Jan-Stefan Janetzky
f02ba87b8c
Four call sites fork a second agent with skip_memory=True, which leaves the
child with _memory_manager = None: a fork is not the user, and its scratch
transcript is not the user's memory. With compression.checkpoint_required
armed that saving turns into a kill. The gate is armed globally per agent
instance from config, not from whether the agent has a provider, so the child
arms the same gate its parent did and then meets its first compaction with
nothing to checkpoint against. It raises CompressionCheckpointUnavailable --
"no active provider implements checkpoint API v2" -- and the delegate turn
dies with status=error and a null summary while the parent runs on. The gate
is not bypassed there; it is armed against a provider that was never loaded.
- The four sites (delegate_tool, curator, batch_runner, feishu_comment) pass
skip_memory=not checkpoint_required_from_config(). Gate off is the default
and stays byte-identical: skip_memory=True, no provider init, no hook. Same
shape and the same reason as the two gateway disposable-agent sites that
already read the key this way (run_turn_hygiene.py,
slash_commands_session.py). delegate_tool reads it inside the delegated
profile scope, where the child reads it.
- The detached review and /btw forks (build_cache_parity_fork) are not
touched: they persist nothing, and _pre_compress_memory_context already
exempts exactly that shape (decabd79f1), so the gate never fails them.
- checkpoint_required_from_config() in conversation_compression_checkpoint,
next to the gate's init refusals. One resolver rather than four parses, and
the call sites need it before an agent exists:
agent.compression_checkpoint_required is assigned inside the child's own
init, and the parent's says nothing about the child. It reads
load_config_readonly() -- the call init_agent makes to arm the gate on that
child, so parent and child answer from one source and a fork is given a
provider precisely when the child would refuse to compact without one. An
unreadable config reads as "not armed", matching init_agent's own except
around the same load.
- New memory_agent_context kwarg on AIAgent/init_agent, handed to the
provider's initialize() as agent_context; unset, the platform rule decides
as before (cron/subagent, else "primary"). The platform rule alone cannot
scope these forks: the curator runs as platform "curator", the batch runner
takes its platform from the caller's config, and the Feishu responder sets
none, so each would file its transcript as the user's own memory in every
provider that scopes writes by that key. All four pass "subagent" -- the
value memory_provider.py documents and supermemory gates on. A fresh
per-site string ("curator", "batch", ...) would drop out of every
provider's non-primary membership test and re-enable writes the provider
had deliberately disabled, which is a fail-open on the one path this commit
opens. platform still separates the shapes.
Costs, taken deliberately rather than hidden: one provider initialize() per
fork (a round trip for a network-backed store, on a path that made none), and
fork transcripts reaching the archive as checkpoints. Both are named at the
call site and in the contract doc, where a provider author reads them.
Ten tests (tests/agent/test_fork_memory_under_checkpoint_gate.py). The
four site probes drive the real spawn functions with the smallest parent stub
they accept and record the child constructor kwargs -- red at all four against
the previous commit with the literal skip_memory=True. The gate-off probes are
the control in the other direction: without them "inherit the provider" could
have shipped as "always inherit". The recorder aborts with a BaseException
because the sites wrap the spawn in except Exception and would have swallowed
an ordinary failure into a green test. The provider-initialize test drives a
real AIAgent init, the only way to observe the keyword at initialize().
Live probe (on the August base), isolated HERMES_HOME with a stub API-v2
provider and the gate armed: before, the child aborts with failure_class
"exception:CompressionCheckpointUnavailable" and delegate_task returns
status=error, summary=null. After, the child initializes the provider
(agent_context "subagent", platform "subagent"), its own session fires
on_pre_compress, no CompressionCheckpointUnavailable appears, and the parent
returns the subagent's answer.
(cherry picked from commit 31af59c54ebff4c6c1861961111700b8e42dba76)
(cherry picked from commit 9bf3feaf8c98dff6e90eadf0f533204adc150a8c)
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, OpenAI, your own endpoint, and many others. 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. In Desktop, choose their provider, model, and limits under Settings → Model → Subagents, then Apply the complete route. Write Python scripts that call tools via RPC, collapsing multi-step pipelines into zero-context-cost turns. |
| Runs anywhere, not just your laptop | Six built-in terminal backends — local, Docker, SSH, Modal, Daytona, and Vercel Sandbox — plus plugin backends such as Singularity/Apptainer. 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, trajectory compression for training the next generation of tool-calling models. |
Quick Install
Linux, macOS, WSL2
curl -fsSL https://hermes-agent.nousresearch.com/install.sh | bash
Windows (native, PowerShell)
Heads up: Native Windows runs Hermes without WSL — CLI, gateway, TUI, and tools all work natively. If you'd rather use WSL2, the Linux/macOS one-liner above works there too. Found a bug? Please file issues.
