hermes-agent/website/docs/getting-started/installation.md

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2	Installation	Install Hermes Agent on Linux, macOS, WSL2, native Windows (early beta), or Android via Termux

Installation

Get Hermes Agent up and running in under two minutes with the one-line installer.

Quick Install

Desktop App (macOS + Windows)

Prefer a native installer? Use the desktop release channel that matches your risk tolerance:

• Stable (recommended): GitHub Releases
• Nightly (rolling prerelease): desktop-nightly

Stable desktop builds ship signed/notarized macOS artifacts and Windows installers with checksum files.

One-Line CLI Installer (Linux / macOS / WSL2)

For a git-based install that tracks main and gives you the latest changes immediately:

main

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/main/scripts/install.sh | bash

Windows CLI (native, PowerShell) — Early Beta

:::warning Early BETA Native Windows support is early beta. It installs and works for the common paths, but hasn't been road-tested as broadly as our POSIX installers. Please file issues when you hit rough edges. For the most battle-tested setup on Windows today, use the Linux/macOS one-liner above inside WSL2 instead. :::

Open PowerShell and run:

iex (irm https://raw.githubusercontent.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/main/scripts/install.ps1)

The installer handles everything: uv, Python 3.11, Node.js 22, ripgrep, ffmpeg, and a portable Git Bash (PortableGit — a self-contained Git-for-Windows distribution that ships bash.exe and the full POSIX toolchain Hermes uses for shell commands; on 32-bit Windows the installer falls back to MinGit, which lacks bash and disables terminal-tool / agent-browser features). It clones the repo under %LOCALAPPDATA%\hermes\hermes-agent, creates a virtualenv, and adds hermes to your User PATH. Restart your terminal (or open a new PowerShell window) after the install so PATH picks up.

How Git is handled:

1. If git is already on your PATH, the installer uses your existing install.
2. Otherwise it downloads portable PortableGit (~50MB, from the official git-for-windows GitHub release) and unpacks it to %LOCALAPPDATA%\hermes\git. No admin rights required. Completely isolated — it won't interfere with any system Git install, broken or otherwise. (On 32-bit Windows it falls back to MinGit because PortableGit ships only 64-bit and ARM64 assets; bash-dependent Hermes features won't work on 32-bit hosts.)

Why not use winget? Earlier designs auto-installed Git via winget install Git.Git, but winget fails badly when a system Git install is in a partial or broken state (exactly when users need the installer to just work). The portable Git approach sidesteps winget, the Windows installer registry, and any existing system Git entirely. If the Hermes Git install itself ever breaks, Remove-Item %LOCALAPPDATA%\hermes\git and re-run the installer — no system impact, no uninstall drama.

The installer also sets HERMES_GIT_BASH_PATH to the located bash.exe so Hermes resolves it deterministically in fresh shells.

If you prefer WSL2, the Linux installer above works inside it; both native and WSL installs can coexist without conflict (native data lives under %LOCALAPPDATA%\hermes, WSL data lives under ~/.hermes).

Desktop installer (alternative): A thin GUI installer is also available — download Hermes Desktop, run the .exe, and on first launch it calls install.ps1 under the hood to provision Python (via uv), Node, PortableGit, and the rest of the dependencies. The desktop app and the PowerShell-installed CLI share the same install and data directories, so you can use either or both. See the Windows (Native) guide for details.

Android / Termux

Hermes now ships a Termux-aware installer path too:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/main/scripts/install.sh | bash

The installer detects Termux automatically and switches to a tested Android flow:

• uses Termux pkg for system dependencies (git, python, nodejs, ripgrep, ffmpeg, build tools)
• creates the virtualenv with python -m venv
• exports ANDROID_API_LEVEL automatically for Android wheel builds
• prefers the broad .[termux-all] extra and falls back to the smaller .[termux] extra (and finally a base install) if the first attempt fails to compile
• skips the untested browser / WhatsApp bootstrap by default

If you want the fully explicit path, follow the dedicated Termux guide.

What the Installer Does

The installer handles everything automatically — all dependencies (Python, Node.js, ripgrep, ffmpeg), the repo clone, virtual environment, global hermes command setup, and LLM provider configuration. By the end, you're ready to chat.

Install Layout

Where the installer puts things depends on whether you're installing as a normal user or as root:

Installer	Code lives at	hermes binary	Data directory
pip install	Python site-packages	~/.local/bin/hermes (console_scripts)	~/.hermes/
Per-user (git installer)	~/.hermes/hermes-agent/	~/.local/bin/hermes (symlink)	~/.hermes/
Root-mode (sudo curl … | sudo bash)	/usr/local/lib/hermes-agent/	/usr/local/bin/hermes	/root/.hermes/ (or $HERMES_HOME)

The root-mode FHS layout (/usr/local/lib/…, /usr/local/bin/hermes) matches where other system-wide developer tools land on Linux. It's useful for shared-machine deployments where one system install should serve every user. Per-user config (auth, skills, sessions) still lives under each user's ~/.hermes/ or explicit HERMES_HOME.

