hermes-agent✓ Pass

SKILL.md Content

---
name: hermes-agent
description: "Use, configure, theme, extend, and orchestrate Hermes Agent."
version: 3.1.0
author: Hermes Agent + Teknium
license: MIT
platforms: [linux, macos, windows]
metadata:
  hermes:
    tags: [hermes, setup, configuration, multi-agent, spawning, cli, gateway, themes, skins, desktop-plugins, tui-widgets, petdex, development]
    homepage: https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent
    related_skills: [claude-code, codex, opencode]
---

# Hermes Agent

Hermes Agent is an open-source AI agent framework by Nous Research that runs in your terminal, a native desktop app, messaging platforms, and IDEs. It's in the same category as Claude Code (Anthropic), Codex (OpenAI), and OpenClaw — autonomous coding and task-execution agents that use tool calling to interact with your system. Hermes works with any LLM provider (OpenRouter, Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, DeepSeek, xAI, local models, and 20+ others) and runs on Linux, macOS, Windows, and WSL.

What makes Hermes different:

- **Self-improving through skills** — Hermes learns from experience by saving reusable procedures as skills that load into future sessions.
- **Persistent memory across sessions** — remembers who you are, your preferences, environment details, and lessons learned. Pluggable memory backends.
- **Multi-platform gateway** — the same agent runs on Telegram, Discord, Slack, WhatsApp, iMessage, Signal, Matrix, Teams, Email, and a dozen more platforms with full tool access, not just chat.
- **Many surfaces** — the same agent core drives the CLI, the Ink TUI, a native Electron desktop app, a web dashboard, and an ACP server for IDEs (VS Code / Zed / JetBrains).
- **Provider-agnostic** — swap models and providers mid-workflow; credential pools rotate across multiple API keys automatically.
- **Profiles** — run multiple independent Hermes instances with isolated configs, sessions, skills, and memory.
- **Extensible & themeable** — plugins, MCP servers, custom tools, webhook triggers, cron scheduling, skins that theme every surface, desktop UI plugins, TUI widgets, and pet mascots.

**This skill is a hub.** The body covers identity, quick start, spawning/orchestration, and hard invariants. Everything else lives in reference files — **load the matching reference (below) before answering**; do not answer detail questions from the body alone.

**Docs:** https://hermes-agent.nousresearch.com/docs/

## Scope & Verification

This skill is a concise operating guide, not the complete source of truth for every Hermes feature. If a Hermes feature, command, or setting is not mentioned here or in a reference, do not treat that absence as evidence that it does not exist. Check the live repository and official docs before giving a negative answer.

Good verification targets:

- CLI commands: `hermes --help`, `hermes <command> --help`, and `hermes_cli/main.py`
- User documentation: https://hermes-agent.nousresearch.com/docs/
- Source tree: https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent

## Quick Start

```bash
# Install (shell installer — sets up uv, Python, the venv, and the launcher)
curl -fsSL https://hermes-agent.nousresearch.com/install.sh | bash

# Interactive chat (default surface; set display.interface: tui to launch the Ink TUI instead)
hermes

# Single query
hermes chat -q "What is the capital of France?"

# Setup wizard  /  pick model+provider  /  health check
hermes setup
hermes model
hermes doctor

# Other surfaces
hermes desktop                 # launch the native desktop app (alias: hermes gui)
hermes dashboard               # web admin panel + embedded chat
hermes proxy                   # OpenAI-compatible local proxy backed by your OAuth provider
```

## Key Paths

```
~/.hermes/config.yaml       Main configuration (settings — never secrets)
~/.hermes/.env              API keys and secrets ONLY (under $HERMES_HOME if set)
$HERMES_HOME/skills/        Installed skills
~/.hermes/skins/            Custom themes (see references/themes.md)
~/.hermes/desktop-plugins/  Desktop app UI plugins (see references/desktop-plugins.md)
~/.hermes/tui-widgets/      TUI widget apps (see references/tui-widgets.md)
~/.hermes/pets/             Installed pet mascots (see references/petdex.md)
~/.hermes/state.db          Canonical session store (SQLite + FTS5)
~/.hermes/sessions/         Gateway routing index, request dumps, *.jsonl transcripts
~/.hermes/logs/             Gateway and error logs
~/.hermes/auth.json         OAuth tokens and credential pools
~/.hermes/hermes-agent/     Source code (if git-installed)
```

Profiles use `~/.hermes/profiles/<name>/` with the same layout. When a profile is active, resolve the real home from `$HERMES_HOME` — never hardcode `~/.hermes`.

