[opensourcedex]

Hermes Agent is a free, open source ai interaction & interfaces project written in Python and released under MIT. It has 246,492 GitHub stars, 51,615 forks and 41,784 open issues, and was last pushed 7 hours ago. On this registry it ranks #2 of 76 tracked projects in AI Interaction & Interfaces, with 5 head-to-head comparisons available. It gained 1,626 stars over the last 6 tracked days.

Hermes Agent — Desktop AI agent with persistent memory across platforms

What is Hermes Agent?

What it is

Hermes Agent is a desktop AI agent developed by Nous Research that maintains persistent memory and self-improving capabilities across sessions and platforms. It operates as a local-first, cross-platform interface for LLMs, integrating with multiple model providers and deployment environments without vendor lock-in. The agent implements a closed learning loop where it curates its own memory, creates and refines skills from experience, and supports cross-session recall via full-text search and summarization.

Key capabilities

  • Persistent memory with agent-curated storage and periodic self-nudges to retain knowledge
  • Cross-platform access via CLI, Telegram, Discord, Slack, WhatsApp, and Signal from a single gateway process
  • Built-in cron scheduler for scheduled automations like daily reports, backups, and audits
  • Subagent spawning for parallel workstreams and isolated task execution
  • Tool calling via RPC with zero-context-cost turns for multi-step pipelines
  • Full TUI with multiline editing, slash-command autocomplete, conversation history, and streaming tool output
  • Batch trajectory generation and compression for training next-generation tool-calling models

Who uses it and how

  • Developers deploy Hermes on $5 VPS or serverless infrastructure (Modal, Daytona, Vercel Sandbox) to run unattended automations
  • Researchers use its trajectory export features to generate training data for tool-calling models
  • Teams integrate Hermes into existing workflows via Telegram or Slack gateways while running heavy tasks on remote VMs
  • Power users run native on Windows or Linux with persistent local memory and voice memo transcription
  • Termux users on Android install a curated subset of dependencies to avoid incompatible voice modules

Getting started

Install via one-liner scripts: curl -fsSL https://hermes-agent.nousresearch.com/install.sh | bash on Linux/macOS/WSL2, or iex (irm https://hermes-agent.nousresearch.com/install.ps1) on Windows. The installer bundles Python 3.11, uv, Node.js, ripgrep, ffmpeg, and portable Git Bash. Run hermes after sourcing shell config to start the TUI.

When to use it — and when not to

Hermes replaces paid desktop agents by offering self-hosted, model-agnostic operation with no per-token fees, but requires managing local dependencies and infrastructure. It excels for users needing persistent memory, scheduled automation, or multi-platform access without cloud lock-in. Avoid if you lack technical capacity to troubleshoot installation issues (e.g., Windows Defender false positives on uv.exe) or cannot tolerate open issues volume (41,784+). Serverless deployments reduce idle cost but depend on external providers.

project readme (upstream, from github) — read inline

Hermes Agent ☤

Hermes Agent | Hermes Desktop

Documentation Discord License: MIT Built by Nous Research 中文 اردو Español

The self-improving AI agent built by Nous Research. It's the only agent with a built-in learning loop — it creates skills from experience, improves them during use, nudges itself to persist knowledge, searches its own past conversations, and builds a deepening model of who you are across sessions. Run it on a $5 VPS, a GPU cluster, or serverless infrastructure that costs nearly nothing when idle. It's not tied to your laptop — talk to it from Telegram while it works on a cloud VM.

Use any model you want — Nous Portal, OpenRouter, OpenAI, your own endpoint, and many others. Switch with hermes model — no code changes, no lock-in.

A real terminal interfaceFull TUI with multiline editing, slash-command autocomplete, conversation history, interrupt-and-redirect, and streaming tool output.
Lives where you doTelegram, Discord, Slack, WhatsApp, Signal, and CLI — all from a single gateway process. Voice memo transcription, cross-platform conversation continuity.
A closed learning loopAgent-curated memory with periodic nudges. Autonomous skill creation after complex tasks. Skills self-improve during use. FTS5 session search with LLM summarization for cross-session recall. Honcho dialectic user modeling. Compatible with the agentskills.io open standard.
Scheduled automationsBuilt-in cron scheduler with delivery to any platform. Daily reports, nightly backups, weekly audits — all in natural language, running unattended.
Delegates and parallelizesSpawn isolated subagents for parallel workstreams. Write Python scripts that call tools via RPC, collapsing multi-step pipelines into zero-context-cost turns.
Runs anywhere, not just your laptopSeven terminal backends — local, Docker, SSH, Singularity, Modal, Daytona, and Vercel Sandbox. Daytona and Modal offer serverless persistence — your agent's environment hibernates when idle and wakes on demand, costing nearly nothing between sessions. Run it on a $5 VPS or a GPU cluster.
Research-readyBatch trajectory generation, trajectory compression for training the next generation of tool-calling models.

