NousResearch/hermes-agent · error · RuntimeError

bws timed out after {_BWS_RUN_TIMEOUT}s fetching secrets

Error message

bws timed out after {_BWS_RUN_TIMEOUT}s fetching secrets

What it means

Error "bws timed out after {_BWS_RUN_TIMEOUT}s fetching secrets" thrown in NousResearch/hermes-agent.

Source

Thrown at agent/secret_sources/bitwarden.py:701

    # Region / self-hosted support.  bws defaults to https://vault.bitwarden.com
    # (US Cloud); EU Cloud users need https://vault.bitwarden.eu, and
    # self-hosted users need their own URL.  When unset, fall back to whatever
    # BWS_SERVER_URL the caller already had in their shell env (preserved by
    # the copy above) so manual overrides keep working too.
    if server_url:
        env["BWS_SERVER_URL"] = server_url

    try:
        proc = subprocess.run(  # noqa: S603 — bws path is trusted
            cmd,
            env=env,
            capture_output=True,
            text=True, encoding='utf-8', errors='replace',
            timeout=_BWS_RUN_TIMEOUT,
            stdin=subprocess.DEVNULL,
        )
    except subprocess.TimeoutExpired as exc:
        raise RuntimeError(
            f"bws timed out after {_BWS_RUN_TIMEOUT}s fetching secrets"
        ) from exc
    except OSError as exc:
        raise RuntimeError(f"failed to invoke bws: {exc}") from exc

    if proc.returncode != 0:
        # bws writes auth/network errors to stderr as a Rust error-report
        # dump (color-eyre): an "Error:" header, indented cause lines, then
        # "Location:" / "Backtrace omitted" noise.  Strip ANSI and boil it
        # down to the meaningful cause line(s) before surfacing.
        err = _summarize_bws_stderr(proc.stderr or proc.stdout or "")
        raise RuntimeError(
            f"bws exited {proc.returncode}: {err[:200]}"
        )

    raw = proc.stdout.strip()
    if not raw:
        return {}, ["bws returned no output (empty project?)"]

View on GitHub (pinned to c896c09c42)

Solutions

  1. Retry; the bws CLI timed out fetching secrets (network or Bitwarden service slowness).
  2. Reduce the number of secrets fetched per call.
  3. Check connectivity to Bitwarden from this host.

When it happens

Trigger: Thrown at agent/secret_sources/bitwarden.py:701 when the library encounters an invalid state.

Common situations: See trigger scenarios.

Understand the failure class

AI-assisted analysis of NousResearch/hermes-agent@c896c09c42 (2026-08-14). Data as JSON: /api/errors/525d6ce3f43f6659. Report an issue: GitHub.