Identify

• No extra runtime dependencies beyond Hermes Agent and the normal toolset for this session.

Procedure

1. Restate the target, the success condition, and any no-touch boundaries before taking action.
2. Restate boundaries: Name the target, the success condition, and any no-touch constraints before acting.
3. Inspect directly: Read the artifact's contents. Do not speculate before looking.
4. Infer from evidence: Determine purpose from structure, dependencies, naming conventions, and runtime touchpoints (ports, volumes, secrets, APIs, services).
5. Separate certainty levels: Classify findings as:
6. Confirmed (directly visible in the artifact)
7. Likely (strong inference from patterns/contexts)
8. Unknown (cannot be proven without runtime testing or external data)
9. Return structured output: Provide:
10. Package the result as the deliverables below, with confidence, assumptions, and unresolved risk called out explicitly.

Deliverables

• A plain-English explanation of the artifact.
• Inputs, outputs, dependencies, and side effects when known.
• A confidence-rated list of unknowns.

Pitfalls / Guardrails

• Keep the metaphor anchored to a real mechanism instead of drifting into lore.
• Never overstate certainty when runtime behavior cannot be validated statically.
• Prefer source-backed explanation over assumptions or lore.
• If the user asks you to modify the artifact after identifying it, complete the Identify workflow first, then switch to the appropriate editing spell.
• Do not use for: "Find where X is defined" → Use search/locate, not Identify
• Do not use for: "Why did this break?" or "Trace the root cause" → Use debugging/incident response
• Do not use for: "Watch this system for changes" → Use monitoring/observability
• Do not use for: "Compare these claims against the code" → Use verification/audit
• Do not use for: "Change/modify/update this" → Use editing/transformation spells

Verification

• Check that the result includes every deliverable promised above.
• Check that confirmed facts, assumptions, and inferences are visibly separated.
• Check that the metaphor still maps cleanly to a real operational mechanism.

Example Invocation

/identify Use $identify on this file, tool, or service and tell me what it does, what it touches, and what we still do not know