b7fe7ed7bd
User hit a real failure case: their system Git was in a half-installed state
(can neither uninstall nor reinstall) and winget refused to work around it.
We were one step away from shipping an installer that would have left users
with exactly the problem he already had.
What other agents do (reality check):
- Claude Code: requires pre-installed Git; breaks if user doesn't have it.
- OpenCode, Codex: don't need bash at all — PowerShell-first design.
- Cline: uses whatever shell VSCode is configured with; installs nothing.
None of them solve the "broken system Git" problem. We need to own our Git.
Changes:
- scripts/install.ps1::Install-Git: dropped winget path entirely. Now:
(1) use existing git if present; (2) download portable MinGit from the
official git-for-windows GitHub release to %LOCALAPPDATA%\hermes\git.
No winget, no admin, no Windows installer registry, no system impact.
- Added %LOCALAPPDATA%\hermes\git\{cmd,usr\bin} to User PATH so git + bash
+ POSIX coreutils (which, env, grep, …) resolve in fresh shells.
- tools/environments/local.py::_find_bash: reorder so Hermes' portable
MinGit install is checked BEFORE falling through to shutil.which("bash")
or system install locations. This way a broken system Git can't
hijack the bash lookup.
- README + installation docs reworded to reflect the new story: "portable
Git Bash, isolated from any system install, recoverable via rm -rf if it
ever breaks."
Recoverability: if Hermes' Git install ever breaks, ``Remove-Item %LOCALAPPDATA%\hermes\git``
and re-run the installer — no system impact, no uninstall drama, no winget
to fight with.
12 KiB
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 | Seven 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-ready | Batch trajectory generation, Atropos RL environments, trajectory compression for training the next generation of tool-calling models. |
Quick Install
Linux, macOS, WSL2, Termux
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/main/scripts/install.sh | bash
Windows (native, PowerShell)
Run this in PowerShell:
irm https://raw.githubusercontent.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/main/scripts/install.ps1 | iex
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 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. The only Hermes feature that currently needs WSL2 specifically is the browser-based dashboard chat pane (it uses a POSIX PTY — classic CLI and gateway both run natively).
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/) — seeCONTRIBUTING.mdfor the full setup.
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.