A warning sign when Hermes agent suddenly becomes unstable
A workflow using with to partly automate a process worked well for about a week. There was some drift in the results, but it was manageable. Then the workflow became unstable: fixing one error revealed more errors, and steps that had worked repeatedly later failed in new ways.
The skill were edited several times because the problem first looked like an instruction-file issue. Later, the pattern looked more like a Gemini or quality problem than a problem. The same drop in usefulness appeared when using the Gemini chat window to troubleshoot.
Even a small task with 25 rows and 2 columns did not seem reliably handled, based on the available excerpt.
Key points
- with worked acceptably for about a week.
- The workflow later became unstable, with new errors appearing after fixes.
- Repeated skill.md edits can make it unclear what is actually broken.
- Check whether the model or the is causing the failure before rewriting instructions.
- Back up working skill and use small repeat tests before making broad changes.