hermes-agent/website/docs/user-guide/sessions.md

sidebar_position	title	description
7	Sessions	Session persistence, resume, search, management, and per-platform session tracking

Sessions

Hermes Agent automatically saves every conversation as a session. Sessions enable conversation resume, cross-session search, and full conversation history management.

How Sessions Work

Every conversation — whether from the CLI, Telegram, Discord, Slack, WhatsApp, Signal, Matrix, or any other messaging platform — is stored as a session with full message history. Sessions are tracked in two complementary systems:

1. SQLite database (~/.hermes/state.db) — structured session metadata with FTS5 full-text search
2. JSONL transcripts (~/.hermes/sessions/) — raw conversation transcripts including tool calls (gateway)

The SQLite database stores:

• Session ID, source platform, user ID
• Session title (unique, human-readable name)
• Model name and configuration
• System prompt snapshot
• Full message history (role, content, tool calls, tool results)
• Token counts (input/output)
• Timestamps (started_at, ended_at)
• Parent session ID (for compression-triggered session splitting)

Session Sources

Each session is tagged with its source platform:

Source	Description
cli	Interactive CLI (hermes or hermes chat)
telegram	Telegram messenger
discord	Discord server/DM
slack	Slack workspace
whatsapp	WhatsApp messenger
signal	Signal messenger
matrix	Matrix rooms and DMs
mattermost	Mattermost channels
email	Email (IMAP/SMTP)
sms	SMS via Twilio
dingtalk	DingTalk messenger
feishu	Feishu/Lark messenger
wecom	WeCom (WeChat Work)
weixin	Weixin (personal WeChat)
bluebubbles	Apple iMessage via BlueBubbles macOS server
qqbot	QQ Bot (Tencent QQ) via Official API v2
homeassistant	Home Assistant conversation
webhook	Incoming webhooks
api-server	API server requests
acp	ACP editor integration
cron	Scheduled cron jobs
batch	Batch processing runs

CLI Session Resume

Resume previous conversations from the CLI using --continue or --resume:

Continue Last Session

# Resume the most recent CLI session
hermes --continue
hermes -c

# Or with the chat subcommand
hermes chat --continue
hermes chat -c

This looks up the most recent cli session from the SQLite database and loads its full conversation history.

Resume by Name

If you've given a session a title (see Session Naming below), you can resume it by name:

# Resume a named session
hermes -c "my project"

# If there are lineage variants (my project, my project #2, my project #3),
# this automatically resumes the most recent one
hermes -c "my project"   # → resumes "my project #3"

Resume Specific Session

# Resume a specific session by ID
hermes --resume 20250305_091523_a1b2c3d4
hermes -r 20250305_091523_a1b2c3d4

# Resume by title
hermes --resume "refactoring auth"

# Or with the chat subcommand
hermes chat --resume 20250305_091523_a1b2c3d4

Session IDs are shown when you exit a CLI session, and can be found with hermes sessions list.

Conversation Recap on Resume

When you resume a session, Hermes displays a compact recap of the previous conversation in a styled panel before the input prompt:

Resume mode shows a compact recap panel with recent user and assistant turns before returning you to the live prompt.

The recap:

• Shows user messages (gold ●) and assistant responses (green ◆)
• Truncates long messages (300 chars for user, 200 chars / 3 lines for assistant)
• Collapses tool calls to a count with tool names (e.g., [3 tool calls: terminal, web_search])
• Hides system messages, tool results, and internal reasoning
• Caps at the last 10 exchanges with a "... N earlier messages ..." indicator
• Uses dim styling to distinguish from the active conversation

To disable the recap and keep the minimal one-liner behavior, set in ~/.hermes/config.yaml:

display:
  resume_display: minimal   # default: full

:::tip Session IDs follow the format YYYYMMDD_HHMMSS_<8-char-hex>, e.g. 20250305_091523_a1b2c3d4. You can resume by ID or by title — both work with -c and -r. :::

Session Naming

Give sessions human-readable titles so you can find and resume them easily.

Auto-Generated Titles

Hermes automatically generates a short descriptive title (3–7 words) for each session after the first exchange. This runs in a background thread using a fast auxiliary model, so it adds no latency. You'll see auto-generated titles when browsing sessions with hermes sessions list or hermes sessions browse.

Auto-titling only fires once per session and is skipped if you've already set a title manually.

