Hermes Traffic Guardian

Hermes Traffic Guardian

This is a baseline specification skill. It intentionally does not ship a proxy or runtime implementation yet.

Vercel Skills Installation

Install with the Vercel Skills CLI for this harness:

npx skills add prompt-security/clawsec --skill hermes-traffic-guardian -a hermes-agent -y

Release Artifact Verification

For standalone installs, verify the signed release manifest before trusting SKILL.md, skill.json, or the archive. The skill.json file is the package metadata/SBOM source, and the release pipeline signs checksums.json with the ClawSec release key.

set -euo pipefail

SKILL_NAME="hermes-traffic-guardian"
VERSION="0.0.1-beta3"
REPO="prompt-security/clawsec"
TAG="${SKILL_NAME}-v${VERSION}"
BASE="https://github.com/${REPO}/releases/download/${TAG}"
ZIP_NAME="${SKILL_NAME}-v${VERSION}.zip"
TMP_DIR="$(mktemp -d)"
trap 'rm -rf "$TMP_DIR"' EXIT

RELEASE_PUBKEY_SHA256="711424e4535f84093fefb024cd1ca4ec87439e53907b305b79a631d5befba9c8"

curl -fsSL "$BASE/checksums.json" -o "$TMP_DIR/checksums.json"
curl -fsSL "$BASE/checksums.sig" -o "$TMP_DIR/checksums.sig"
curl -fsSL "$BASE/signing-public.pem" -o "$TMP_DIR/signing-public.pem"
curl -fsSL "$BASE/$ZIP_NAME" -o "$TMP_DIR/$ZIP_NAME"
curl -fsSL "$BASE/SKILL.md" -o "$TMP_DIR/SKILL.md"
curl -fsSL "$BASE/skill.json" -o "$TMP_DIR/skill.json"

ACTUAL_PUBKEY_SHA256="$(openssl pkey -pubin -in "$TMP_DIR/signing-public.pem" -outform DER | shasum -a 256 | awk '{print $1}')"
if [ "$ACTUAL_PUBKEY_SHA256" != "$RELEASE_PUBKEY_SHA256" ]; then
  echo "ERROR: signing-public.pem fingerprint mismatch" >&2
  exit 1
fi

openssl base64 -d -A -in "$TMP_DIR/checksums.sig" -out "$TMP_DIR/checksums.sig.bin"
openssl pkeyutl -verify -rawin -pubin \
  -inkey "$TMP_DIR/signing-public.pem" \
  -sigfile "$TMP_DIR/checksums.sig.bin" \
  -in "$TMP_DIR/checksums.json" >/dev/null

hash_file() {
  if command -v shasum >/dev/null 2>&1; then
    shasum -a 256 "$1" | awk '{print $1}'
  else
    sha256sum "$1" | awk '{print $1}'
  fi
}

verify_manifest_file() {
  asset="$1"
  path="$2"
  expected="$(jq -r --arg asset "$asset" '.files[$asset].sha256 // empty' "$TMP_DIR/checksums.json")"
  if [ -z "$expected" ]; then
    echo "ERROR: checksums.json missing $asset" >&2
    exit 1
  fi
  actual="$(hash_file "$path")"
  if [ "$actual" != "$expected" ]; then
    echo "ERROR: checksum mismatch for $asset" >&2
    exit 1
  fi
}

expected_archive="$(jq -r '.archive.sha256 // empty' "$TMP_DIR/checksums.json")"
if [ -z "$expected_archive" ]; then
  echo "ERROR: checksums.json missing archive.sha256" >&2
  exit 1
fi
actual_archive="$(hash_file "$TMP_DIR/$ZIP_NAME")"
if [ "$actual_archive" != "$expected_archive" ]; then
  echo "ERROR: archive checksum mismatch" >&2
  exit 1
fi

verify_manifest_file "SKILL.md" "$TMP_DIR/SKILL.md"
verify_manifest_file "skill.json" "$TMP_DIR/skill.json"

echo "Signed release manifest, archive, SKILL.md, and skill.json verified."

Only install or extract the archive after this verification succeeds.

Scope

Builders should use this skill as the Hermes landing zone for runtime traffic monitoring:

• operator-scoped HTTP proxy inspection
• optional HTTPS inspection with per-process CA trust
• outbound exfiltration detection
• inbound injection detection
• redacted local threat logs
• status export for hermes-attestation-guardian

Do not add proxy runtime ownership to hermes-attestation-guardian. That skill should attest this monitor's status and configuration, not run it.

Safety Contract

• Opt-in only.
• Detect-and-log by default.
• No automatic system CA installation.
• No global proxy environment changes.
• No blocking in the first implementation.
• Redact secrets before logs, summaries, or attestation-linked outputs.
• Keep all state under HERMES_TRAFFIC_GUARDIAN_HOME or $HERMES_HOME/security/traffic-guardian.

