if you have been following the ai agent space, you have probably headhermesagent, ai, automation, devops about hermes agent. it is an open source personal ai agent that runs in your terminal. built by nous research, hermes agent has over 140,000 stars on github and is quickly becoming one of the most popular agent frameworks in the community.
what makes hermes agent different is its approach. unlike other tools that focus on building, hermes agent is designed as an operator. it comes with built-in memory, over 40 tools out of the box, and is designed to be 90 percent cheaper than alternatives.
what is hermes agent
hermes agent is a personal ai agent that you can run locally on your machine. it is open source with mit license, which means you can use it freely and contribute to its development. the project has grown rapidly with 949 contributors, 4,000 issues, and 23,000 forks on github.
the agent is designed to grow with you. you can start with a single agent and scale up to a full marketing company on one vps. this
the four level path to mastering hermes agent
shann holmberg outlined a four level path for building with hermes agent that many users have found helpful:
level one: one agent - this is your starting point. you have one agent that is fixed in personality and tuned for specific tasks. it is simple and easy to manage.
level two: multiple specialists - here you add more agents, each specialized in different tasks. they can talk to each other directly, allowing for more complex workflows.
level three: add the hermes orchestrator - this serves as the front door to your agent system. it helps manage and coordinate the multiple agents.
level four: automated agent team - this is the full setup with cross and rec
key features and capabilities
hermes agent has several standout features that make it powerful:
three tier memory - hermes agent has persistent memory that lasts across sessions. this means it can remember context from previous interactions and build on them.
gepa optimization - this optimization layer helps hermes agent perform better and more efficiently.
self-evolving skills - one of the most impressive capabilities is that hermes can watch itself work and rewrite its own skills. one user reported that after two iterations, hermes became three times faster and 80 percent cheaper.
codex runtime integration - hermes can use openai models with codex as runtime for core tools. it can optionally hand openai and openai-codex calls to the codex cli app-server instead of running its own tool loop.
built-in tools - hermes comes with over 40 tools out of the box including cla
nine workflows to build first
ole lehmann shared nine workflows to build if you are starting hermes from zero to make it a real chief of staff:
customer support cron - scans support emails in the morning, categorizes issues, logs them to discord, and creates a weekly report on recurring problems.
weekly business report - on monday, hermes pulls stripe revenue, sales, views, follower growth, churn, and refunds, then sends a week-to-week dashboard to telegram.
obsidian llm wiki second brain - uses a single obsidian vault as source of truth where hermes writes daily reports from discord or telegram into the vault.
travel planning - hermes can research and plan trips, book accommodations, and create itineraries.
seo research - automatically research keywords, analyze competitors, and generate content ideas.
content creation - write blog posts, social media content, and marketing materials.
client tasks - handle client requests, generate reports, and manage communications.
local tool automation - automate tasks on your local machine like file organization, data processing, and system monitoring.
daily brief - compil
setup and installation
to get started with hermes agent, follow these steps:
install hermes agent - visit hermesatlas.com for the install guide. the setup takes approximately 10 minutes.
configure api keys - you will need to set up api keys for the models you want to use. nate herd wrote a comprehensive guide covering api key handling and best practices.
connect telegram - many users connect hermes to telegram for notifications and control. tessa kriesel created a detailed guide on deploying hermes agent on railway with telegram.
start with simple workflows - begin with basic workflows like the daily brief or customer support cron before scaling up.
for users with no command line experience, there is a beginner friendly guide available that covers hands-on installation, connecting telegram, and understanding core gameplay.e daily updates from various sources into a single briefing docume
pricing and subscription
one subscription is enough for hermes agent at devpass.llmgateway.io. you do not need multiple subscriptions. devpass by llm gateway offers a flat-rate subscription for over 200 ai models.
one user reported spending 14.80 dollars for 134 million tokens in one week, which is quite reasonable for the amount of work hermes can do.
for serious agentic workflows, most guides recommend using deepseek v4 flash
security best practices
when using hermes agent, follow these security best practices:
separate accounts - treat each hermes like a new hire. give each agent its own gmail or agent-mail account, not yours.
own api keys - use own api keys per agent so you can see who spends what. this helps with cost tracking and security.
least privilege - apply least privilege principle where a marketing agent does not need quickbooks access. only give agents the permissions they need for their specific tasks.as supervisor with local workers and web-of-thought for frontier agent performance at 1/20th the cost of using expensive models for everything.nt.rify, execute_code, create_task, delegate_task, and discord_admin.urring workflows. your agents work together automatically t
comparison with alternatives
hermes agent ranks number one with 353 billion tokens used, ahead of openclaw at 195 billion and kilo code at 166 billion. users report hermes is more reliable than openclaw and has better proactively writing skills.
compared to claude code, users found hermes to be a major upgrade with signi
user experiences and testimonials
here is what real users are saying about hermes agent:
nemanja reported that hermes agent saves 10 plus hours per week but only after realizing it is an operator not a builder. he shared 15 favorite use cases that have transformed his workflow.
kyle installed hermes after using claude code for a year and initially had privacy fears but found it to be a major upgrade. he noted significant leverage in output.
john king tried hermes agent and loved the aesthetics, good selection of built-
recent updates and bug fixes
the hermes agent team is actively fixing bugs and adding features. recent updates include:
- tui fix for vietnamese and cjk input
- slack whitespace guard
- cli exception logging
- url safety improvements
- mcp regex optimization
- browser tool error handling with network call wrapping
- codex runtime fix for de-dup plugin tables and hermes_home leak fix
mobile and web presence
hermes agent has a mobile interface available at hermes-workspace.com. the interface shows features like analyze workspace, save a preference, create a file, gateway info, and active runs with session count.
hermes-agent-news.com is live with @hermesagent on x providing fully automate
getting started
if you are ready to start with hermes agent, here is what you need to do:
- visit the github repository at github.com/nousresearch/hermes-agent
- follow the install guide at hermesatlas.com
- check out nate herd's comprehensive guide at llmgateway.io/guides/hermes
- join the community and ask questions in the discord
- start with simple workflows and scale up
the github repository ha
getting started
if you are ready to start with hermes agent, here is what you need to do:
- visit the github repository at github.com/nousresearch/hermes-agent
- follow the install gu
conclusion
hermes agent represents a new approach to ai automation where the agent operates rather than just builds. with its open source nature, extensive toolset, and growing community, it offers a viable path to personal ai automation.
the key is understanding it as an operator that can be configured and scaled according to your needs rather than expecting it to work perfectly out of the box. start simple, learn the four level path, and build workflows that make sense for your use case.
whether you are a developer, content creator, or business owner, hermes agent can help you automate boring workflows and focus on what matters. give it a try and see how it can transform your productivity.ide at hermesatlas.com
- check out nate herd's comprehensive guide
- join the community and ask questions
- start with simple workflows and scale ups comprehensive docs and teknum from nous research offers to help if you need it. the tagline is the agent that grows with you, and that is exactly what hermes agent is designed to do.d news aggregation. the site runs the same feeds but as full articles with sources, making it easy to stay updated on hermes agent developments.
- langfuse observability fix complete
- hermes agent notion skill v2.0.0 with full notion developer platformin skills and tools, and found it mostly works well. he noted there were a few bugs including hermes being unable to use a subset of built-in tools, but overall the experience was positive.ficant leverage in output after initial privacy concerns were addressed. the key difference is that hermes has built-in memory which openclaw lacks.o handle complex tasks. scalability is one of its key strengths.