Quick Install

Linux, macOS, WSL2, Termux

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

Windows (native, PowerShell)

Heads up: Native Windows runs Hermes without WSL — CLI, gateway, TUI, and tools all work natively. If you'd rather use WSL2, the Linux/macOS one-liner above works there too. Found a bug? Please file issues.

Run this in PowerShell:

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

The installer handles everything: uv, Python 3.11, Node.js, ripgrep, ffmpeg, and a portable Git Bash (MinGit, unpacked to %LOCALAPPDATA%\hermes\git — no admin required, completely isolated from any system Git install). Hermes uses this bundled Git Bash to run shell commands.

If you already have Git installed, the installer detects it and uses that instead. Otherwise a ~45MB MinGit download is all you need — it won't touch or interfere with any system Git.

Android / Termux: The tested manual path is documented in the Termux guide. On Termux, Hermes installs a curated .[termux] extra because the full .[all] extra currently pulls Android-incompatible voice dependencies.

Windows: Native Windows is fully supported — the PowerShell one-liner above installs everything. If you'd rather use WSL2, the Linux command works there too. Native Windows install lives under %LOCALAPPDATA%\hermes; WSL2 installs under ~/.hermes as on Linux.

After installation:

source ~/.bashrc    # reload shell (or: source ~/.zshrc)
hermes              # start chatting!

Troubleshooting

Windows Defender or antivirus flags uv.exe as malware

If your antivirus (Bitdefender, Windows Defender, etc.) quarantines uv.exe from the Hermes bin folder (%LOCALAPPDATA%\hermes\bin\uv.exe), this is a false positive. The file is Astral's uv — the Rust Python package manager Hermes bundles to manage its Python environment. ML-based antivirus engines commonly flag unsigned Rust binaries that download and install packages.

To verify your copy is authentic:

# Install GitHub CLI if needed
winget install --id GitHub.cli

# Login to GitHub
gh auth login

# Run verification
$uv = "$env:LOCALAPPDATA\hermes\bin\uv.exe"
$ver = (& $uv --version).Split(' ')[1]
[Net.ServicePointManager]::SecurityProtocol = [Net.SecurityProtocolType]::Tls12
$zip = "$env:TEMP\uv.zip"
Invoke-WebRequest "https://github.com/astral-sh/uv/releases/download/$ver/uv-x86_64-pc-windows-msvc.zip" -OutFile $zip -UseBasicParsing
gh attestation verify $zip --repo astral-sh/uv
Expand-Archive $zip "$env:TEMP\uv_x" -Force
(Get-FileHash "$env:TEMP\uv_x\uv.exe").Hash -eq (Get-FileHash $uv).Hash

If attestation says "Verification succeeded" and the last line prints True, you're good.

To whitelist Hermes:

  • Windows Defender: Run PowerShell as Admin → Add-MpPreference -ExclusionPath "$env:LOCALAPPDATA\hermes\bin"
  • Bitdefender: Add an exception in the Bitdefender console (Protection > Antivirus > Settings > Manage Exceptions)
  • Whitelist the folder, not the file hash — Hermes updates uv and the hash changes every version

For more context, see the upstream Astral reports: astral-sh/uv#13553, astral-sh/uv#15011, astral-sh/uv#10079.

Getting Started

hermes              # Interactive CLI — start a conversation
hermes model        # Choose your LLM provider and model
hermes tools        # Configure which tools are enabled
hermes config set   # Set individual config values
hermes config get   # Print individual config values
hermes gateway      # Start the messaging gateway (Telegram, Discord, etc.)
hermes setup        # Run the full setup wizard (configures everything at once)
hermes claw migrate # Migrate from OpenClaw (if coming from OpenClaw)
hermes update       # Update to the latest version
hermes doctor       # Diagnose any issues

📖 Full documentation →

Skip the API-key collection — Nous Portal

Hermes works with whatever provider you want — that's not changing. But if you'd rather not collect five separate API keys for the model, web search, image generation, TTS, and a cloud browser, Nous Portal covers all of them under one subscription:

  • 300+ models — pick any of them with /model
  • Tool Gateway — web search (Firecrawl), image generation (FAL), text-to-speech (OpenAI), cloud browser (Browser Use), all routed through your sub. No extra accounts.

One command from a fresh install:

hermes setup --portal

That logs you in via OAuth, sets Nous as your provider, and turns on the Tool Gateway. Check what's wired up any time with hermes portal info. Full details on the [Tool Gateway docs page](https://hermes-a

readme truncated — read the full docs on github

Frequently asked questions

Is Hermes Agent free to use?

Hermes Agent is open source under the MIT licence. There is no licence fee and no seat count — you can self-host it or, where the project offers one, pay a vendor for a managed version instead.

What does Hermes Agent do?

Desktop AI agent with persistent memory across platforms

What is Hermes Agent written in?

Hermes Agent is primarily written in Python. Its source is publicly available at https://github.com/nousresearch/hermes-agent, and it has 246,492 GitHub stars.