docs(gateway): document exact silence tokens (#46105)

website/docs/user-guide/features/cron.md

@@ -300,7 +300,7 @@ cron:
 
 ### Silent suppression
 
-If the agent's final response starts with `[SILENT]`, delivery is suppressed entirely. The output is still saved locally for audit (in `~/.hermes/cron/output/`), but no message is sent to the delivery target.
+If the agent's final response contains `[SILENT]`, delivery is suppressed entirely. The output is still saved locally for audit (in `~/.hermes/cron/output/`), but no message is sent to the delivery target.
 
 This is useful for monitoring jobs that should only report when something is wrong:
 
@@ -309,7 +309,7 @@ Check if nginx is running. If everything is healthy, respond with only [SILENT].
 Otherwise, report the issue.
 ```
 
-Failed jobs always deliver regardless of the `[SILENT]` marker — only successful runs can be silenced.
+Failed jobs always deliver regardless of the `[SILENT]` marker — only successful runs can be silenced. For quiet monitoring jobs, prompt the agent to reply with only `[SILENT]` when there is nothing to report.
 
 ## Script timeout
 

website/docs/user-guide/features/hooks.md

@@ -274,8 +274,8 @@ def _run_boot_agent(content: str) -> None:
             max_iterations=20,
         )
         result = agent.run_conversation(_build_prompt(content))
-        response = result.get("final_response", "")
-        if response and "[SILENT]" not in response:
+        response = (result.get("final_response", "") or "").strip()
+        if response.upper() not in {"[SILENT]", "SILENT", "NO_REPLY", "NO REPLY"}:
             logger.info("boot-md completed: %s", response[:200])
         else:
             logger.info("boot-md completed (nothing to report)")
@@ -323,7 +323,7 @@ Watch the logs:
 hermes logs --follow --level INFO | grep boot-md
 ```
 
-You should see `Running BOOT.md (N chars)` followed by either `boot-md completed: ...` (summary of what the agent did) or `boot-md completed (nothing to report)` when the agent replied `[SILENT]`.
+You should see `Running BOOT.md (N chars)` followed by either `boot-md completed: ...` (summary of what the agent did) or `boot-md completed (nothing to report)` when the agent replied with an exact silence token such as `[SILENT]`.
 
 Delete `~/.hermes/BOOT.md` to disable the checklist — the hook stays loaded but silently skips when the file isn't there.
 

website/docs/user-guide/messaging/index.md

@@ -106,6 +106,29 @@ flowchart TB
 
 Each platform adapter receives messages, routes them through a per-chat session store, and dispatches them to the AIAgent for processing. The gateway also runs the cron scheduler, ticking every 60 seconds to execute any due jobs.
 
+## Intentional Silence Tokens
+
+For group chats, hooks, and automation flows, Hermes supports explicit silence tokens. If the agent's final response is exactly one supported token, the gateway suppresses outbound delivery and sends nothing to the chat.
+
+Supported tokens:
+
+- `[SILENT]`
+- `SILENT`
+- `NO_REPLY`
+- `NO REPLY`
+
+Whitespace and case are normalized, but the whole final response must be the token. A sentence like "Use `[SILENT]` when nothing changed" is delivered normally.
+
+Silence is a delivery decision only. Hermes keeps the assistant silence turn in the session transcript, so the conversation still alternates normally:
+
+```text
+user: side-channel chatter
+assistant: [SILENT]   # stored, not delivered
+user: next message
+```
+
+Failed turns still surface as errors; Hermes does not hide failures just because the text resembles a silence token.
+
 ## Quick Setup
 
 The easiest way to configure messaging platforms is the interactive wizard: