nc://insight

Insight: select a term and get a short, cited definition from your own model. A Nodecode rewrite of BrokeSkill/Hermes-Insight by BrokeSkill.

The original is a Hermes Desktop panel: select any text, and a definition appears in a popup, streaming, with sources under it. The popup is Hermes's browser-side UI and this rewrite has no popup. What it keeps is what the panel asked its backend for: one stateless completion, in your own format template, with up to two sources cited by URL and nothing else sent.

The cell offers that as two surfaces:

Both reach the same function. Ask "what does idempotent mean?", or type /insight idempotent.

Get it

Tell the agent "add the insight cell", or run nodecode add nc://insight.

Set it up

The cell talks to any OpenAI-compatible endpoint you name — your own provider, a local server, a gateway. Two things are required, one is optional:

"insight": {
  "base_url": "https://api.example.com/v1",   // the cell POSTs <base_url>/chat/completions
  "model": "gpt-4.1-mini",
  "api_key_env": "OPENAI_API_KEY",           // or a file: "api_key_file": "~/.config/insight-key"
  "searxng_url": "http://localhost:8888",    // optional: what gives a definition its sources
  "template": "",                              // optional: your format template
  "search": true,
  "timeout": 120
}

The key is named, never written into the config: api_key_env holds the name of the environment variable that carries it (export it in the shell that starts Nodecode), and api_key_file a file only you can read. Set at most one; a local server may take neither. Without base_url and model the cell refuses at start and says which one is missing.

searxng_url is a SearXNG instance with format=json enabled. With one set, a definition searches it first and is written with two sources cited by URL. With none, nothing is fetched and the definition stands on the model's own knowledge.

Use it

The model calls the tool when the ask is a definition; people type the command. From eval, the same verb:

(insight:define "idempotent")            ; => the text, the sources, the model
(insight:run-slash "idempotent" nil)     ; => what /insight prints

(help :insight) is the model's manual for the verb, kept while the cell runs.

The format template

template is the whole system instruction, so the definition comes out in a shape you chose. It is the original panel's default unless you set one, and {term} in it is replaced by the term:

**{term}** - one-sentence definition.
Then, only when useful: 2-3 short "Examples" bullets and one "Also known as" line.

The built-in template also carries the original's writing rules — cite only the supplied URLs, never invent one, no filler, under ~180 words — and the tool accepts a per-call template so the model can ask for a different shape for one definition.

What is sent, and to whom

Only the term, your template and the two source titles and URLs go to the provider whose base_url you set, with the key it needs. Snippets and the rest of the source rows stay on this machine. When searxng_url is set, the term is the only thing sent to that instance. Nothing of the conversation travels, and nothing is remembered: every definition is one stateless request.

What the rewrite leaves out

The popup: selection watching, the streaming render, the provider and model pickers, and the per-result thumbnail fetched from each image host and inlined as a data URI. Those are Hermes Desktop's surfaces; the cell answers with text. Also left out: Hermes's own provider inventory and its web-search tool (the cell is pointed at one endpoint by base_url, and takes sources from SearXNG), the follow-up extraction round when the model answers with a tool call, and the provider-qualified model ids the plugin resolved against that inventory.

License

MIT. The backend, its format template and its citation rule are BrokeSkill's, rewritten in Common Lisp: see NOTICE and LICENSE.