Builder Entry Points

Read SPEC.md before implementing. Use the placeholder folders as follows:

Required First Implementation Behavior

1. Validate config without starting the proxy. 2. Start monitor in foreground or explicit background mode. 3. Scope proxy environment variables to the target Hermes service or CLI process. 4. Inspect HTTP request/response text up to a bounded byte limit. 5. Support optional HTTPS MITM only when the operator supplies per-process trust configuration. 6. Emit JSONL findings with redacted snippets. 7. Export a small posture JSON file that hermes-attestation-guardian can include as a trust anchor or watched file.

Out of Scope for v0.0.1 Implementation

• automatic system trust-store mutation
• transparent network interception
• default blocking
• sending traffic to external services
• collecting full request/response bodies

Changelog

[0.0.1-beta3] - 2026-06-10

Changed

• Re-released skill package with updated marketplace grouping and signed release trust artifacts for Vercel-compatible skill installation.

[0.0.1-beta2] - 2026-05-13

Security

• Added explicit signed release artifact verification instructions for standalone installs, including checksums.json, checksums.sig, signing-public.pem, archive hash verification, and SKILL.md/skill.json checksum checks.

Changed

• Re-release skill payload metadata after excluding test-only files from release SBOMs and archives.

[0.0.1-beta1] - 2026-05-10

• Added baseline skill metadata, frontmatter, and implementation specification.
• Reserved folder structure for Hermes traffic-monitoring runtime code, posture export, and tests.
• Beta release notes: this release is a scaffold/spec baseline and does not yet ship active runtime proxy interception.
• Beta release notes: defaults remain non-invasive (no automatic traffic mutation or enforcement enabled by default).

Hermes Traffic Guardian

Baseline skill for Hermes runtime traffic monitoring.

This package is intentionally a spec scaffold. Builders should add the Hermes-specific monitor implementation here while preserving the safety contract in SKILL.md and SPEC.md.

Vercel Skills Installation

Install with the Vercel Skills CLI for this harness:

npx skills add prompt-security/clawsec --skill hermes-traffic-guardian -a hermes-agent -y

Intended Capability

• detect outbound secret exfiltration in Hermes HTTP/HTTPS traffic
• detect inbound command-injection and tool-abuse payloads
• write redacted local JSONL findings
• export monitor posture for hermes-attestation-guardian
• provide explicit start, stop, status, and log-query commands

Builder Notes

Keep runtime ownership in this skill. hermes-attestation-guardian should only attest this skill's state, config, and output fingerprints.

Hermes Traffic Guardian Specification

Goal

Provide Hermes with opt-in runtime traffic monitoring that observes Hermes HTTP/HTTPS traffic for exfiltration and injection signals and exports monitor posture for attestation.

Required Architecture

Implement three layers:

1. Detector core

• normalized finding schema
• pattern registry
• snippet redaction
• deduplication
• JSONL report writer

2. Hermes adapter

• lifecycle commands for start, stop, status, and threats
• process-scoped proxy environment guidance
• posture export compatible with hermes-attestation-guardian

3. Operator interface

• safe setup text
• explicit per-process proxy export commands
• CA fingerprint display when HTTPS inspection is enabled

Finding Schema

Findings must be JSON objects with these fields:

{
  "schema_version": "clawsec-traffic-finding/v1",
  "platform": "hermes",
  "direction": "outbound",
  "protocol": "http",
  "threat_type": "EXFIL",
  "pattern": "ai_api_key",
  "severity": "high",
  "source": "127.0.0.1",
  "dest": "api.example.com:443",
  "snippet": "[REDACTED]",
  "timestamp": "2026-04-26T00:00:00.000Z"
}

Posture Export Schema

The first implementation must write a small posture file for attestation:

{
  "schema_version": "clawsec-traffic-posture/v1",
  "platform": "hermes",
  "monitor_status": "running",
  "mode": "detect",
  "https_inspection": false,
  "ca_fingerprint_sha256": null,
  "config_sha256": "hex",
  "finding_log_sha256": "hex",
  "generated_at": "2026-04-26T00:00:00.000Z"
}

Minimum Detection Set

Outbound EXFIL:

• AI API keys
• AWS access key IDs
• private key PEM markers
• SSH key file paths
• sensitive Unix file paths
• dotenv and cloud credential paths

Inbound INJECTION:

• pipe-to-shell commands
• shell exec flags
• reverse shell command shapes
• destructive remove commands
• SSH authorized-key injection shapes

Safety Requirements

• Default mode is detect-and-log.
• Blocking mode must not exist in the first implementation.
• Snippets must be redacted before persistence.
• Maximum scan bytes must be configurable and bounded.
• CA trust must be per-process by default.
• System trust-store instructions must require explicit operator confirmation and must never run automatically.

Tests Required Before Release

• detector unit tests for each pattern
• redaction tests proving secrets are not persisted
• proxy fixture tests for HTTP request and response inspection
• no-false-positive tests for common benign traffic
• lifecycle tests for stale PID/state cleanup
• posture export schema and digest tests
• compatibility tests showing hermes-attestation-guardian can watch or hash the posture export