Hermes ⇄ Forge consumption contract

Hermes is a consumer of Forge project state, not an owner of it. This skill defines how a Hermes session reads, cites, and writes back to a Forge project without ever becoming a second source of truth.

The boundary between what Forge owns and what Hermes owns is specified in the Forge repo at docs/reference/HERMES_INTEGRATION.md (repo-relative path — this skill is synced to .hermes/skills/hermes-forge/, so relative links would not resolve from the installed location).

When to use

• At the start of any Hermes session on a Forge repo (orientation).
• Before acting on a specific issue (issue recap).
• Whenever you need current project state — never reconstruct it from raw files.

Authority: orient / recap are the only state source