77c0bc6b13
* fix(curator): defer first run and add --dry-run preview (#18373) Curator was meant to run 7 days after install, not on the very first gateway tick. On a fresh install (no .curator_state), should_run_now() returned True immediately because last_run_at was None — so the gateway cron ticker fired Curator against a fresh skill library moments after 'hermes update'. Combined with the binary 'agent-created' provenance model (anything not bundled and not hub-installed), this consolidated hand-authored user workflow skills without consent. Changes: - should_run_now(): first observation seeds last_run_at='now' and returns False. The next real pass fires one full interval_hours later (7 days by default), matching the original design intent. - hermes curator run --dry-run: produces the same review report without applying automatic transitions OR permitting the LLM to call skill_manage / terminal mv. A DRY-RUN banner is prepended to the prompt and the caller skips apply_automatic_transitions. State is NOT advanced so a preview doesn't defer the next scheduled real pass. - hermes update: prints a one-liner on fresh installs pointing at --dry-run, pause, and the docs. Silent on steady state. - Docs: curator.md and cli-commands.md explain the deferred first-run behavior and warn that hand-written SKILL.md files share the 'agent-created' bucket, with guidance to pin or preview before the first pass. Tests: - test_first_run_defers replaces the old 'first run always eligible' assertion — same fixture, inverted expectation. - test_maybe_run_curator_defers_on_fresh_install covers the gateway tick path end-to-end. - Three new dry-run tests cover state-advance suppression, prompt banner injection, and apply_automatic_transitions skipping. Fixes #18373. * feat(curator): pre-run backup + rollback (#18373) Every real curator pass now snapshots ~/.hermes/skills/ into ~/.hermes/skills/.curator_backups/<utc-iso>/skills.tar.gz before calling apply_automatic_transitions or the LLM review. If a run consolidates or archives something the user didn't want touched, 'hermes curator rollback' restores the tree in one command. Dry-run is skipped — no mutation means no snapshot needed. Changes: - agent/curator_backup.py (new): tar.gz snapshot + safe rollback. The snapshot excludes .curator_backups/ (would recurse) and .hub/ (managed by the skills hub). Extract refuses absolute paths and .. components, and uses tarfile's filter='data' on Python 3.12+. Rollback takes a pre-rollback safety snapshot FIRST, stages the current tree into .rollback-staging-<ts>/ so the extract lands in an empty dir, and cleans the staging dir on success. A failed extract restores the staged contents. - agent/curator.py: run_curator_review() calls curator_backup. snapshot_skills(reason='pre-curator-run') before apply_automatic_ transitions. Best-effort — a failed snapshot logs at debug and the run continues (a transient disk issue shouldn't silently disable curator forever). - hermes_cli/curator.py: new 'hermes curator backup' and 'hermes curator rollback' subcommands. rollback supports --list, --id <ts>, -y. - hermes_cli/config.py: curator.backup.{enabled, keep} config block with sane defaults (enabled=true, keep=5). - Docs: curator.md gets a 'Backups and rollback' section; cli-commands .md table gets the new rows. Tests (new file tests/agent/test_curator_backup.py, 16 cases): - snapshot creates tarball + manifest with correct counts - snapshot excludes .curator_backups/ (recursion guard) and .hub/ - snapshot disabled via config returns None without creating anything - snapshot uniquifies ids within the same second (-01 suffix) - prune honors keep count, newest-first - list_backups + _resolve_backup cover newest-default and unknown-id - rollback restores a deleted skill with content intact - rollback is itself undoable — safety snapshot shows up in list_backups - rollback with no snapshots returns an error - rollback refuses tarballs with absolute paths or .. components - real curator runs take a 'pre-curator-run' snapshot; dry-runs do not All curator tests: 210 passing locally.
Hermes Agent ☤
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 (200+ models), NVIDIA NIM (Nemotron), Xiaomi MiMo, z.ai/GLM, Kimi/Moonshot, MiniMax, Hugging Face, OpenAI, or your own endpoint. Switch with hermes model — no code changes, no lock-in.
| A real terminal interface | Full TUI with multiline editing, slash-command autocomplete, conversation history, interrupt-and-redirect, and streaming tool output. |
| Lives where you do | Telegram, Discord, Slack, WhatsApp, Signal, and CLI — all from a single gateway process. Voice memo transcription, cross-platform conversation continuity. |
| A closed learning loop | Agent-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 automations | Built-in cron scheduler with delivery to any platform. Daily reports, nightly backups, weekly audits — all in natural language, running unattended. |
| Delegates and parallelizes | Spawn 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 laptop | Six terminal backends — local, Docker, SSH, Daytona, Singularity, and Modal. 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-ready | Batch trajectory generation, Atropos RL environments, trajectory compression for training the next generation of tool-calling models. |
Quick Install
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/main/scripts/install.sh | bash
Works on Linux, macOS, WSL2, and Android via Termux. The installer handles the platform-specific setup for you.
