Hermes
Hermes Agent is an open-source agent from Nous Research that runs on your own machine or server. You talk to it from a terminal, its desktop app, or Telegram, Discord and 20-odd other chat apps. What sets it apart is that it learns: after a task, a background review saves what it learned about you and your setup and writes or refines skills it can reuse next time. Add scheduled jobs, MCP tools and a web dashboard, and it can do a lot of work while you're away.
hermes updatev0.21.0 "Pantheon" (Aug 31) added Bot Mode in the desktop app (named bots in shared group chats), hermes peer bot-to-bot messaging, cron jobs that remember previous runs, live steering of subagents, an MCP command centre, and Meta's Muse Spark as a built-in provider. v0.21.2 fixed a state.db bug in 0.21.0–0.21.1 that could report healthy databases as corrupt, and closed a leak between profiles sharing one gateway. If you run 0.21.0 or 0.21.1, update now (details). Earlier in the summer: v0.19 made smart approvals the default and added Bitwarden/1Password secret sources; v0.20 added voice with barge-in, wake words, A2A and outbound webhooks. Install is a one-line script or desktop package, not pip; see the Quick Start.
Guides
hermes security audit, with a checklist.TELEGRAM_ALLOWED_USERS, the gateway, a home channel for scheduled jobs, and mention-only groups./journey, and external providers like Honcho and Mem0.hermes cron schedules and delivery, script-only watchdogs, jobs that remember, /goal loops, and the multi-agent kanban board.mcp_servers in config.yaml for stdio and HTTP servers, per-server tool filtering, OAuth, lazy start, and writing your own.hermes claw migrate and running both.auto_thread trap, channel-permission overrides, multi-channel project layout.At a Glance
| License | MIT (fully free) |
| Install | Desktop package (macOS Apple Silicon, Windows) or curl -fsSL https://hermes-agent.nousresearch.com/install.sh | bash |
| Current version | v0.21.5 (2026-09-24). Update with hermes update |
| Requires | Git, curl, tar; the installer brings its own Python 3.14 and Node |
| Config | ~/.hermes/config.yaml, with secrets in ~/.hermes/.env |
| Memory | MEMORY.md (2,200 chars) + USER.md (1,375 chars), plus full-text search over past sessions |
| Scheduling | hermes cron: "every monday 9am", cron expressions, script-only jobs |
| Tools | Built-in terminal, files, web and browser; MCP servers; self-written skills |
| Channels | Telegram, Discord, Slack, WhatsApp, Signal, email, SMS, Matrix, iMessage (BlueBubbles) and more |
| Model | Any model with 64K+ context. Claude Sonnet 5 or GPT-6 Sol are strong defaults |
Hermes Use Cases — Long-Running & Memory-Enabled
Hermes is built for always-on agents that learn over time. These are the canonical use cases.
- Email triage with auto-draft replies — the canonical Hermes use case
- Customer support triage — memory and self-written skills mean it improves at your ticket types
- Lead research automation — runs unattended, accumulates context
- Release notes generator — ongoing summaries with audience memory
- All 12 use cases →
Hermes Troubleshooting
- "database is locked" or state.db reported corrupt after 0.21: update to 0.21.2+
- Hermes troubleshooting guide: install, SSH, systemd and gateway fixes
- All troubleshooting entries →
Hermes Security
You run Hermes with your own keys, so channel allowlists, command approvals and secret hygiene matter most. Start with the Hermes hardening guide.
- Email & calendar scopes — read-only by default, draft-only for sending
- Secrets & credentials — Hermes memory contains conversation history; review periodically
- Incident response — what to do when an always-on agent goes wrong
- 15-minute hardening checklist
Related on This Site
- OpenClaw hub — conversational agent with rich skill ecosystem; pairs well with Hermes for day-to-day interaction
- SOUL.md & Agent Personas — Hermes reads its persona from
~/.hermes/SOUL.md, andhermes claw migrateimports yours - Cost Optimisation Guide — model tiering and context strategies that apply to Hermes as well
- Decision guide — when Hermes wins vs OpenClaw or Cowork
- Weekly News Digest — Hermes release notes and MCP ecosystem updates
Official sources
Checked against the Hermes Agent documentation (v0.21.5) on 2026-09-27. If anything here disagrees with these pages, trust the vendor docs.
Latest Hermes News
Recent releases, tutorials, and video summaries:
Hermes Agent and StepFun's Step 5 Preview: what is claimed, what is listed, and what we could not confirm
Perplexity fast search in Hermes: who gets it, and the old setting that silently blocks it
Hermes desktop's new features, verified: Bot Mode, HUD, voice, "Hey Hermes" and cron continuity
Hermes computer-use: giving each agent its own Linux desktop in a container