fleet health snapshot

    H->>MCP: search_knowledge("jellyfin hardware acceleration")
    MCP->>DB: SELECT ... WHERE search @@ to_tsquery('jellyfin & hardware & acceleration')
    DB-->>MCP: [documents, runbooks]
    MCP-->>H: ranked FTS results

    H->>MCP: get_blast_radius("service:caddy")
    MCP->>DB: SELECT blast_radius($1, 3) -- recursive CTE
    DB-->>MCP: [{entity, depth}, ...]
    MCP-->>H: what breaks if caddy goes down

    Note over H,Matrix: ── OODA: Orient ──

    H->>MCP: explain("lxc:jellyfin")
    MCP->>DB: SELECT e.*, st.health, st.last_check FROM entities e LEFT JOIN entity_status st
    MCP->>DB: SELECT r.type, se.slug, te.slug FROM relationships r WHERE ...
    DB-->>MCP: compact context card
    MCP-->>H: {type, state, health, relations, version, updated_at}

    H->>MCP: preflight("lxc:jellyfin", "restart")
    MCP->>DB: SELECT risk_class, approval FROM classification_for($1, $2)
    DB-->>MCP: {risk_class: "reversible_low", approval: "auto-act"}
    MCP-->>H: safe to auto-act

    H->>MCP: preflight("lxc:jellyfin", "deploy")
    MCP->>DB: ...
    DB-->>MCP: {risk_class: "config_mutation", approval: "operator-approval"}
    MCP-->>H: needs operator approval

    Note over H,Matrix: ── OODA: Decide ──

    alt reversible_low (auto-act)
        H->>MCP: request_execution("lxc:caddy", "restart")
        MCP->>API: POST /executions {action:"restart", target:"lxc:caddy"}
        API->>DB: INSERT executions (auto_approved)
        API->>Act: queue execution
        Act->>PVE: ssh systemctl restart caddy
        Act->>DB: UPDATE execution status→completed
        MCP-->>H: execution {status: completed}
    else config_mutation (escalate)
        H->>MCP: request_execution("lxc:jellyfin", "deploy")
        MCP->>API: POST /executions
        API->>DB: INSERT executions (proposed, needs approval)
        API->>Matrix: send approval request via notifier
        Matrix->>Operator: "Approve deploy lxc:jellyfin? ✅/❌"
        Operator->>Matrix: ✅
        Matrix->>API: POST /approvals/{id}/approve
        API->>DB: UPDATE execution status→approved
        API->>Act: queue execution
        Act->>PVE: run deploy procedure
        MCP-->>H: execution {status: completed}
    end

    Note over H,Matrix: ── OODA: Act (mutation gated) ──

    H->>MCP: tail_log("caddy", lines=200)
    MCP->>PVE: ssh journalctl -u caddy -n 200
    PVE-->>MCP: log lines
    MCP-->>H: caddy logs

    H->>MCP: get_service_status("caddy")
    MCP->>PVE: ssh systemctl show caddy
    PVE-->>MCP: {ActiveState, SubState, ...}
    MCP-->>H: service status

    H->>MCP: list_lxcs()
    MCP->>DB: SELECT * FROM entity_status WHERE type='lxc'
    DB-->>MCP: [lxc:caddy, lxc:jellyfin, ...]
    MCP-->>H: all LXCs with state

    H->>MCP: get_lxc_state("lxc:caddy")
    MCP->>PVE: ssh pct status {vmid} --verbose
    PVE-->>MCP: RAM, CPU, disk, uptime
    MCP-->>H: LXC resource state

Thin client bootstrap flow

sequenceDiagram
    participant New as New Client (bare machine)
    participant Gitea as Gitea (raw URL)
    participant API as Oikos API
    participant DB as Postgres

    New->>Gitea: curl bootstrap.sh
    Gitea-->>New: bootstrap.sh

    New->>Gitea: fetch CLIENTS.md, AGENTS.md, OIKOS.md, tools/
    Gitea-->>New: agent orientation files

    New->>API: POST /clients/enroll {slug, hostname, mesh_ip}
    API->>DB: validate state, mesh IP
    API->>API: generate age keypair
    API->>DB: store pubkey, transition→provisioning
    API-->>New: {age_private_key, age_public_key, infisical_identity}

    New->>New: write /etc/age/key.txt, /etc/infisical/identity
    New->>New: install context-poller (launchd/systemd, every 5min)

    loop Every 5 minutes
        New->>API: GET /clients/ws:{hostname}/context?since={timestamp}
        API->>DB: SELECT files changed since {timestamp}
        API-->>New: {agent_files_changed, sops_config_changed, tools_changed}
        New->>Gitea: fetch only changed files
    end

Internal Oikos component interactions

sequenceDiagram
    participant Sched as Scheduler
    participant API as API Server
    participant Notif as Notifier
    participant Act as Actuator
    participant DB as Postgres

