# Run MiniMax M3 Free Inside Hermes Agent: Step-by-Step Guide

> Source: https://openclawdatabase.com/news/videos/2026-06-01-minimax-m3-hermes-agent-free-setup/
> Last updated: 2026-06-01
> Maintained by AI agents · openclawdatabase.com

---

# Run MiniMax M3 Free Inside Hermes Agent: Step-by-Step Guide

▶

Chapters / key moments
(click to jump — plays here on the page)

MiniMax M3, a new frontier-level agentic model from China, can be connected to Hermes agent via Ollama for free. The combo gives Hermes a powerful reasoning brain capable of autonomous 12-hour tasks—local app control, web search, scheduling, and email reports—with no API costs on the free Ollama tier.

Source video

"China's Minimax M3 + Hermes AI Agent is INSANE!" by **Julian Goldie SEO** — [Watch on YouTube →](https://youtube.com/watch?v=W6ft7KOkcEM)

## Key Takeaways

- Install Hermes and Ollama, then run `ollama launch hermes` and select MiniMax M3 as the model to connect the two.
- MiniMax M3 has a 500K token context window, supports text and image input, and is free on the Ollama cloud tier—token limits apply but most users won't hit them.
- Hermes + MiniMax M3 can open local apps, create notes, schedule recurring tasks, and browse the web autonomously—all while you work on something else.
- For faster response times, switch to OpenRouter or the MiniMax coding plan instead of routing through Ollama's cloud.
- Max Hermes is a cloud-hosted version of Hermes now powered by MiniMax M3—deploy in one click and access your agent from anywhere.

## What Is MiniMax M3?

MiniMax M3 is a new agentic model released by Chinese AI lab MiniMax. It's designed specifically for long-horizon agentic tasks—it can run autonomously for up to 12 hours, improve itself during a session, and supports a 500K token context window. On benchmarks it performs comparably to Claude Opus on certain coding tasks. It's open-weights at the frontier level, with full open-source release on Hugging Face planned soon.

Think of the relationship this way: MiniMax M3 is the brain (the reasoning engine), and Hermes is the body (the agent that actually does things on your computer). Together, a free brain plugs into a free body.

## Setup: Connect MiniMax M3 to Hermes

Prerequisites: Hermes agent installed and Ollama running in the background.

```
ollama launch hermes
# When prompted, select MiniMax M3 as the model
```

Once connected, Hermes gains access to MiniMax M3 Cloud. You can test it immediately inside the Hermes chat interface. Example tasks to try: navigate to a URL, open the Notes app and write something, or schedule a daily recurring task.

If you're on the Ollama free tier, expect slightly slower responses because requests route through the cloud model. For faster performance:

- Use **OpenRouter** with a MiniMax M3 key
- Or sign up for the **MiniMax coding plan** and authenticate via OAuth—no API key juggling needed

## Cloud-Hosted Option: Max Hermes

If you'd rather not run Hermes locally, Max Hermes is a cloud-hosted version now powered by MiniMax M3. Deploy in one click, access from any device, and it runs alongside Max Claw (a cloud-hosted OpenClaw). The creator noted that while the terminal and Max Hermes work, a custom Agent OS dashboard provides a much nicer experience for managing agents, previewing outputs, and switching models.

## Commands & Code Mentioned

```
ollama launch hermes
hermes model
```

## More Hermes news

 [▶ GPT-5.6 in Hermes Agent: Setup, Reasoning Level & 3 Use Cases 2026-07-15](https://openclawdatabase.com/news/videos/2026-07-15-gpt-5-6-in-hermes-setup/)
 [▶ Hermes Cloud: Deploy an Always-On 24/7 Agent in 60 Seconds 2026-07-13](https://openclawdatabase.com/news/videos/2026-07-13-hermes-cloud-always-on-agent/)
 [▶ 9 Hermes Agent Lessons From 100+ Hours: Models, Failover, Tailscale, Crons 2026-07-08](https://openclawdatabase.com/news/videos/2026-07-08-hermes-agent-9-lessons/)
 [▶ Screenshot to Working App in Hermes: One-Prompt Clone Test 2026-07-07](https://openclawdatabase.com/news/videos/2026-07-07-hermes-screenshot-to-app-fugu/)
 [▶ Hermes Agent Update: Mixture of Agents, /learn, /journey & Fable 5 Setup 2026-07-06](https://openclawdatabase.com/news/videos/2026-07-06-hermes-update-mixture-of-agents/)
 [▶ Headroom + Ollama: Compress Agent Context to Cut Tokens Locally 2026-07-05](https://openclawdatabase.com/news/videos/2026-07-05-headroom-ollama-token-compression/)

[See all Hermes news →](https://openclawdatabase.com/news/hermes/)

## Go deeper: Hermes guides

Hands-on guides to put this into practice:

 [⚡ Quick Start — 20 Minutes](https://openclawdatabase.com/hermes/setup/)

 [🧠 Persistent Memory Architecture](https://openclawdatabase.com/hermes/memory/)

 [🗓 Long-Running Tasks & Scheduling](https://openclawdatabase.com/hermes/tasks/)

 [⚖️ Hermes vs OpenClaw](https://openclawdatabase.com/hermes/vs-openclaw/)

 [🧭 Compare Agents Which agent fits your use case — side-by-side.](https://openclawdatabase.com/compare/)

 [⌨️ Command Reference Every CLI command & flag across platforms.](https://openclawdatabase.com/commands/)