Setting a Title Manually

Use the /title slash command inside any chat session (CLI or gateway):

/title my research project

The title is applied immediately. If the session hasn't been created in the database yet (e.g., you run /title before sending your first message), it's queued and applied once the session starts.

You can also rename existing sessions from the command line:

hermes sessions rename 20250305_091523_a1b2c3d4 "refactoring auth module"

Title Rules

• Unique — no two sessions can share the same title
• Max 100 characters — keeps listing output clean
• Sanitized — control characters, zero-width chars, and RTL overrides are stripped automatically
• Normal Unicode is fine — emoji, CJK, accented characters all work

Auto-Lineage on Compression

When a session's context is compressed (manually via /compress or automatically), Hermes creates a new continuation session. If the original had a title, the new session automatically gets a numbered title:

"my project" → "my project #2" → "my project #3"

When you resume by name (hermes -c "my project"), it automatically picks the most recent session in the lineage.

/title in Messaging Platforms

The /title command works in all gateway platforms (Telegram, Discord, Slack, WhatsApp):

• /title My Research — set the session title
• /title — show the current title

Session Management Commands

Hermes provides a full set of session management commands via hermes sessions:

List Sessions

# List recent sessions (default: last 20)
hermes sessions list

# Filter by platform
hermes sessions list --source telegram

# Show more sessions
hermes sessions list --limit 50

When sessions have titles, the output shows titles, previews, and relative timestamps:

Title                  Preview                                  Last Active   ID
────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
refactoring auth       Help me refactor the auth module please   2h ago        20250305_091523_a
my project #3          Can you check the test failures?          yesterday     20250304_143022_e
—                      What's the weather in Las Vegas?          3d ago        20250303_101500_f

When no sessions have titles, a simpler format is used:

Preview                                            Last Active   Src    ID
──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
Help me refactor the auth module please             2h ago        cli    20250305_091523_a
What's the weather in Las Vegas?                    3d ago        tele   20250303_101500_f

Export Sessions

# Export all sessions to a JSONL file
hermes sessions export backup.jsonl

# Export sessions from a specific platform
hermes sessions export telegram-history.jsonl --source telegram

# Export a single session
hermes sessions export session.jsonl --session-id 20250305_091523_a1b2c3d4

Exported files contain one JSON object per line with full session metadata and all messages.

Delete a Session

# Delete a specific session (with confirmation)
hermes sessions delete 20250305_091523_a1b2c3d4

# Delete without confirmation
hermes sessions delete 20250305_091523_a1b2c3d4 --yes

Rename a Session

# Set or change a session's title
hermes sessions rename 20250305_091523_a1b2c3d4 "debugging auth flow"

# Multi-word titles don't need quotes in the CLI
hermes sessions rename 20250305_091523_a1b2c3d4 debugging auth flow

If the title is already in use by another session, an error is shown.

Prune Old Sessions

# Delete ended sessions older than 90 days (default)
hermes sessions prune

# Custom age threshold
hermes sessions prune --older-than 30

# Only prune sessions from a specific platform
hermes sessions prune --source telegram --older-than 60

# Skip confirmation
hermes sessions prune --older-than 30 --yes

:::info Pruning only deletes ended sessions (sessions that have been explicitly ended or auto-reset). Active sessions are never pruned. :::

Session Statistics

hermes sessions stats

Output:

Total sessions: 142
Total messages: 3847
  cli: 89 sessions
  telegram: 38 sessions
  discord: 15 sessions
Database size: 12.4 MB

For deeper analytics — token usage, cost estimates, tool breakdown, and activity patterns — use hermes insights.

Session Search Tool

The agent has a built-in session_search tool that performs full-text search across all past conversations using SQLite's FTS5 engine.

How It Works

1. FTS5 searches matching messages ranked by relevance
2. Groups results by session, takes the top N unique sessions (default 3)
3. Loads each session's conversation, truncates to ~100K chars centered on matches
4. Sends to a fast summarization model for focused summaries
5. Returns per-session summaries with metadata and surrounding context

FTS5 Query Syntax

The search supports standard FTS5 query syntax:

• Simple keywords: docker deployment
• Phrases: "exact phrase"
• Boolean: docker OR kubernetes, python NOT java
• Prefix: deploy*

When It's Used

The agent is prompted to use session search automatically:

"When the user references something from a past conversation or you suspect relevant prior context exists, use session_search to recall it before asking them to repeat themselves."