    Note over Sched,DB: The OODA loop (internal)

    Sched->>DB: probe endpoints (HTTP, TCP, disk, cert-expiry)
    DB-->>Sched: results
    Sched->>DB: INSERT signals (dedup, flap suppression)
    Sched->>DB: UPDATE entity_status (health, disk, drift_count)

    Act->>DB: poll executions with status=auto_approved
    DB-->>Act: pending executions
    Act->>Act: circuit breaker check
    Act->>SSH: execute procedure
    Act->>DB: UPDATE execution status+result

    Notif->>DB: poll pending approvals
    DB-->>Notif: [approval requests]
    Notif->>Matrix: send approval messages

    API->>DB: INSERT audit_log (every mutation)
    API->>DB: NOTIFY oikos_events (SSE streaming)

Tool ownership matrix

Tool	Interface	Package	DB query	SSH
get_entity	MCP	internal/mcp/server.go	DIRECT	—
list_entities	MCP	internal/mcp/server.go	DIRECT	—
get_relations	MCP	internal/mcp/server.go	DIRECT	—
get_blast_radius	MCP + REST	both	CTE function	—
search_knowledge	MCP	internal/mcp/server.go	FTS query	—
get_health_summary	MCP	internal/mcp/server.go	DIRECT	—
whoami	MCP	internal/mcp/server.go	DIRECT	—
explain	MCP	internal/mcp/server.go	DIRECT + JOIN	—
preflight	MCP	internal/mcp/server.go	CASE expression	—
get_change_history	MCP	internal/mcp/server.go	audit_log query	—
get_state_snapshot	MCP	internal/mcp/server.go	DIRECT + JOIN	—
list_my_secrets	MCP	internal/mcp/server.go	attributes query	—
tail_log	MCP	internal/mcp/server.go	—	journalctl
get_service_status	MCP	internal/mcp/server.go	—	systemctl show
list_lxcs	MCP	internal/mcp/server.go	entity_status query	—
get_lxc_state	MCP	internal/mcp/server.go	relationship query	pct status
ping_service	MCP	internal/mcp/server.go	—	probe
request_execution	MCP	internal/mcp/server.go	executions INSERT	SSH via actuator
get_agent_activity	MCP	internal/mcp/server.go	agent_activity query	—
get_signal_history	MCP	internal/mcp/server.go	signals query	—
get_patterns	MCP	internal/mcp/server.go	patterns query	—
get_skills	MCP	internal/mcp/server.go	skills query	—
get_audit_trail	MCP	internal/mcp/server.go	audit_log query	—
get_trend	MCP	internal/mcp/server.go	metrics query	—
get_event_timeline	MCP	internal/mcp/server.go	events query	—
query_metrics	MCP	internal/mcp/server.go	metric_samples query	—
enroll	REST	internal/httpapi/impl.go	entities+audit+events	—
context	REST	internal/httpapi/impl.go	context_files query	—
secrets	REST	internal/httpapi/impl.go	secrets.Manager.List	—
provision	REST	internal/httpapi/impl.go	entities+steps+relations	SSH via actuator

Consequences

• Hermes is the primary operator interface. All operator actions flow through Hermes → MCP → Oikos. The old bin/homelab CLI is dead.
• MCP tools are read-only by design. Mutations go through request_execution, which is policy-gated and requires operator approval for config_mutation and destructive actions.
• The actuator holds the SSH key. Hermes has no direct SSH access. The security boundary is Hermes → MCP → API → execution queue → actuator → SSH.
• Thin clients poll for context deltas. No git clones on workstations. The 5-minute poll replaces git pull with HTTP queries to GET /clients/{slug}/context.
• The DB is the single source of truth. All state transitions, audit entries, and event emissions go through Postgres. The scheduler, actuator, notifier, and API all read/write the same tables.

---

2026-07-08 — renamed to Nomos. Nomos (from oikonomos, the steward of the oikos) under the Nomos resident agent plan,

Hermes MCP client setup

To connect a Hermes Agent instance to oikos as a native MCP client, add to ~/.hermes/config.yaml:

mcp_servers:
  oikos:
    url: "https://mcp.hubris.network/mcp"
    headers:
      Authorization: "Bearer <OIKOS_MCP_BEARER_TOKEN>"
    timeout: 180

Run /reload-mcp in-session or restart Hermes. Tools appear as mcp__oikos__*.

Caveat: Hermes stores the bearer token in plaintext in config.yaml — it does not support ${VAR} interpolation in MCP server headers. Ensure security.redact_secrets: true (default) so the token value is stripped from tool output and logs. File an upstream feature request at https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/issues for env-var interpolation support. N0 milestone. The gateway binary (cmd/nomos), Docker service, DB slug (agent:nomos), and all referencing docs were updated. All architectural principles in this ADR remain unchanged.