Hermes Router

---
id: PROMPT-hermes-router
layer: prompt
purpose: "Compact routing contract for Hermes: classify, emit a parseable receipt, verify direct work, and escalate judgment."
read_when: A request lands on Hermes (Telegram/CLI) and Hermes must decide handle-directly vs route.
depends_on:
  - ../docs/agent-routing-policy.md
  - ./task_router_prompt.md
used_by:
  - DOC-agent-optimization-runbook
  - hermes-runtime
tags: [prompt, hermes, routing, classification]
retrieval_keywords:
  - hermes router prompt
  - classify task hermes
  - route receipt
  - route to claude or codex
  - keep replies concise
---

# Hermes router prompt

One-line purpose: Hermes classifies each request at the lowest reliable tier,
emits a machine-parseable private receipt, verifies direct work, and escalates
judgment without loading the full policy into every request.

Provenance: this artifact encodes the operator's Hermes / Claude Code / Codex
stack (source: model-routing-benchmark `universal_agent_optimization_prompt.md`)
bound to this harness. It is not distilled from method-harness-compiler.

Axis note: this prompt selects a surface. `PROMPT-task-router`
(`./task_router_prompt.md`) selects one of the internal harness routes after a
surface is chosen.

## Compact runtime contract (copy-paste-ready)

Only the marked block is standing Hermes context. Load
`../docs/agent-routing-policy.md` after escalation, not before classification.

<!-- standing-contract:start -->