I Missed a More Popular Same-Name OSS, So I Renamed Mine to hermes-talaria

I renamed the OSS repository I maintain from oh-my-hermes to hermes-talaria, and while I was at it I also flipped the extension namespace prefix from omh- / omh_ to ht- / ht_. The work landed in Issue #43, PR #44, and PR #45.

The reason is simple. A same-name repository already existed, with a lot more stars behind it, and leaving mine as-is was just confusing to search for and to talk about.

Noticing the Prior Art

The trigger was realizing, after the fact, that rlaope/oh-my-hermes already existed under the same name with about 1.3k stars behind it. Its first commit dates to 2026-06-03, ahead of my first commit on 2026-07-15.

Honestly, the miss was on me: I skipped the GitHub duplicate check when I first picked the name. A same-name collision on its own is not immediately harmful, but with a clear star gap on the other side, whoever hears the name later has to ask which repository you meant. Sitting there as the runner-up under an identical name has no upside.

Picking hermes-talaria

For the new name I picked hermes-talaria. Talaria refers to the winged sandals that Hermes wears in Greek mythology. What this repository ships is a set of extensions that empower the Hermes Agent, so I wanted a name that describes not the body itself, but the gear you strap onto the body to add speed and mobility.

This time, I did not want to repeat the earlier mistake, so I checked GitHub for prior art. Looking at the GitHub repository search for hermes-talaria sorted by stars, there are a handful of same-name repositories, but none of them have accumulated a meaningful number of stars. Even the top hits sit at very low star counts, which is nowhere near the position where they might push mine off search results in the future.

For the namespace prefix I went with two letters: ht-. I did not want the hermes-talaria name itself to become a long prefix, and I wanted it short in the docs where it appears constantly.

What PR #44 and PR #45 Did

PR #44 swaps the old repository name for the new hermes-talaria inside README, AGENTS.md, and config/config.example.yaml. The GitHub rename itself is done in one click and old URLs auto-redirect, but the references inside the repository you rewire yourself.

PR #45 flips the extension namespace from omh- / omh_ to ht- / ht_. On top of renaming skill directories, it also updates frontmatter name fields, internal cross-references, commands, branch names, runtime paths, markers, and fixtures. The diff came out to 87 additions and 85 deletions, touching over 50 files. The PR body also declares the naming convention change: every skill, plugin, tool, hook, bundle, and scheduled task uses ht- / ht_ going forward.

This is a breaking namespace flip, but I am currently the only user of this OSS, so there is no need to keep compatibility aliases. Given that breaking changes are fine, I did not bother double-listing omh- alongside ht- and instead consolidated on the new prefix from the start.

For verification, on top of git diff --check, I confirmed that every skill directory matched its SKILL.md frontmatter name, and that the old prefix only survives inside migration notes (checked with grep). The existing unit tests, run with Python unittest, stayed green across two skills (ht-create-dependabot-cooldown-issue and ht-issue-loop) for 125 test cases total.

A Reference Checklist for Repository Renames

For the next time I run this play, here is the reference checklist I actually touched during the rename. GitHub’s redirect handles the outside; the inside of the repository you rewire by hand.

README.md headings, install snippets, and repository URLs
Mentions of the repository name inside AGENTS.md and CLAUDE.md
Repository URLs inside example configs like config/config.example.yaml
The local clone’s remote (git remote set-url origin git@github.com:codenote-net/hermes-talaria.git; see the git remote docs)
Paths inside CI workflow files that include the repository name
Checkout paths held by scheduled tasks and cron jobs
Screenshots and copyable commands inside the docs

I split the rename PR from the namespace-flip PR so that each PR had an independent review unit. Rolling both into one PR of over 100 files would have made review itself break down.

Summary

I later noticed my OSS name collided with rlaope/oh-my-hermes, which sits at a much higher star count. It was just confusing, so I renamed mine to hermes-talaria
To avoid stepping in the same hole, this time I checked GitHub search for the new name and confirmed that no prior art has accumulated a meaningful star count
I also flipped the extension namespace from omh- / omh_ to ht- / ht_. I am currently the only user, so a breaking change is fine
The rename PR (#44) and the namespace-flip PR (#45) were kept separate to keep review units independent

That’s all from renaming to hermes-talaria after missing a more popular same-name OSS, and flipping the namespace prefix on the same trip, from the Gemba.