After Installation

Reload your shell and start chatting:

source ~/.bashrc   # or: source ~/.zshrc
hermes             # Start chatting!

To reconfigure individual settings later, use the dedicated commands:

hermes model          # Choose your LLM provider and model
hermes tools          # Configure which tools are enabled
hermes gateway setup  # Set up messaging platforms
hermes config set     # Set individual config values
hermes setup          # Or run the full setup wizard to configure everything at once

:::tip Fastest path: Nous Portal One subscription covers 300+ models plus the Tool Gateway (web search, image generation, TTS, cloud browser). Skip the per-tool key juggling:

hermes setup --portal

That logs you in, sets Nous as your provider, and turns on the Tool Gateway in one command. :::

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Prerequisites

pip install: No prerequisites beyond Python 3.11+. Everything else is handled automatically.

Git installer: The only prerequisite is Git. The installer automatically handles everything else:

• uv (fast Python package manager)
• Python 3.11 (via uv, no sudo needed)
• Node.js v22 (for browser automation and WhatsApp bridge)
• ripgrep (fast file search)
• ffmpeg (audio format conversion for TTS)

:::info You do not need to install Python, Node.js, ripgrep, or ffmpeg manually. The installer detects what's missing and installs it for you. Just make sure git is available (git --version). :::

:::tip Nix users If you use Nix (on NixOS, macOS, or Linux), there's a dedicated setup path with a Nix flake, declarative NixOS module, and optional container mode. See the Nix & NixOS Setup guide. :::

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Manual / Developer Installation

If you want to clone the repo and install from source — for contributing, running from a specific branch, or having full control over the virtual environment — see the Development Setup section in the Contributing guide.

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Non-Sudo / System Service User Installs

Running Hermes as a dedicated unprivileged user (e.g. a hermes systemd service account, or any user without sudo access) is supported. The only thing on the install path that genuinely needs root is Playwright's --with-deps step, which apt-installs shared libraries (libnss3, libxkbcommon, etc.) used by Chromium. The installer detects whether sudo is available and gracefully degrades when it isn't — it will install the Chromium binary into the service user's own Playwright cache and print the exact command an administrator needs to run separately.

Recommended split (Debian/Ubuntu):

1. One time, as an admin user with sudo, install the system libraries Chromium needs:

   sudo npx playwright install-deps chromium
   

   (You can run this from anywhere — npx will fetch Playwright on the fly.)

2. As the unprivileged service user, run the regular installer. It will detect the missing sudo, skip --with-deps, and install Chromium into the user's local Playwright cache:

   curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/main/scripts/install.sh | bash
   

   If you want to skip the Playwright step entirely — for example because you're running headless and don't need browser automation — pass --skip-browser:

   curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/main/scripts/install.sh | bash -s -- --skip-browser
   

3. Make hermes available to the service user's shells. The installer writes the launcher to ~/.local/bin/hermes. System service accounts often have a minimal PATH that doesn't include ~/.local/bin. Either add it to the user's environment, or symlink the launcher into a system location:

   # Option A — add to the service user's profile
   echo 'export PATH="$HOME/.local/bin:$PATH"' >> ~/.bashrc
   
   # Option B — symlink system-wide (run as an admin)
   sudo ln -s /home/hermes/.hermes/hermes-agent/venv/bin/hermes /usr/local/bin/hermes
   

4. Verify: hermes doctor should now run cleanly. If you get ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'dotenv', you're invoking the repo source hermes file (~/.hermes/hermes-agent/hermes) with system Python instead of the venv launcher (~/.hermes/hermes-agent/venv/bin/hermes) — fix step 3.

The same pattern works on Arch (the installer uses pacman with the same sudo-detection logic), Fedora/RHEL, and openSUSE — those distros don't support --with-deps at all, so an administrator always installs the system libraries separately. The relevant dnf/zypper commands are printed by the installer.

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Troubleshooting

Problem	Solution
hermes: command not found	Reload your shell (source ~/.bashrc) or check PATH
API key not set	Run hermes model to configure your provider, or hermes config set OPENROUTER_API_KEY your_key
Missing config after update	Run hermes config check then hermes config migrate

For more diagnostics, run hermes doctor — it will tell you exactly what's missing and how to fix it.

Install method auto-detection

Hermes auto-detects whether it was installed via pip, the git installer, Homebrew, or NixOS, and hermes update prints the matching update command for that path. There's no env var to set — the detection is based on the install layout (Python site-packages, ~/.hermes/hermes-agent/, Homebrew prefix, or Nix store path). hermes doctor also surfaces the detected method under its environment summary.