* test: make test env hermetic; enforce CI parity via scripts/run_tests.sh
Fixes the recurring 'works locally, fails in CI' (and vice versa) class
of flakes by making tests hermetic and providing a canonical local runner
that matches CI's environment.
## Layer 1 — hermetic conftest.py (tests/conftest.py)
Autouse fixture now unsets every credential-shaped env var before every
test, so developer-local API keys can't leak into tests that assert
'auto-detect provider when key present'.
Pattern: unset any var ending in _API_KEY, _TOKEN, _SECRET, _PASSWORD,
_CREDENTIALS, _ACCESS_KEY, _PRIVATE_KEY, etc. Plus an explicit list of
credential names that don't fit the suffix pattern (AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID,
FAL_KEY, GH_TOKEN, etc.) and all the provider BASE_URL overrides that
change auto-detect behavior.
Also unsets HERMES_* behavioral vars (HERMES_YOLO_MODE, HERMES_QUIET,
HERMES_SESSION_*, etc.) that mutate agent behavior.
Also:
- Redirects HOME to a per-test tempdir (not just HERMES_HOME), so
code reading ~/.hermes/* directly can't touch the real dir.
- Pins TZ=UTC, LANG=C.UTF-8, LC_ALL=C.UTF-8, PYTHONHASHSEED=0 to
match CI's deterministic runtime.
The old _isolate_hermes_home fixture name is preserved as an alias so
any test that yields it explicitly still works.
## Layer 2 — scripts/run_tests.sh canonical runner
'Always use scripts/run_tests.sh, never call pytest directly' is the
new rule (documented in AGENTS.md). The script:
- Unsets all credential env vars (belt-and-suspenders for callers
who bypass conftest — e.g. IDE integrations)
- Pins TZ/LANG/PYTHONHASHSEED
- Uses -n 4 xdist workers (matches GHA ubuntu-latest; -n auto on
a 20-core workstation surfaces test-ordering flakes CI will never
see, causing the infamous 'passes in CI, fails locally' drift)
- Finds the venv in .venv, venv, or main checkout's venv
- Passes through arbitrary pytest args
Installs pytest-split on demand so the script can also be used to run
matrix-split subsets locally for debugging.
## Remove 3 module-level dotenv stubs that broke test isolation
tests/hermes_cli/test_{arcee,xiaomi,api_key}_provider.py each had a
module-level:
if 'dotenv' not in sys.modules:
fake_dotenv = types.ModuleType('dotenv')
fake_dotenv.load_dotenv = lambda *a, **kw: None
sys.modules['dotenv'] = fake_dotenv
This patches sys.modules['dotenv'] to a fake at import time with no
teardown. Under pytest-xdist LoadScheduling, whichever worker collected
one of these files first poisoned its sys.modules; subsequent tests in
the same worker that imported load_dotenv transitively (e.g.
test_env_loader.py via hermes_cli.env_loader) got the no-op lambda and
saw their assertions fail.
dotenv is a required dependency (python-dotenv>=1.2.1 in pyproject.toml),
so the defensive stub was never needed. Removed.
## Validation
- tests/hermes_cli/ alone: 2178 passed, 1 skipped, 0 failed (was 4
failures in test_env_loader.py before this fix)
- tests/test_plugin_skills.py, tests/hermes_cli/test_plugins.py,
tests/test_hermes_logging.py combined: 123 passed (the caplog
regression tests from PR #11453 still pass)
- Local full run shows no F/E clusters in the 0-55% range that were
previously present before the conftest hardening
## Background
See AGENTS.md 'Testing' section for the full list of drift sources
this closes. Matrix split (closed as #11566) will be re-attempted
once this foundation lands — cross-test pollution was the root cause
of the shard-3 hang in that PR.
* fix(conftest): don't redirect HOME — it broke CI subprocesses
PR #11577's autouse fixture was setting HOME to a per-test tempdir.
CI started timing out at 97% complete with dozens of E/F markers and
orphan python processes at cleanup — tests (or transitive deps)
spawn subprocesses that expect a stable HOME, and the redirect broke
them in non-obvious ways.
Env-var unsetting and TZ/LANG/hashseed pinning (the actual CI-drift
fixes) are unchanged and still in place. HERMES_HOME redirection is
also unchanged — that's the canonical way to isolate tests from
~/.hermes/, not HOME.
Any code in the codebase reading ~/.hermes/* via `Path.home() / ".hermes"`
instead of `get_hermes_home()` is a bug to fix at the callsite, not
something to paper over in conftest.
|
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|---|---|---|
| .github | ||
| .plans | ||
| acp_adapter | ||
| acp_registry | ||
| agent | ||
| assets | ||
| cron | ||
| datagen-config-examples | ||
| docker | ||
| docs | ||
| environments | ||
| gateway | ||
| hermes_cli | ||
| nix | ||
| optional-skills | ||
| packaging/homebrew | ||
| plans | ||
| plugins | ||
| scripts | ||
| skills | ||
| tests | ||
| tinker-atropos@65f084ee80 | ||
| tools | ||
| web | ||
| website | ||
| .dockerignore | ||
| .env.example | ||
| .envrc | ||
| .gitattributes | ||
| .gitignore | ||
| .gitmodules | ||
| .mailmap | ||
| AGENTS.md | ||
| batch_runner.py | ||
| cli-config.yaml.example | ||
| cli.py | ||
| constraints-termux.txt | ||
| CONTRIBUTING.md | ||
| Dockerfile | ||
| flake.lock | ||
| flake.nix | ||
| hermes | ||
| hermes-already-has-routines.md | ||
| 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.md | ||
| RELEASE_v0.2.0.md | ||
| RELEASE_v0.3.0.md | ||
| RELEASE_v0.4.0.md | ||
| RELEASE_v0.5.0.md | ||
| RELEASE_v0.6.0.md | ||
| RELEASE_v0.7.0.md | ||
| RELEASE_v0.8.0.md | ||
| RELEASE_v0.9.0.md | ||
| RELEASE_v0.10.0.md | ||
| requirements.txt | ||
| rl_cli.py | ||
| run_agent.py | ||
| SECURITY.md | ||
| setup-hermes.sh | ||
| 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 (200+ models), 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> |
/skills or /<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:
git clone https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent.git
cd hermes-agent
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]"
python -m pytest tests/ -q
RL Training (optional): To work on the RL/Tinker-Atropos integration:
git submodule update --init tinker-atropos uv pip install -e "./tinker-atropos"
Community
- 💬 Discord
- 📚 Skills Hub
- 🐛 Issues
- 💡 Discussions
- 🔌 HermesClaw — Community WeChat bridge: Run Hermes Agent and OpenClaw on the same WeChat account.
License
MIT — see LICENSE.
Built by Nous Research.