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hermes-agent/website/docs/user-guide/features/overview.md
Brooklyn Nicholson 07648318ad feat(voice): "Hey Hermes" wake word to start a hands-free session 
Opt-in, fully on-device wake word — the "Hey Siri" pattern — across all three
local surfaces (CLI, TUI, desktop GUI), with one configurable owner. Say the
phrase and Hermes opens a fresh session and starts hands-free voice; talk
back-and-forth; end it and the wake word re-arms. "Hey Hermes" works out of the
box (a trained model ships with Hermes). Off by default — nothing listens until
you turn it on.

Footprint: no new core model tool (config + a CLI command + gateway RPCs);
cache-safe (on wake we hand a transcript to the normal input path, never a
system-prompt/toolset mutation); .env only carries PORCUPINE_ACCESS_KEY.

- tools/wake_word.py: shared, engine-pluggable detector (openWakeWord default,
  free/local; Porcupine premium) over the existing 16 kHz sounddevice capture.
  Background daemon thread with pause()/resume() so it yields the mic during a
  voice turn, and reset() on every (re)start so a resume can't re-fire on stale
  audio. Ships a bundled "hey hermes" openWakeWord model (tools/wakewords/,
  trained with the openWakeWord pipeline, Apache-2.0) as the default; a built-in
  name or a custom .onnx/.tflite path still works. download_models() is called
  for any model so a fresh install fetches the shared feature models (else it
  crashed on a missing melspectrogram.onnx).
- wake_word.surface ("auto"|"cli"|"tui"|"gui") + wake_surface_enabled() gate so
  exactly one surface owns the listener and the session it opens.
- CLI: in-process detector; on wake → new session + single-utterance capture via
  the existing voice pipeline, with an idle watchdog that re-arms the mic.
  /wake [on|off|status] command.
- TUI + desktop GUI: share the Python tui_gateway, which runs the detector
  server-side and exposes wake.start/stop/pause/resume/status + a wake.detected
  event (routed back over the same transport that armed it). Desktop arms it on
  connect, opens a fresh session + starts voice on wake, and hands the mic
  between the detector and its browser voice loop.
- config.yaml wake_word section; [wake] extra + uv.lock; packaging ships the
  bundled model in wheel and sdist.
- Also: collapse ElevenLabs voice-list 401 log spam; treat an empty STT
  transcript (silence) as a quiet re-listen, not a "transcription failed" toast.
- Tests (mocked, no live audio/network) + packaging guard + feature docs.
2026-07-22 10:36:37 -05:00

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Features Overview Overview 1

Features Overview

Hermes Agent includes a rich set of capabilities that extend far beyond basic chat. From persistent memory and file-aware context to browser automation and voice conversations, these features work together to make Hermes a powerful autonomous assistant.

:::tip Don't know where to start? hermes setup --portal covers a model provider plus all four Tool Gateway tools (web search, image generation, TTS, browser) in one command. See Nous Portal. :::

Core

  • Tools & Toolsets — Tools are functions that extend the agent's capabilities. They're organized into logical toolsets that can be enabled or disabled per platform, covering web search, terminal execution, file editing, memory, delegation, and more.
  • Skills System — On-demand knowledge documents the agent can load when needed. Skills follow a progressive disclosure pattern to minimize token usage and are compatible with the agentskills.io open standard.
  • Persistent Memory — Bounded, curated memory that persists across sessions. Hermes remembers your preferences, projects, environment, and things it has learned via MEMORY.md and USER.md.
  • Context Files — Hermes automatically discovers and loads project context files (.hermes.md, AGENTS.md, CLAUDE.md, SOUL.md, .cursorrules) that shape how it behaves in your project.
  • Context References — Type @ followed by a reference to inject files, folders, git diffs, and URLs directly into your messages. Hermes expands the reference inline and appends the content automatically.
  • Checkpoints — Hermes automatically snapshots your working directory before making file changes, giving you a safety net to roll back with /rollback if something goes wrong.