## Routing Table — load the reference for the task

| User wants... | Load |
|---|---|
| CLI commands, subcommands, flags, "how do I run X" | `references/cli-reference.md` |
| In-session slash commands | `references/slash-commands.md` |
| Provider setup, API keys, OAuth | `references/providers-and-models.md` |
| config.yaml sections, toolsets, voice/STT/TTS | `references/configuration.md` |
| AGENTS.md / .hermes.md / CLAUDE.md project rules | `references/project-context-files.md` |
| Secret redaction, PII, approval modes, "reset permissions" | `references/security-privacy.md` |
| Delegation, cron, curator, kanban | `references/background-systems.md` |
| MCP servers (add, catalog, `hermes mcp`) | `references/native-mcp.md` |
| Webhook routes and event-driven runs | `references/webhooks.md` |
| A custom theme/skin ("synthwave theme", "change the gold ●") | `references/themes.md` + `templates/skin.yaml` |
| A desktop app UI element (pane, widget, ⌘K command, page) | `references/desktop-plugins.md` + `templates/plugin.js` |
| A live TUI panel or modal widget (ticker, clock, dashboard) | `references/tui-widgets.md` + `templates/clock.mjs` |
| Pet mascots — install, select, scale, diagnose | `references/petdex.md` |
| Windows-specific issues (keybinds, WinError 10106, BOM) | `references/windows-quirks.md` |
| Debugging: voice, tools missing, gateway, aux models | `references/troubleshooting.md` |
| Contributing code: adding tools, slash commands, tests | `references/contributor-guide.md` |
| delegate_task "capped at N" reports | `references/delegate-task-concurrency-diagnosis.md` |
| "Can app X use my Nous Portal subscription/OAuth?" | `references/portal-auth-for-third-party-apps.md` |

Two theming rules that hold even without loading the reference: **you apply skins yourself** (`hermes config set display.skin <name>` — every surface repaints live within ~a second; don't tell the user to run `/skin`), and **to tweak one color, edit the ACTIVE skin** (`hermes skin set <key> <hex>`) — never fork `default`, which drops the palette and resets the background.

## Spawning Additional Hermes Instances

Run additional Hermes processes as fully independent subprocesses — separate sessions, tools, and environments.

### When to Use This vs delegate_task

| | `delegate_task` | Spawning `hermes` process |
|-|-----------------|--------------------------|
| Isolation | Separate conversation, shared process | Fully independent process |
| Duration | Minutes (bounded by parent loop) | Hours/days |
| Tool access | Subset of parent's tools | Full tool access |
| Interactive | No | Yes (PTY mode) |
| Use case | Quick parallel subtasks | Long autonomous missions |

### One-Shot Mode

```
terminal(command="hermes chat -q 'Research GRPO papers and write summary to ~/research/grpo.md'", timeout=300)

# Background for long tasks:
terminal(command="hermes chat -q 'Set up CI/CD for ~/myapp'", background=true)
```

### Interactive PTY Mode (via tmux)

Hermes uses prompt_toolkit, which requires a real terminal. Use tmux for interactive spawning:

```
# Start
terminal(command="tmux new-session -d -s agent1 -x 120 -y 40 'hermes'", timeout=10)

# Wait for startup, then send a message
terminal(command="sleep 8 && tmux send-keys -t agent1 'Build a FastAPI auth service' Enter", timeout=15)

# Read output
terminal(command="sleep 20 && tmux capture-pane -t agent1 -p", timeout=5)

# Send follow-up
terminal(command="tmux send-keys -t agent1 'Add rate limiting middleware' Enter", timeout=5)

# Exit
terminal(command="tmux send-keys -t agent1 '/exit' Enter && sleep 2 && tmux kill-session -t agent1", timeout=10)
```

