* feat(attribution): conflict-free contributor mappings via contributors/emails/ directory
The AUTHOR_MAP dict in scripts/release.py was a merge-conflict magnet:
every concurrent salvage PR appended entries to the same lines of the
same file, so parallel PRs re-conflicted on every merge to main.
New system: one file per email under contributors/emails/ — filename is
the commit-author email, first non-comment line is the GitHub login.
File additions never conflict, so any number of PRs can add mappings
concurrently.
- scripts/release.py: AUTHOR_MAP is now LEGACY_AUTHOR_MAP (frozen)
merged with the directory at import time (directory wins). All
existing consumers (resolve_author, contributor_audit.py) unchanged.
- scripts/add_contributor.py: idempotent CLI to add a mapping; refuses
conflicting reassignments (incl. against the legacy map), validates
email/login shapes.
- contributor-check.yml: attribution gate now accepts a mapping file OR
a legacy entry; failure message prints the exact add_contributor
command. Also auto-resolves bare <login>@users.noreply.github.com
emails is intentionally NOT added (kept id+login form only, matching
previous behavior).
- contributor_audit.py: guidance now points at add_contributor.py.
- tests/scripts/test_contributor_map.py: 12 tests covering loader,
merge precedence, CLI idempotency/conflict/validation, subprocess E2E.
* feat(ci): one-shot per-file flake retry in the parallel test runner
A failing test FILE is re-run once in a fresh subprocess. Pass-on-retry
counts as green but is loudly reported in a '⚠ FLAKY' summary section
(with both attempts' output preserved) so the flake gets fixed instead
of eating a full-run rerun. Deterministic failures fail both attempts —
regressions cannot be laundered green.
- --file-retries N / HERMES_TEST_FILE_RETRIES (default 1, 0 disables)
- E2E verified: simulated first-run-fail flake goes green with banner;
deterministic failure still exits 1; retries=0 restores old behavior.
This converts the dominant CI failure mode (one timing-sensitive test
flaking a 4600-test shard, requiring a manual 10-minute rerun and an
agent triage loop) into a self-healing retry that costs one file's
runtime.
* test(approval): loosen wall-clock perf bounds 0.15s -> 2.0s
These guard against catastrophic regex backtracking (seconds-to-minutes
class), but 0.15s is within scheduler-stall noise on loaded shared CI
runners — test_max_accepted_separator_free_input_is_fast failed a CI
shard this week on runner load alone. 2.0s still catches the regression
class with zero flake surface.
* fix(ci): job timeouts everywhere + retries on all network installs
Reliability pass over every workflow:
- timeout-minutes on all 21 jobs that lacked one (a hung job previously
burned the 6-hour default runner budget)
- ./.github/actions/retry wrapped around every network-fetching install
that lacked it: pip installs (deploy-site, skills-index), npm ci
(deploy-site website, upload_to_pypi web + ui-tui), uv sync (docker
test deps). Deterministic build steps (npm run build) deliberately
NOT retried — split into separate steps so a real build failure fails
fast instead of retrying 3x.
* docs(agents): document the file-retry flake policy
* fix(ci): curl retries on deploy hook + skills-index probe
* fix(ci): kill the remaining transient-failure classes in workflows + Dockerfile
From the workflow reliability audit:
- tests.yml: duration-cache restore had NO restore-keys while saves use
run_id-suffixed keys — the cache never matched once, so LPT slicing
always ran blind and unbalanced slices pushed heavy files toward the
per-file timeout. One-line restore-keys fixes slice balancing.
- Label gates (lint ci-reviewed, supply-chain mcp-catalog-reviewed):
'gh pr view || true' turned an API blip into 'label absent' → false
BLOCKING failure. Now 3x retry, and API failure is reported as an API
failure instead of a missing label.
- detect-changes action: compare API retried before failing open (was
silently running all lanes on any blip).
- uv-lockfile-check: 'uv lock --check' resolves against PyPI — retried
so registry blips don't read as 'lockfile stale'.
- docker.yml merge job: imagetools create retried (Docker Hub eventual
consistency on just-pushed digests).
- Dockerfile: apt-get Acquire::Retries=3; s6-overlay ADDs converted to
curl --retry 3 (ADD cannot retry; checksums still enforced); npm
--fetch-retries=5; playwright chromium fetch retried 3x.
- Advisory artifact uploads (per-slice durations, ci-timings report)
get continue-on-error so an artifact-service blip can't fail a green
test slice.
* fix(tests): kill the two root-cause flakes — leaking pre-warm timer + env-dependent provider list
- test_tui_gateway_server.py: session.create / non-eager session.resume
arm a 50ms threading.Timer (_schedule_agent_build) that outlives its
test and fires into the NEXT test's _make_agent mock, racily
corrupting captured state (the recurring session_resume shard
failures). Replaced the per-test whack-a-mole stub with a module-wide
autouse fixture; the 3 worker-lifecycle tests that genuinely need the
deferred build opt back in via @pytest.mark.real_agent_prewarm (new
marker in pyproject).
