| name | hermes |
| description | Expert at understanding and working with Hermes Agent — its memory system, skills, cron jobs, tools, and behavioral conventions. Use when configuring Hermes, writing skills for it, debugging its behavior, or understanding what it can and cannot do. |
| trigger | how does hermes work, hermes memory, hermes skills, hermes tools, hermes configuration, hermes capabilities, what can hermes do |
Hermes Agent — Self-Knowledge
Hermes is an autonomous AI agent by Nous Research that persists across sessions, builds memory of users, and executes scheduled tasks.
Core Architecture
- Memory: Dual-store —
memory (agent notes) + user (user profile). Persists via Honcho between sessions. Injected as header into every turn.
- Skills: Procedural memory at
~/.hermes/skills/{category}/{skill}/SKILL.md. Auto-loaded when relevant. Converted from experience after complex tasks.
- Cron Jobs: Scheduled tasks at
~/.hermes/cron/jobs.json. Run in isolated sessions. Output saved to ~/.hermes/cron/output/{job_id}/{timestamp}.md.
- Tools: 40+ built-in tools + MCP servers. Discovery at startup, registered in tool registry.
Memory System
══════════════════════════════════════════════
MEMORY (your personal notes) [85% — 1,890/2,200 chars]
══════════════════════════════════════════════
Entries separated by § (section sign)
Entries can be multiline
Capacity % shown so agent knows when to prune
Instruction Capture System: When user states a preference or correction, ask "Save to instructions?", synthesize to ~/.hermes/instructions.md (not a literal copy — a refined version).
Memory commands:
memory_add — save durable factshoncho_conclude — write peer profile conclusionssession_search — recall past sessions
Skills System
Skills trigger automatically based on keywords in the user's request. After a complex task (5+ tool calls), offer to save the approach as a skill.
Skill structure:
~/.hermes/skills/{category}/{skill-name}/
├── SKILL.md # Required: frontmatter + instructions
├── references/ # Optional: detailed docs
├── scripts/ # Optional: executable code
└── assets/ # Optional: templates, data
Creating skills:
- Complex task succeeded → offer to save
- Errors overcome → update existing skill
- User corrected approach → patch immediately
- Use
skill_manage with action=create/patch/edit/delete
Cron Jobs
Jobs are defined in ~/.hermes/cron/jobs.json with fields: name, prompt, schedule, deliver, enabled.
Schedule formats: cron expressions (0 9 * * *), intervals (30m, every 2h), ISO timestamps.
Delivery targets: local (save to output dir), origin (reply to source), or platform (telegram, discord, whatsapp, signal, etc.).
Key issue: The scheduler's tick() function must be called by the gateway every 60 seconds. If the gateway process doesn't import/run the scheduler, jobs never auto-fire — only manual run triggers work.
Tool Categories
| Category | Tools |
|---|
| Terminal | terminal, process — run shell commands, manage background jobs |
| Files | read_file, write_file, patch, search_files |
| Browser | browser_navigate, browser_snapshot, browser_click, browser_vision |
| Web | web_search, web_extract |
| Cron | cronjob — create, list, run, pause, remove scheduled jobs |
| Memory | memory, honcho_conclude, session_search |
| Skills | skill_manage, skill_view, skills_list |
| Code | execute_code — Python script with hermes_tools |
| Delegation | delegate_task — spawn subagents for isolated parallel work |
| Vision | vision_analyze — AI image analysis |
| TTS | text_to_speech — convert text to audio |
Key Conventions
- Communication style: Concise, direct. Code speaks louder than words.
- Modes: User prefers
yolo for creative work, precise for health/critical tasks.
- Context management: User separates subjects into different chats to avoid context bleeding.
- Memory priority: User preferences and corrections > environment facts > procedural knowledge.
- No repeat work: Check
session_search before asking user to repeat themselves.
Documentation
Reference docs cached locally from upstream:
Getting Started
User Guide
Features
Guides
Reference
Upstream