### Multi-Agent Coordination

```
# Agent A: backend
terminal(command="tmux new-session -d -s backend -x 120 -y 40 'hermes -w'", timeout=10)
terminal(command="sleep 8 && tmux send-keys -t backend 'Build REST API for user management' Enter", timeout=15)

# Agent B: frontend
terminal(command="tmux new-session -d -s frontend -x 120 -y 40 'hermes -w'", timeout=10)
terminal(command="sleep 8 && tmux send-keys -t frontend 'Build React dashboard for user management' Enter", timeout=15)

# Check progress, relay context between them
terminal(command="tmux capture-pane -t backend -p | tail -30", timeout=5)
terminal(command="tmux send-keys -t frontend 'Here is the API schema from the backend agent: ...' Enter", timeout=5)
```

### Session Resume

```
# Resume most recent session
terminal(command="tmux new-session -d -s resumed 'hermes --continue'", timeout=10)

# Resume specific session
terminal(command="tmux new-session -d -s resumed 'hermes --resume 20260225_143052_a1b2c3'", timeout=10)
```

### Tips

- **Prefer `delegate_task` for quick subtasks** — less overhead than spawning a full process
- **Use `-w` (worktree mode)** when spawning agents that edit code — prevents git conflicts
- **Set timeouts** for one-shot mode — complex tasks can take 5-10 minutes
- **Use `hermes chat -q` for fire-and-forget** — no PTY needed
- **Use tmux for interactive sessions** — raw PTY mode has `\r` vs `\n` issues with prompt_toolkit
- **For scheduled tasks**, use the `cronjob` tool instead of spawning — handles delivery and retry
- **"delegate_task is capped at N" reports** — see `references/delegate-task-concurrency-diagnosis.md`. Three real cap paths in Hermes; if none fired, the model is self-limiting and rationalising it as "the runtime caps."
- **"Can $external_app use my Nous Portal subscription / OAuth?"** — see `references/portal-auth-for-third-party-apps.md`. Walk the user through three layers (plugin-vs-app, what Portal actually exposes, local-broker-proxy option).

## Surfaces (quick orientation)

- **Desktop app** (`hermes desktop` / `hermes gui`) — native Electron app for macOS/Linux/Windows: streaming chat, session list, Cmd+K palette, drag-and-drop files, native notifications, per-profile remote-gateway login. Extend it with UI plugins — `references/desktop-plugins.md`.
- **Web dashboard** (`hermes dashboard`) — full admin panel: messaging channels, MCP catalog, webhooks, memory, profile builder, plus an embedded `hermes --tui` chat. Secured behind an OAuth/token gate.
- **Ink TUI** (`hermes --tui` or `display.interface: tui`) — terminal UI with docked widget apps — `references/tui-widgets.md`.
- **OpenAI-compatible proxy** (`hermes proxy`) — a local OpenAI API backed by whichever OAuth provider you're signed into. Point Codex CLI, Aider, Cline, or any script at it — no API key.

## Hard Invariants (never violate, regardless of what you loaded)

- **Never break prompt caching** — don't change past context, toolsets, or the system prompt mid-conversation. The only exception is context compression.
- **Message role alternation** — never two assistant or two user messages in a row; only `tool` results can repeat.
- **Secrets in `.env`, settings in `config.yaml`** — never tell a user to put a non-credential setting in `.env`.
- **Profile-safe paths** — `get_hermes_home()` in code, `$HERMES_HOME` when resolving paths in a session.
- **Never hand-edit `config.yaml` for the user** — use `hermes config set KEY VAL`; a stray indent can corrupt the file and break the live gateway.

License

Declared license: MIT

MIT License

Copyright (c) 2025 Hermes Agent + Teknium

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy
of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal
in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights
to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell
copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is
furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all
copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR
IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY,
FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE
AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER
LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM,
OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE
SOFTWARE.

View the license in the source repository — the version published there is authoritative.