Investigation Summary

• After a Hermes sandbox has installed lazy packages, /sandbox/.hermes/lazy-packages contains pip-installed files with hard links (e.g. multidict/py.typed, multidict/_abc.py).
• The rebuild pre-backup audit rejects hard links, so nemohermes <sb> rebuild refuses to proceed without --force, and --force discards skills, sessions, and other state that could have been preserved.

Description

Failed to back up sandbox state.
Reason: Pre-backup audit rejected: symlinks, hard links, or special files found in state dirs: f	/sandbox/.hermes/lazy-packages/multidict/py.typed	; f	/sandbox/.hermes/lazy-packages/multidict/_abc.py ...
Failed: memories, lazy-packages, sessions, skills, plugins, cron, scripts, logs, skins, plans, workspace, profiles, cache, pairing, platforms, weixin
Aborting rebuild to prevent data loss.
Hint: use 'nemohermes <sb> rebuild --force' only if you accept losing state the incomplete backup could not preserve.

Expected: lazy-packages is regenerable runtime state, not user data. The audit should either exclude it (or dereference hard links inside it) so the remaining state directories back up normally, instead of failing the whole backup and forcing data loss.

Reproduction Steps

1. Onboard a Hermes sandbox; use it long enough for lazy packages to install (a few chat sessions did it here).
2. nemohermes <sb> rebuild --yes → backup audit failure above.
3. A freshly created sandbox (no lazy packages yet) backs up fine: "State backed up (16 directories, 5 files)".

Environment

• macOS 15 (Darwin 25.6.0), Apple Silicon (M2 Pro), Homebrew 6.0.21
• Docker via Colima (docker 29.2.1, linux/arm64 VM)
• NemoClaw v0.0.109 via the hosted installer (lkg), OpenShell 0.0.101 (Homebrew formula), Hermes Agent v0.19.0
• Same code path present on main at the time of filing

Debug Output

As above.

Checklist

• I confirmed this bug is reproducible
• I searched existing issues and this is not a duplicate