---
name: hermes-profile-maintenance
description: "Maintain and optimize Hermes profiles — cleanup unused skills, audit configuration, and streamline profiles for specific use cases."
version: 1.0.0
author: Hermes Agent
license: MIT
platforms: [linux, macos]
metadata:
  hermes:
    tags: [hermes, profiles, maintenance, cleanup, optimization]
    related_skills: [hermes-agent]
---

# Hermes Profile Maintenance

Maintain and optimize Hermes profiles. Covers cleaning up unused skills, auditing profile configuration, and streamlining profiles for specific use cases (e.g., Open WebUI-only profiles).

## Quick Reference

- **Curator** only touches agent-created skills (`created_by: "agent"`). Bundled and hub-installed skills are off-limits.
- **Bundled placeholder skills** (only a `DESCRIPTION.md`, no `SKILL.md`) are safe to remove at the filesystem level.
- **Always take a curator backup** before removing skills: `hermes curator backup`
- **Stale caches** (`.usage.json`, `.bundled_manifest`) regenerate automatically after removal.

## Identifying Safe-to-Remove Skills

### Step 1: List all skills in the profile

```bash
ls -1 ~/.hermes/profiles/<profile>/skills/ | grep -v '^\.'
```

### Step 2: Check which have real content vs placeholders

A skill with real content has a `SKILL.md` file. A placeholder only has a `DESCRIPTION.md`:

```bash
for s in $(ls -1 ~/.hermes/profiles/<profile>/skills/ | grep -v '^\.'); do
  if [ -f ~/.hermes/profiles/<profile>/skills/$s/SKILL.md ]; then
    echo "REAL: $s"
  else
    echo "PLACEHOLDER: $s"
  fi
done
```

### Step 3: Check usage data

```bash
cat ~/.hermes/profiles/<profile>/skills/.usage.json | python3 -m json.tool | grep -E '"name"|"last_used_at"|"use_count"'
```

Skills with `use_count: 0` and no `last_used_at` are candidates for removal.

### Step 4: Verify sub-skills

Some umbrella skills contain real sub-skills even if the parent is a placeholder. Check:

```bash
find ~/.hermes/profiles/<profile>/skills/<skill-name> -name "SKILL.md"
```

If sub-directories contain `SKILL.md` files, the umbrella should be kept.

## Removing Bundled Placeholder Skills

When the curator won't touch bundled skills and `hermes skills uninstall` only works for hub-installed skills, remove placeholder-only bundled skills at the filesystem level:

```bash
# 1. Take a backup
hermes curator backup

# 2. Remove placeholder skills (verify each is DESCRIPTION.md only first)
cd ~/.hermes/profiles/<profile>/skills
rm -rf apple smart-home social-media  # etc.

# 3. Verify remaining skills
ls -1 | grep -v '^\.'
```

### Pitfalls

- **Don't remove umbrellas with real sub-skills.** Check for `SKILL.md` in subdirectories before removing the parent.
- **Don't remove skills with `created_by: "agent"` provenance via filesystem.** Use `hermes curator archive` for those — it logs the action and makes recovery possible.
- **The `.bundled_manifest` and `.usage.json` become stale** after filesystem removal. These are auto-regenerated caches — no manual cleanup needed.
- **Future `hermes update` may re-seed bundled placeholders.** If they come back, they're still harmless (no SKILL.md = no prompt injection).
- **The curator's `.curator_state` may point to the wrong profile's logs** if the profile was cloned. Check `last_report_path` in `.curator_state` — if it references another profile's log directory, the curator has never actually run against this profile.

## Support Files

- `references/placeholder-skill-removal-example.md` — Session example: identifying and removing 9 placeholder skills from the open1 profile.