Per-Platform Session Tracking

Gateway Sessions

On messaging platforms, sessions are keyed by a deterministic session key built from the message source:

Chat Type	Default Key Format	Behavior
Telegram DM	agent:main:telegram:dm:<chat_id>	One session per DM chat
Discord DM	agent:main:discord:dm:<chat_id>	One session per DM chat
WhatsApp DM	agent:main:whatsapp:dm:<chat_id>	One session per DM chat
Group chat	agent:main:<platform>:group:<chat_id>:<user_id>	Per-user inside the group when the platform exposes a user ID
Group thread/topic	agent:main:<platform>:group:<chat_id>:<thread_id>	Shared session for all thread participants (default). Per-user with thread_sessions_per_user: true.
Channel	agent:main:<platform>:channel:<chat_id>:<user_id>	Per-user inside the channel when the platform exposes a user ID

When Hermes cannot get a participant identifier for a shared chat, it falls back to one shared session for that room.

Shared vs Isolated Group Sessions

By default, Hermes uses group_sessions_per_user: true in config.yaml. That means:

• Alice and Bob can both talk to Hermes in the same Discord channel without sharing transcript history
• one user's long tool-heavy task does not pollute another user's context window
• interrupt handling also stays per-user because the running-agent key matches the isolated session key

If you want one shared "room brain" instead, set:

group_sessions_per_user: false

That reverts groups/channels to a single shared session per room, which preserves shared conversational context but also shares token costs, interrupt state, and context growth.

Session Reset Policies

Gateway sessions are automatically reset based on configurable policies:

• idle — reset after N minutes of inactivity
• daily — reset at a specific hour each day
• both — reset on whichever comes first (idle or daily)
• none — never auto-reset

Before a session is auto-reset, the agent is given a turn to save any important memories or skills from the conversation.

Sessions with active background processes are never auto-reset, regardless of policy.

Storage Locations

What	Path	Description
SQLite database	~/.hermes/state.db	All session metadata + messages with FTS5
Gateway transcripts	~/.hermes/sessions/	JSONL transcripts per session + sessions.json index
Gateway index	~/.hermes/sessions/sessions.json	Maps session keys to active session IDs

The SQLite database uses WAL mode for concurrent readers and a single writer, which suits the gateway's multi-platform architecture well.

Database Schema

Key tables in state.db:

• sessions — session metadata (id, source, user_id, model, title, timestamps, token counts). Titles have a unique index (NULL titles allowed, only non-NULL must be unique).
• messages — full message history (role, content, tool_calls, tool_name, token_count)
• messages_fts — FTS5 virtual table for full-text search across message content

Session Expiry and Cleanup

Automatic Cleanup

• Gateway sessions auto-reset based on the configured reset policy
• Before reset, the agent saves memories and skills from the expiring session
• Opt-in auto-pruning: when sessions.auto_prune is true, ended sessions older than sessions.retention_days (default 90) are pruned at CLI/gateway startup
• After a prune that actually removed rows, state.db is VACUUMed to reclaim disk space (SQLite does not shrink the file on plain DELETE)
• Pruning runs at most once per sessions.min_interval_hours (default 24); the last-run timestamp is tracked inside state.db itself so it's shared across every Hermes process in the same HERMES_HOME

Default is off — session history is valuable for session_search recall, and silently deleting it could surprise users. Enable in ~/.hermes/config.yaml:

sessions:
  auto_prune: true          # opt in — default is false
  retention_days: 90        # keep ended sessions this many days
  vacuum_after_prune: true  # reclaim disk space after a pruning sweep
  min_interval_hours: 24    # don't re-run the sweep more often than this

Active sessions are never auto-pruned, regardless of age.

Manual Cleanup

# Prune sessions older than 90 days
hermes sessions prune

# Delete a specific session
hermes sessions delete <session_id>

# Export before pruning (backup)
hermes sessions export backup.jsonl
hermes sessions prune --older-than 30 --yes

:::tip The database grows slowly (typical: 10-15 MB for hundreds of sessions) and session history powers session_search recall across past conversations, so auto-prune ships disabled. Enable it if you're running a heavy gateway/cron workload where state.db is meaningfully affecting performance (observed failure mode: 384 MB state.db with ~1000 sessions slowing down FTS5 inserts and /resume listing). Use hermes sessions prune for one-off cleanup without turning on the automatic sweep. :::