986ec04048
* docs: document /kanban slash command
The kanban user guide and slash-commands reference only mentioned the
/kanban slash command in passing. Add a proper section covering:
- CLI and gateway both expose the full hermes kanban surface via
hermes_cli.kanban.run_slash (identical argument surface)
- Mid-run usage: /kanban bypasses the running-agent guard, so reads
and writes land immediately while an agent is still in a turn
- Auto-subscribe on /kanban create from the gateway — originating
chat is subscribed to terminal events, with a worked example
- Output truncation (~3800 chars) in messaging
- Autocomplete hint list vs full subcommand surface
Also adds /kanban rows to both slash-command tables (CLI + messaging)
in reference/slash-commands.md and moves it into the 'works in both'
notes bucket.
* docs(kanban): frame the model's tool surface as primary, CLI as the human surface
The kanban user guide and CLI reference read as if you drive the board
by running `hermes kanban` commands everywhere. In practice:
- **You** (human, scripts, cron, dashboard) use the `hermes kanban …`
CLI, the `/kanban …` slash command, or the REST/dashboard.
- **Workers** spawned by the dispatcher use a dedicated `kanban_*`
toolset (`kanban_show`, `kanban_complete`, `kanban_block`,
`kanban_heartbeat`, `kanban_comment`, `kanban_create`,
`kanban_link`) and never shell out to the CLI.
Changes to `user-guide/features/kanban.md`:
- New 'Two surfaces' intro distinguishes the two front doors up front.
- Quick-start section re-labelled so each step says who is running it
(you vs. orchestrator vs. worker).
- 'How workers interact with the board' rewritten:
- Lead with "Workers do not shell out to `hermes kanban`."
- Tool table extended with required params.
- Concrete worker-turn example (`kanban_show` → `kanban_heartbeat`
→ `kanban_complete`) and an orchestrator fan-out example
(`kanban_create` x N with `parents=[...]`).
- Moved 'Why tools not CLI' from a defensive aside to a clean
follow-up section.
- 'Worker skill' section explicitly says the lifecycle is taught
in tool calls, not CLI commands.
- 'Pinning extra skills' reordered — orchestrator tool form first
(the usual case), human/CLI second, dashboard third.
- 'Orchestrator skill' now shows a canonical `kanban_create` /
`kanban_link` / `kanban_complete` tool-call sequence instead of
only describing what the skill teaches.
- CLI-command-reference heading now clarifies this is the human
surface, with a cross-link to the tool-surface section.
- 'Runs — one row per attempt' structured-handoff example replaced:
the primary example is now `kanban_complete(summary=..., metadata=...)`
(what a worker actually does), with the CLI form retained as
"when you, the human, need to close a task a worker can't."
Changes to `reference/cli-commands.md`:
- `hermes kanban` intro marks itself as the human / scripting surface
and links out to the worker tool surface.
- Corrected `comment <id>` description — the next worker reads it via
`kanban_show()`, not by running `hermes kanban show`.
* docs(kanban-tutorial): reframe worker actions as tool calls
Honest answer to Teknium's follow-up: no, the first pass missed the
tutorial. The four stories all showed `hermes kanban claim /
complete / block / unblock` as if the backend-dev, pm, and reviewer
personas were humans running CLI commands. In a real hermes kanban
run those agents are dispatcher-spawned workers driving the board
through the `kanban_*` tool surface.
Changes:
- Setup intro now distinguishes the three surfaces up front
(dashboard / CLI for you, `kanban_*` tools for workers) and
establishes the convention: `bash` blocks are commands *you* run,
`# worker tool calls` blocks are what the agent emits.
- Story 1 (solo dev schema): 'Claim the schema task, do the work,
hand off' block replaced with the dispatcher spawning the
backend-dev worker and a `kanban_show → kanban_heartbeat →
kanban_complete` tool-call sequence. The 'On the CLI' `hermes
kanban show / runs` block re-labelled as 'you peeking at the board'
to keep it correct as a human inspection step.
- Story 2 (fleet farming): note about structured handoff updated
from `--summary` / `--metadata` CLI flags to
`kanban_complete(summary=..., metadata=...)` tool form.
- Story 3 (role pipeline): the big PM/engineer/reviewer block fully
rewritten as three worker tool-call sequences — PM worker
completes spec, engineer worker blocks, human/reviewer
`hermes kanban unblock` (or `/kanban unblock`), engineer worker
respawns and completes. The respawn-as-new-run mechanic is now
explicit.
- Reviewer paragraph: `build_worker_context` replaced with
`kanban_show()` — that's the tool that delivers the parent
handoff to the model.
- Structured handoff section heading and body updated:
`--summary`/`--metadata` → `summary`/`metadata` (tool params),
with a note that the tool surface doesn't expose a bulk variant
for the same reason the CLI refuses multi-task `complete`.
Story 4 (circuit breaker) unchanged — its workers fail to spawn,
so there are no tool calls to show; the `hermes kanban create` and
`hermes kanban runs` commands in it are correctly human-driven.
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 | 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> |
/<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/) ships via theatroposlibandtinkerdependencies pulled in by.[all,dev]— no submodule setup required.
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.