Hermes Agent

// Overview

Hermes Agent is an open-source personal AI agent built by Nous Research. Its standout idea is a built-in learning loop: the agent creates new skills from experience, improves those skills while it uses them, remembers facts you care about, and searches its own past conversations so it gets more useful the longer you work with it.

It is not tied to one machine. You can run Hermes on a cheap VPS, a GPU cluster, or serverless infrastructure that costs almost nothing while idle, then talk to it from the terminal or from messaging apps like Telegram and Discord. You can plug in almost any model provider, from Nous Portal and OpenRouter to OpenAI or your own endpoint, and switch with a single command without changing any code.

// What it does

• Closed learning loop: agent-curated memory, autonomous skill creation after complex tasks, and self-improving skills, with full-text session search and cross-session recall
• Lives where you do: a single gateway process connects Telegram, Discord, Slack, WhatsApp, Signal, and CLI, with voice memo transcription and cross-platform conversation continuity
• Full terminal UI with multiline editing, slash-command autocomplete, conversation history, interrupt-and-redirect, and streaming tool output
• Provider-agnostic models: use Nous Portal, OpenRouter, OpenAI, Hugging Face, or your own endpoint, and switch with `hermes model` with no lock-in
• Built-in cron scheduler for unattended automations like daily reports, nightly backups, and weekly audits, described in natural language
• Runs across six terminal backends (local, Docker, SSH, Singularity, Modal, Daytona), with serverless persistence that hibernates when idle

// Getting started

Hermes ships a one-line installer that sets up Python, Node.js, and the other dependencies it needs, then you start chatting from the terminal. The installer supports Linux, macOS, WSL2, Termux, and native Windows.

curl -fsSL https://hermes-agent.nousresearch.com/install.sh | bash

iex (irm https://hermes-agent.nousresearch.com/install.ps1)

source ~/.bashrc
hermes

hermes model
hermes gateway

Commands and code are distilled from the project's own documentation — always check the official repo for the latest.

// When to use it

• Run a personal assistant that you message from Telegram, Discord, or Slack while it works on a cloud VM in the background
• Let the agent build and refine its own reusable skills as you work, so repeat tasks get faster and more reliable over time
• Schedule unattended automations such as daily reports or nightly backups, described in plain language and delivered to any platform
• Host an always-available agent cheaply on a $5 VPS or serverless backend that hibernates when idle and wakes on demand

// Hermes Agent in the news

1. 2026-06-27NOTABLEWes Roth: 'HERMES AGENT + Stripe Payments + NVIDIA Nemotron is INSANE!'
2. 2026-06-19MAJORHermes Agent v0.17.0 — iMessage, WhatsApp, and async subagents from Nous
3. 2026-06-05MAJORNous Research Ships Hermes Agent v0.16.0 'The Surface Release' — Native Electron Desktop App for macOS, Linux, and Windows With In-App Self-Updates, Drag-and-Drop, and a Full Web Admin Panel
4. 2026-05-28MAJORNous Research Ships Hermes Agent v0.15.0 'The Velocity Release' — Multi-Agent Kanban Platform, 76% Smaller Core Loop, 4,500× Faster Session Search
5. 2026-04-27NOTABLEHermes Agent Is INSANE…
6. 2026-04-16MAJORHermes Agent v0.10.0 — Tool Gateway for Self-Growing Multi-Platform AI Agents
7. 2026-04-15NOTABLEHermes Agent Setup: The OpenClaw Killer Is Here

From the AI/TLDR release feed — every item is source-verified when it ships.

// How Hermes Agent compares

Hermes Agent alongside other open-source assistants & chatbots tools AI/TLDR tracks, ranked by GitHub stars.