What is Hermes Agent?

Hermes Agent is an open-source AI agent developed by Nous Research, designed to execute tasks, retain knowledge, and evolve over time. Rather than simply generating responses, it leverages tools such as terminals, browsers, file systems, web search, and code execution to accomplish work.

What is an AI agent?

An AI agent goes beyond text generation. You provide it with a goal, and it autonomously decides on the necessary actions, utilises tools, observes outcomes, and continues working toward the objective.

While many AI agents can already utilise tools and complete multi-step tasks, the distinction lies in what happens post-task. Some agents treat every task as a fresh problem. Hermes, however, is engineered to retain useful knowledge and procedures, becoming increasingly useful over time. See Agentic AI to learn how this applies to running agents on DaDesktop.

What makes Hermes different?

Hermes features a built-in learning loop. It can generate skills from experience, refine those skills during use, remember useful information, and search previous sessions when it requires insights from earlier work.

Why use Hermes Agent?

Hermes is particularly useful when tasks involve multiple steps, tools, or applications. Instead of repeatedly switching between an AI chat, terminal, browser, and files, you can delegate the overall task to Hermes and allow it to coordinate the work.

• Complete whole tasks: provide Hermes with an objective rather than requesting individual instructions.
• Maintain context over time: retain useful information across separate sessions.
• Create reusable workflows: save successful approaches as skills instead of resolving the same problem from scratch each time.
• Automate recurring work: schedule tasks to run automatically in the background.
• Delegate work: use separate sub-agents for different components of a larger task.
• Select your model: connect Hermes to local models or supported cloud model providers.

What Hermes can do

• Software development: inspect code, debug issues, make changes, run tests, and manage repositories.
• Research: search the web, read sources, collect information, and organise findings.
• Automation: run scripts and schedule recurring tasks such as reports, monitoring, and other routines.
• System administration: use the terminal, install software, configure systems, and troubleshoot issues.
• Browser tasks: navigate websites, interact with web pages, and collect information.
• File management: read, create, edit, search, and organise files.
• Tool integrations: connect additional services and tools through MCP.

How Hermes improves with use

Imagine you assign Hermes a complex task requiring several steps. While solving it, Hermes may identify an effective workflow. It can save this workflow as a skill, ensuring the knowledge is preserved even after the task concludes.

When a similar task arises in the future, Hermes can utilise that skill as a starting point. If the workflow requires refinement, the skill can be updated. Additionally, its memory can retain useful facts and lessons learned from previous work.

Memory and skills serve distinct purposes. Memory stores useful information and context, while skills store procedures for executing tasks. Together, they enable Hermes to build a comprehensive understanding of both what it knows and how to perform recurring work.

Automate work in the background

Hermes includes a built-in scheduler for recurring tasks. You can describe a schedule in natural language, allowing Hermes to perform work without waiting for you to initiate a session.

This is suitable for reports, monitoring, backups, research tasks, and other routines. Scheduled tasks can also maintain continuity between runs, enabling them to build upon previous work.

Run local or cloud models

Hermes is not restricted to a single LLM. You can connect it to local models or supported cloud providers and switch models without altering the agent's tools, memory, or workflows.

Running a local model offers greater control over the model, hardware, and data processing location. It also allows Hermes to work with your files and other local resources without sending them to an external model provider.

How to install Hermes

Hermes is compatible with Linux, macOS, Windows, and WSL2. You can install the desktop application or use the command-line version without the desktop interface.

On Linux, macOS, or WSL2, open a terminal and run:

curl -fsSL https://hermes-agent.nousresearch.com/install.sh | bash

On Windows, run the installer from PowerShell:

irm https://hermes-agent.nousresearch.com/install.ps1 | iex

After installation, run the setup wizard to configure your model provider and other options:

hermes setup

Refer to the Hermes documentation for installation options and configuration details.

Run Hermes on DaDesktop

Hermes requires an environment where it can execute its tools and store its data. DaDesktop provides a cloud desktop equipped with the CPU, RAM, storage, and GPU resources needed to run Hermes alongside a local LLM.

This is beneficial when the model you wish to run requires more VRAM than your personal machine offers. Select a GPU with sufficient VRAM, launch a DaDesktop desktop, install Hermes, and run the model locally alongside the agent.

You can also keep the desktop running for scheduled tasks and long-running workflows, eliminating the need to leave your personal computer on.

Learn more about running local LLMs on DaDesktop.