Automation

  • Scheduled Tasks (Cron) — Schedule tasks to run automatically with natural language or cron expressions. Jobs can attach skills, deliver results to any platform, and support pause/resume/edit operations.
  • Subagent Delegation — The delegate_task tool spawns child agent instances with isolated context, restricted toolsets, and their own terminal sessions. Run 3 concurrent subagents by default (configurable) for parallel workstreams.
  • Code Execution — The execute_code tool lets the agent write Python scripts that call Hermes tools programmatically, collapsing multi-step workflows into a single LLM turn via sandboxed RPC execution.
  • Event Hooks — Run custom code at key lifecycle points. Gateway hooks handle logging, alerts, and webhooks; plugin hooks handle tool interception, metrics, and guardrails.
  • Batch Processing — Run the Hermes agent across hundreds or thousands of prompts in parallel, generating structured ShareGPT-format trajectory data for training data generation or evaluation.

Media & Web

  • Voice Mode — Full voice interaction across CLI and messaging platforms. Talk to the agent using your microphone, hear spoken replies, and have live voice conversations in Discord voice channels.
  • Wake Word — Hands-free "Hey Hermes" trigger for the CLI. An on-device hotword listener starts a fresh voice session when you speak the wake phrase, the "Hey Siri" way.
  • Browser Automation — Full browser automation with multiple backends: Browserbase cloud, Browser Use cloud, local Chrome/Brave/Chromium/Edge via CDP, or local Chromium. Navigate websites, fill forms, and extract information.
  • Vision & Image Paste — Multimodal vision support. Paste images from your clipboard into the CLI and ask the agent to analyze, describe, or work with them using any vision-capable model.
  • Image Generation — Generate images from text prompts using FAL.ai. Eleven models supported (FLUX 2 Klein/Pro, GPT-Image 1.5/2, Nano Banana Pro, Ideogram V3, Recraft V4 Pro, Qwen, Z-Image Turbo, Krea V2 Medium/Large); pick one via hermes tools.
  • Voice & TTS — Text-to-speech output and voice message transcription across all messaging platforms, with ten native provider options: Edge TTS (free), ElevenLabs, OpenAI TTS, MiniMax, Mistral Voxtral, Google Gemini, xAI, NeuTTS, KittenTTS, and Piper — plus custom command providers for any local TTS CLI.

Integrations

  • MCP Integration — Connect to any MCP server via stdio or HTTP transport. Access external tools from GitHub, databases, file systems, and internal APIs without writing native Hermes tools. Includes per-server tool filtering and sampling support.
  • Provider Routing — Fine-grained control over which AI providers handle your requests. Optimize for cost, speed, or quality with sorting, whitelists, blacklists, and priority ordering.
  • Fallback Providers — Automatic failover to backup LLM providers when your primary model encounters errors, including independent fallback for auxiliary tasks like vision and compression.
  • Credential Pools — Distribute API calls across multiple keys for the same provider. Automatic rotation on rate limits or failures.
  • Prompt caching — Built-in cross-session 1-hour prefix cache for Claude on native Anthropic, OpenRouter, and Nous Portal. Always-on; no configuration required.
  • Memory Providers — Plug in external memory backends (Honcho, OpenViking, Mem0, Hindsight, Holographic, RetainDB, ByteRover, Supermemory) for cross-session user modeling and personalization beyond the built-in memory system.
  • API Server — Expose Hermes as an OpenAI-compatible HTTP endpoint. Connect any frontend that speaks the OpenAI format — Open WebUI, LobeChat, LibreChat, and more.
  • IDE Integration (ACP) — Use Hermes inside ACP-compatible editors such as VS Code, Zed, and JetBrains. Chat, tool activity, file diffs, and terminal commands render inside your editor.
  • Batch Processing — Run the agent over many prompts or tasks in parallel from the CLI, with structured outputs and trajectory capture suitable for evals or downstream training pipelines.

Customization

  • Personality & SOUL.md — Fully customizable agent personality. SOUL.md is the primary identity file — the first thing in the system prompt — and you can swap in built-in or custom /personality presets per session.
  • Skins & Themes — Customize the CLI's visual presentation: banner colors, spinner faces and verbs, response-box labels, branding text, and the tool activity prefix.
  • Plugins — Add custom tools, hooks, and integrations without modifying core code. Three plugin types: general plugins (tools/hooks), memory providers (cross-session knowledge), and context engines (alternative context management). Managed via the unified hermes plugins interactive UI.