- test_api_key_providers.py: PROVIDER_ENV_VARS is now derived from the
live PROVIDER_REGISTRY instead of a hand-list that had drifted
(missing HF_TOKEN / DEEPINFRA_API_KEY) — resolve_provider('auto')
tests failed on any machine with HF_TOKEN exported. E2E-verified with
HF_TOKEN/DEEPINFRA_API_KEY set: 42/42 pass.
* test: de-flake 30 timing-sensitive test files for loaded CI runners
Root-cause fixes from the flake audit (session-DB mining + repo sweep):
Event-based sync instead of sleep-sync:
- title_generator: mock sets threading.Event, wait(10) replaces
sleep(0.3) hoping the daemon thread got scheduled
- docker zombie_reaping / profile_gateway: poll-for-state helpers
replace fixed 1-3s sleeps (s6 transitions + SIGCHLD reaping are async)
- process_registry tree test: select()-bounded readline replaces an
unbounded blocking read (parent wedge now fails THIS test with a clear
message instead of an opaque rc=124 file kill); SIGTERM grace 1s->2s
(the 1s partition window mid-interpreter-startup is how a child PID
escaped the live-system guard in CI)
Timeout raises (loaded 8-way-sliced runners see ~5s scheduling floors;
all of these complete in ms-to-1s when healthy so the raises cost
nothing on green runs):
- subprocess/thread waits <= 2s raised to 10-15s across mcp_tool,
mcp_circuit_breaker, mcp_reconnect_retry_reset, mcp_parked_self_probe,
mcp_cancelled_error_propagation, registry, clarify_gateway, interrupt,
voice_cli_integration, docker_environment, session_store_lock_io,
planned_stop_watcher, cli_interrupt_subagent, thread_scoped_output
(joins now also assert not is_alive() so stragglers fail loudly)
- wall-clock discrimination ceilings loosened where the guarded hang is
10x larger: local_background_child_hang 4s->10s, interrupt_cleanup
setup 5s->20s + pgid-exit 30s->60s, mcp_stability grandchild spinup
5s->15s, protocol/gil-starvation fast-handler 0.5s->2s,
iso_certify_seam 1.5s->5s, wait_for_mcp_discovery 0.1s->1s
- narrow assertion windows widened: honcho first-turn wait 0.4..0.65 ->
0.25..2.0 (property is bounded-not-hung, not an exact wall-clock);
compression fork-lock TTL 1s->3s (12 refresh chances per lease);
compression-lock expiry margins symmetric (ttl 0.05->0.5, sleep 1.0)
- telegram hung-DNS bound 1.0->1.4 (fake hang is 1.5s — must stay under)
* fix(tests): repair indentation from de-flake batch edit
* fix(tests): harden env isolation and replace remaining sleep-sync races
The full 42k-test run and complete npm check surfaced three more classes:
- Environment isolation: local ~/.honcho defaultHost and SSH_* variables
leaked into Python/TUI tests. Pin the default Honcho host in the
hermetic fixture, isolate the one fallback test from ~/.honcho, and
blank SSH_* around terminalSetup tests. This flipped 20 false failures
back to deterministic behavior on developer machines.
- Background-thread sleep-sync: Honcho async writer tests patched
time.sleep globally, then busy-polled with that same mocked sleep. Under
full-suite load the poller could starve the writer. Each test now waits
on an Event emitted by the exact flush/retry transition; 30/30 passed
under 15-way contention.
- Desktop streaming: the test slept 80ms and assumed a 500ms timer could
not fire before its assertion. A loaded runner descheduled the test for
>500ms and both chunks arrived. Producer controls now gate second-chunk
and completion transitions explicitly.
Also make file-retry observability complete: a self-healed flaky file now
prints BOTH attempts' full output in the FLAKY summary. Two behavioral
runner tests prove pass-on-retry is green+loud+traceback-preserving, while
a deterministic failure remains red.
* refactor(ci): use gh bot pat, better retries
refactor(ci): use retry action for PR label fetch
the retry action now captures stdout as a step output, so it can serve
double duty: retry + output capture for commands like 'gh pr view' whose
result must be consumed by later steps.
Retry action gains:
- 'stdout' output (heredoc-delimited to preserve newlines)
- tee to temp file so stdout still streams to the job log
- step id 'retry' for output reference
Both lint.yml and supply-chain-audit.yml now use the retry action
directly with 'command: gh pr view ...' and read
steps.<id>.outputs.stdout.
ci: use AUTOFIX_BOT_PAT for all gh CLI / GitHub API auth
Replace secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN and github.token with
secrets.AUTOFIX_BOT_PAT across all workflows and composite actions
that use the gh CLI or GitHub API. The PAT has consistent permissions
across fork PRs (where GITHUB_TOKEN is read-only), avoids API rate
limit sharing with the default token, and is already used by
js-autofix.yml for the same reasons.