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 not supported. Please install WSL2 and run the command above.
After installation:
source ~/.bashrc # reload shell (or: source ~/.zshrc)
hermes # start chatting!
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 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
CLI vs Messaging Quick Reference
Hermes has two entry points: start the terminal UI with hermes, or run the gateway and talk to it from Telegram, Discord, Slack, WhatsApp, Signal, or Email. Once you're in a conversation, many slash commands are shared across both interfaces.
| Action | CLI | Messaging platforms |
|---|---|---|
| Start chatting | hermes |
Run hermes gateway setup + hermes gateway start, then send the bot a message |
| Start fresh conversation | /new or /reset |
/new or /reset |
| Change model | /model [provider:model] |
/model [provider:model] |
| Set a personality | /personality [name] |
/personality [name] |
| Retry or undo the last turn | /retry, /undo |
/retry, /undo |
| Compress context / check usage | /compress, /usage, /insights [--days N] |
/compress, /usage, /insights [days] |
| Browse skills | /skills or /<skill-name> |
/<skill-name> |
| Interrupt current work | Ctrl+C or send a new message |
/stop or send a new message |
| Platform-specific status | /platforms |
/status, /sethome |
For the full command lists, see the CLI guide and the Messaging Gateway guide.
Documentation
All documentation lives at hermes-agent.nousresearch.com/docs:
| Section | What's Covered |
|---|---|
| Quickstart | Install → setup → first conversation in 2 minutes |
| CLI Usage | Commands, keybindings, personalities, sessions |
| Configuration | Config file, providers, models, all options |
| Messaging Gateway | Telegram, Discord, Slack, WhatsApp, Signal, Home Assistant |
| Security | Command approval, DM pairing, container isolation |
| Tools & Toolsets | 40+ tools, toolset system, terminal backends |
| Skills System | Procedural memory, Skills Hub, creating skills |
| Memory | Persistent memory, user profiles, best practices |
| MCP Integration | Connect any MCP server for extended capabilities |
| Cron Scheduling | Scheduled tasks with platform delivery |
| Context Files | Project context that shapes every conversation |
| Architecture | Project structure, agent loop, key classes |
| Contributing | Development setup, PR process, code style |
| CLI Reference | All commands and flags |
| Environment Variables | Complete env var reference |
Migrating from OpenClaw
If you're coming from OpenClaw, Hermes can automatically import your settings, memories, skills, and API keys.
During first-time setup: The setup wizard (hermes setup) automatically detects ~/.openclaw and offers to migrate before configuration begins.
Anytime after install:
hermes claw migrate # Interactive migration (full preset)
hermes claw migrate --dry-run # Preview what would be migrated
hermes claw migrate --preset user-data # Migrate without secrets
hermes claw migrate --overwrite # Overwrite existing conflicts
What gets imported:
- SOUL.md — persona file
- Memories — MEMORY.md and USER.md entries
- Skills — user-created skills →
~/.hermes/skills/openclaw-imports/ - Command allowlist — approval patterns
- Messaging settings — platform configs, allowed users, working directory
- API keys — allowlisted secrets (Telegram, OpenRouter, OpenAI, Anthropic, ElevenLabs)
- TTS assets — workspace audio files
- Workspace instructions — AGENTS.md (with
--workspace-target)
See hermes claw migrate --help for all options, or use the openclaw-migration skill for an interactive agent-guided migration with dry-run previews.
Contributing
We welcome contributions! See the Contributing Guide for development setup, code style, and PR process.
Quick start for contributors — clone and go with setup-hermes.sh:
git clone https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent.git
cd hermes-agent
./setup-hermes.sh # installs uv, creates venv, installs .[all], symlinks ~/.local/bin/hermes
./hermes # auto-detects the venv, no need to `source` first
Manual path (equivalent to the above):
curl -LsSf https://astral.sh/uv/install.sh | sh
uv venv venv --python 3.11
source venv/bin/activate
uv pip install -e ".[all,dev]"
scripts/run_tests.sh
RL Training (optional): The RL/Atropos integration (
environments/) ships via theatroposlibandtinkerdependencies pulled in by.[all,dev]— no submodule setup required.
Community
- 💬 Discord
- 📚 Skills Hub
- 🐛 Issues
- 🔌 HermesClaw — Community WeChat bridge: Run Hermes Agent and OpenClaw on the same WeChat account.
License
MIT — see LICENSE.
Built by Nous Research.