Maelstrom Gate

What Maelstrom Gate does

Maelstrom Gate is a Hermes plugin that its README calls an oppositional ship gate for Hermes skills and plugins. It is named after Moskstraumen, the Maelstrom off Lofoten. It adds a hermes maelstrom command with subcommands to check a skill, check a plugin, run both checks as a gate, run pytest and print the version.

It also gives the agent three tools: maelstrom_check_skill, maelstrom_check_plugin and maelstrom_run_pytest. Paths are treated as trusted operator input. The pytest run is time-boxed to 60 seconds and extra flags are allow-listed. The current version is 1.1.0, the only runtime dependency is PyYAML, and the README notes that installing the plugin does not enable it. The repository topics include lint and quality-gate, and the description says it came from an SMF Lofoten sprint on 2026-08-12.

Key features

• hermes maelstrom skill and plugin commands that check a package path
• hermes maelstrom gate that checks a whole package
• hermes maelstrom pytest with a 60 second time box and allow-listed flags
• Agent tools maelstrom_check_skill, maelstrom_check_plugin and maelstrom_run_pytest
• PyYAML as the only runtime dependency

When to use it

• Check a new Hermes skill before publishing it
• Run a quality gate over a plugin package during development
• Let an agent run bounded pytest checks on a package it is building

Who it is for: Authors of Hermes skills and plugins who want a lint-style check before they ship.

How it fits with Hermes Agent

It is a Hermes plugin, installed with hermes plugins install and enabled separately, that targets other Hermes skills and plugins.

How to install Maelstrom Gate

These commands are copied from the project's README. Check the repository for the latest steps before you run them.

hermes plugins install smfworks/hermes-plugin-maelstrom-gate
hermes plugins enable maelstrom-gate

Requirements: PyYAML as the runtime dependency

FAQ