Hermes — read-only messenger (parked until need surfaces).

Headline. Hermes is written down as a parked slot. It is not running. The badge is parked / not now — not completed, not in progress as if a courier is live. Need has not surfaced.

What the agent just did

You video-reviewed at about 08:04–08:06 London on 27 August 2026 (7702683601904020641.mp4). You asked for a Hermes design to be recorded so it can be done later. Too soon to put it in the process now.

That is all this hour did. The design sits here as a parked object. Hermes was not created. No Telegram was sent. No bot, webhook, credential, or connector was built.

What it is. A later-hour, read-only messenger on the Linux machine. Research, interpret, and courier. Telegram is the outbound channel if — and only if — a named gate is later met. Other agents may emit events; Hermes may read those events and the supporting files, and draft a message. It does not act on them.

Hard constraints. Read-only on the Linux machine. No file writes. No contract edits. No publish. No maintenance. One writer remains: the founder agent, under the contracts already live. This hour does not start Hermes. Open asks stay on the inbox.

The future gate — all of it, and only in a later hour. A small set of asks, not the whole 1…N list, that would 2× / 5× / 10× the next turn if answered now. Those asks already sit near the top of Open asks because they are towards the cut (e7a1c4d2). Hermes does not invent a new priority order. The window is working hours, near the end of a turn or a named deadline. Not overnight. Overnight pages stay overnight (c0cbf4d7). Hermes does not fire on the night cadence.

Message shape, later. Short. Numbered against the live Open asks (regarding 1…). A copy-pasteable reply block for you. On reply, the founder agent — not Hermes — pulls the answer back into the inbox and the dated pages.

What it is not. Not a second founder agent. Not a path. Not P. Not the customer cut. Not an Evidence page. Not a way to skip the inbox.

This card is on Slot Work because it is a mechanism slot: how the system may later operate. It is Open with a parked / not now badge because the decision object is still live. Open here does not mean Hermes is running. It is not completed — the night and the slot did not “finish Hermes.” It is not superseded.

The matching rule page sits under Contract.

P is empty and honest. No named customer. No accepted market path. p-evidence.md is still empty. p-missing.md is still the question you confirmed. market-paths.md still starts No path named yet.

UUID 63e813ea-f3ae-4cb3-9090-2025599c7854 stays parked: the customer cut is a milestone / north star, not installed, not released, not P.

The slot is quoted unchanged:

Hold the 24-hour founder loop with Founder View and Agent View as peer surfaces. Use the hours for market-path compounding. Do not invent a customer. Do not unpark the customer cut.

Layer: Peer toggle: Founder View ↔ Agent View.

This hour is 9f3c8a21 Hermes parked, not started, not recon. It does not steal 08:55.

Why this was necessary

The problem this hour removes: a design you asked to keep, with no honest place to keep it. Written into the live process it would look like a second writer. Left only in chat it would vanish. A parked Slot Work card is the record. It is not a start.

P is company position toward the $2.5–5bn goal. The empty file exists so the score cannot be faked. The p-missing question is the blocking question you confirmed is correct. Empty is honest, not finished. Market-path research remains the current priority mechanism. Recording a parked courier is not a path and not a customer. P did not move.

A layer is a named piece of the job that can come off once a close has evidence it can run without you. Today's layer stays Peer toggle: Founder View ↔ Agent View. This hour did not rename it.

A cut is a shortened next-job draft. The customer cut would make “name the first customer” the next job. You parked it until market paths have been identified and are converging. It stays parked.

This hour is still mechanism: record a parked courier. It is not a move of P. Milestone held; standing work is market-path compounding.

Systemic effect: you can open Slot Work and see Hermes as parked / not now — held, not live — and open the Contract page for the rule, without a second agent folder, without Telegram, and without a change to P.

Alternatives rejected

• Start Hermes this hour, or treat the recording as a launch. Need has not surfaced.
• Mark the card completed or superseded. The slot did not finish Hermes. It parked it.
• Put Hermes on Evidence, or write a path, or move P. It is none of those.
• Send Telegram, or build credentials, bots, or webhooks as a side-effect of writing the slot.
• Fire on the overnight cadence. Overnight pages stay overnight.
• Unpark or install the customer cut, rewrite the live slot, or name a new layer. You forbade that.
• Steal 08:55 as a second recon or a Hermes start. That check still asks only the direction question if you have not answered.

Pushback invited — decide or criticise

Working set, not exhaustive. The numbered asks sit on the Contract page and on Open asks. Reply there. This parked card is not a second inbox.

Current levers

Working set, not exhaustive.
1. Market-path compounding — standing work. Not P until you accept a path.
2. The parked customer cut — milestone / north star. Not the live job. Not installed.
3. The live slot — still the 24-hour loop with peer surfaces. Not rewritten this hour.
4. Hermes — parked / not now. Not started.

Watch / next decision

Next check 27 Aug 08:55. This hour is 9f3c8a21 Hermes parked, not started, not recon. That check still asks only: Given what the last hours produced, what direction do you want for the next block? if you have not answered. Dead link is a failed publish. Unauthenticated 401 is the login gate. 500 is failure.

Prior contracts still live: e7a1c4d2 destination-first inbox; b4e91c70 inbox; 7e2c91a4 strength sort on the recon map; c0cbf4d7 Overnight cadence; a9aec1fe date + slot time on cards; a36b2815 dates on cards and parked cut as milestone; 26e4abb6 hold is no invention, not no recon; 21b73208 header and recon map; 3ae9e308 status badges; 1ea6fbac peer toggle; c299d2bb status labels; 3f466b07 tabs; 8c85e909 click-success; dual-write; web-first; non-invention; 63e813ea customer cut parked.

Contract UUID 9f3c8a21-4d7e-4b16-a8c0-5e72f19d6b44 is live. Hermes is parked as a read-only Telegram courier. Not now. Not overnight. No write access. No path named. Cut stays parked. P unchanged.

Agent files

update-contract.md · this brief · status.md · Contract page · Slot Work · Open asks · Overview · p-evidence.md · p-missing.md · market-paths.md · this page