19 sites swapped across 9 files:
- lint.yml (3): label fetch, comment post/edit, comment update
- supply-chain-audit.yml (5): scan, critical comment, unbounded dep
comment, label fetch, mcp-catalog comment
- lockfile-diff.yml (1): PR comment post/update
- skills-index-freshness.yml (1): issue creation on degraded probe
- skills-index.yml (2): index build, trigger deploy workflow
- upload_to_pypi.yml (2): release view poll, release upload
- ci.yml (1): timings report
- deploy-site.yml (2): skills index crawl
- detect-changes/action.yml (1): compare API call
---------
Co-authored-by: ethernet <arilotter@gmail.com>
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||
|---|---|---|
| .github | ||
| .plans | ||
| acp_adapter | ||
| acp_registry | ||
| agent | ||
| apps | ||
| assets | ||
| contributors | ||
| cron | ||
| datagen-config-examples | ||
| docker | ||
| docs | ||
| gateway | ||
| hermes_cli | ||
| infographic | ||
| locales | ||
| nix | ||
| optional-mcps | ||
| optional-skills | ||
| packaging/homebrew | ||
| plugins | ||
| providers | ||
| scripts | ||
| skills | ||
| tests | ||
| tests-js | ||
| tools | ||
| tui_gateway | ||
| ui-tui | ||
| web | ||
| website | ||
| .dockerignore | ||
| .env.example | ||
| .envrc | ||
| .gitattributes | ||
| .gitignore | ||
| .hadolint.yaml | ||
| .mailmap | ||
| .prettierignore | ||
| .prettierrc | ||
| AGENTS.md | ||
| batch_runner.py | ||
| cli-config.yaml.example | ||
| cli.py | ||
| constraints-termux.txt | ||
| CONTRIBUTING.es.md | ||
| CONTRIBUTING.md | ||
| docker-compose.windows.yml | ||
| docker-compose.yml | ||
| Dockerfile | ||
| eslint.config.shared.mjs | ||
| flake.lock | ||
| flake.nix | ||
| hermes | ||
| hermes-already-has-routines.md | ||
| hermes_bootstrap.py | ||
| hermes_constants.py | ||
| hermes_logging.py | ||
| hermes_state.py | ||
| hermes_time.py | ||
| LICENSE | ||
| MANIFEST.in | ||
| mcp_serve.py | ||
| mini_swe_runner.py | ||
| model_tools.py | ||
| package-lock.json | ||
| package.json | ||
| pyproject.toml | ||
| README.es.md | ||
| README.md | ||
| README.ur-pk.md | ||
| README.zh-CN.md | ||
| run_agent.py | ||
| SECURITY.es.md | ||
| SECURITY.md | ||
| setup-hermes.sh | ||
| setup.py | ||
| toolset_distributions.py | ||
| toolsets.py | ||
| trajectory_compressor.py | ||
| utils.py | ||
| uv.lock | ||
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, OpenAI, your own endpoint, and many others. 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, Singularity, Modal, and Daytona. 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, 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~/.hermesas 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
uvand 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
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 <name> - 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.
You can still bring your own keys per-tool whenever you want — the gateway is per-backend, not all-or-nothing.
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 — use the standard installer, then work from the
full git checkout it creates at $HERMES_HOME/hermes-agent (usually
~/.hermes/hermes-agent). This matches the layout used by hermes update, the
managed venv, lazy dependencies, gateway, and docs tooling.
curl -fsSL https://hermes-agent.nousresearch.com/install.sh | bash
cd "${HERMES_HOME:-$HOME/.hermes}/hermes-agent"
uv pip install -e ".[all,dev]"
scripts/run_tests.sh
Manual clone fallback (for throwaway clones/CI where you intentionally do not want the managed install layout):
Create the venv outside the cloned source tree — a venv inside the directory the agent operates from can be wiped by a relative-path command the agent runs against its own checkout, destroying the running runtime mid-session.
curl -LsSf https://astral.sh/uv/install.sh | sh
uv venv ~/.hermes/venvs/hermes-dev --python 3.11
source ~/.hermes/venvs/hermes-dev/bin/activate
uv pip install -e ".[all,dev]"
scripts/run_tests.sh
Community
- 💬 Discord
- 📚 Skills Hub
- 🐛 Issues
- 🔌 computer-use-linux — Linux desktop-control MCP server for Hermes and other MCP hosts, with AT-SPI accessibility trees, Wayland/X11 input, screenshots, and compositor window targeting.
- 🔌 HermesClaw — Community WeChat bridge: Run Hermes Agent and OpenClaw on the same WeChat account.
License
MIT — see LICENSE.
Built by Nous Research.