| name | documentation-scope |
| version | 1.0.0 |
| category | devops |
| description | Multi-audience documentation scoping conventions for Hermes Cortex. Defines when and how to distinguish general (universal) content from deployment- specific content using scope banners and section tags. Keeps the public OSS repo usable by everyone while preserving Luke's personal deployment notes.
|
| author | Hermes Cortex |
| tags | ["docs","scope","multi-audience","conventions","hermes-cortex"] |
| related_skills | ["agent-contract","public-contribution"] |
Documentation Scope Conventions
When to Use
Load this skill when:
- Adding a new document or section to Hermes Cortex that mixes general guidance with deployment-specific details
- Reviewing existing docs for content that should be clearly scoped
- Adding agent handoff notes, cron job references, or deployment-specific schedules to the public repo
- A reader might misinterpret your deployment-specific setup as required or universal
- You encounter hardcoded agent names (Moses, Titus, Gisu, Joseph) in general documentation
Scope Convention
The Hermes Cortex repo serves two audiences:
- General developers — anyone who clones the repo for their own use
- Luke's deployment — the Moses-orchestrated multi-machine setup operating in KST (Seoul)
Banner pattern
Every multi-audience doc should start with a 🪪 Scope: blockquote:
> **🪪 Scope:** This document serves two audiences:
> - **General agents** — sections without a marker are universal.
> - **Luke's deployment (Moses server)** — sections marked with `⚡` are specific
> to Luke's multi-machine, multi-agent orchestration setup (Moses orchestrator,
> peer agents Titus/Gisu/Joseph, KST timezone, Telegram delivery). Treat these
> as examples you can adapt for your own setup.
>
> Everything unmarked is general guidance — apply it to any project using this repo.
Section tagging
Tag deployment-specific sections with a leading ⚡ in the heading:
## ⚡ Daily Priority Check-in (Luke's multi-agent setup)
## ⚡ Agent Handoffs (Luke's deployment — session-to-session notes)
## ⚡ 📨 Moses Inbox Remediation Processor
Inline generalization pattern
When a general skill or document hardcodes Luke-specific agent names, generalize the rule first, then add a blockquote example:
### 7.5 Operator Notification Protocol
When any Hermes Cortex agent receives a task from an upstream orchestrator
agent, it MUST notify its human operator before executing the task.
> **Example (Luke's deployment):** The Moses orchestrator delegates to peer
> agents Titus, Gisu, and Joseph. Each peer notifies Luke via Telegram before
> acting on Moses's task.
When to tag vs. when to generalize
| Situation | Action |
|---|
| The content is a user-facing workflow that only applies to Luke's machines | Tag the entire section with ⚡ |
| A general rule happens to reference Luke-specific agents | Generalize the rule, add Luke's setup as a blockquote example |
| A cron schedule with KST times | Tag with ⚡ (Luke's deployment — KST) |
| A skill that explicitly names Moses as the actor | Keep the skill name descriptive (e.g., inbox-remediation — the actor-neutral successor of the retired moses-inbox-remediation), tag ⚡ in docs referencing it |
| An agent handoff note about a specific fix/change | Tag the entry with ⚡ unless the fix is universally applicable (e.g., auto-remediation system) |
Pitfalls
- Creating docs without loading this skill first. If you are creating a new doc or updating an existing one for the public repo, load
documentation-scope via skill_view() BEFORE writing. Without it you will: (a) miss the scope banner, (b) use deployment-specific examples without a scope marker, (c) make the doc unusable by general developers. This happened 2026-07-23 when agent-architecture.md was created without loading this skill — had to retroactively add the banner and tag deployment sections.
- Over-tagging. Not everything in a deployment-specific section needs a
⚡ — tag the header, not every paragraph within.
- Under-tagging. If a section references KST, Telegram, specific agent names, or private repo paths without a scope marker, add one.
- Scope drift. When updating a tagged section, the new content stays under the same scope. Don't re-tag every edit.
- Leaking deployment details into general skills. The
agent-contract skill is a general Hermes Cortex contract — hardcoding Titus/Gisu/Joseph into it makes it unusable by outsiders. Always generalize rules, add examples in blockquotes.
- Dual-scope headers. Don't mix general and deployment-specific concepts in the same heading level. Structure subsections under a general parent if needed.
Verification checklist