Run this in PowerShell:
iex (irm https://hermes-agent.nousresearch.com/install.ps1)
The source installer delegates Python 3.14, Node.js, npm, ripgrep, FFmpeg, and Python dependencies to PM. If Git is absent, it stages the verified Git for Windows archive in Hermes' tool store. It does not replace your system Git. See installation methods for the separate MSIX/App Installer package and its update ownership.
Android / Termux: A signed APT repository is available for aarch64 devices, with a
stablechannel (tagged releases) and a prereleasecanarychannel. The package includes Python, Node.js, and the TUI. Use the Termux guide, not the desktop/server installer script.Windows: Native Windows is fully supported — the PowerShell one-liner above installs everything. If you'd rather use WSL2, the Linux command works there too. Native Windows install lives under
%LOCALAPPDATA%\hermes; WSL2 installs under~/.hermesas on Linux.
After installation:
source ~/.bashrc # reload shell (or: source ~/.zshrc)
hermes # start chatting!
Troubleshooting
Windows Defender or antivirus flags uv.exe as malware
If your antivirus (Bitdefender, Windows Defender, etc.) quarantines uv.exe from the Hermes bin folder (%LOCALAPPDATA%\hermes\bin\uv.exe), this is a false positive. The file is Astral's uv — the Rust Python package manager Hermes bundles to manage its Python environment. ML-based antivirus engines commonly flag unsigned Rust binaries that download and install packages.
To verify your copy is authentic:
# Install GitHub CLI if needed
winget install --id GitHub.cli
# Login to GitHub
gh auth login
# Run verification
$uv = "$env:LOCALAPPDATA\hermes\bin\uv.exe"
$ver = (& $uv --version).Split(' ')[1]
[Net.ServicePointManager]::SecurityProtocol = [Net.SecurityProtocolType]::Tls12
$zip = "$env:TEMP\uv.zip"
Invoke-WebRequest "https://github.com/astral-sh/uv/releases/download/$ver/uv-x86_64-pc-windows-msvc.zip" -OutFile $zip -UseBasicParsing
gh attestation verify $zip --repo astral-sh/uv
Expand-Archive $zip "$env:TEMP\uv_x" -Force
(Get-FileHash "$env:TEMP\uv_x\uv.exe").Hash -eq (Get-FileHash $uv).Hash
If attestation says "Verification succeeded" and the last line prints True, you're good.
To whitelist Hermes:
- Windows Defender: Run PowerShell as Admin →
Add-MpPreference -ExclusionPath "$env:LOCALAPPDATA\hermes\bin" - Bitdefender: Add an exception in the Bitdefender console (Protection > Antivirus > Settings > Manage Exceptions)
- Whitelist the folder, not the file hash — Hermes updates
uvand the hash changes every version
For more context, see the upstream Astral reports: astral-sh/uv#13553, astral-sh/uv#15011, astral-sh/uv#10079.
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 config get # Print individual config values
hermes gateway # Start the messaging gateway (Telegram, Discord, etc.)
hermes setup # Run the full setup wizard (configures everything at once)
hermes update # Update to the latest version
hermes doctor # Diagnose any issues
Skip the API-key collection — Nous Portal
Hermes works with whatever provider you want — that's not changing. But if you'd rather not collect five separate API keys for the model, web search, image generation, TTS, and a cloud browser, Nous Portal covers all of them under one subscription:
- 300+ models — pick any of them with
/model <name> - Tool Gateway — web search, image generation (FAL), text-to-speech (OpenAI), cloud browser (Browser Use), all routed through your sub. No extra accounts.
One command from a fresh install:
hermes setup --portal
That logs you in via OAuth, sets Nous as your provider, and turns on the Tool Gateway. Check what's wired up any time with hermes portal info. Full details on the Tool Gateway docs page.
You can still bring your own keys per-tool whenever you want — the gateway is per-backend, not all-or-nothing.
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 or another agent
If you're coming from OpenClaw, Claude Code, Codex CLI or Cursor, Hermes can import your settings, memories and skills (and, for OpenClaw, API keys when you ask for them).
During setup: hermes setup asks whether to import from another agent, pre-selects the ones it finds (~/.openclaw, ~/.claude, ~/.codex, ~/.cursor), installs the official agent-importers plugin and runs the import with a preview first.
Anytime after install:
hermes plugins install agent-importers # once per profile
hermes import-agent openclaw # interactive migration (full preset)
hermes import-agent openclaw --dry-run # preview what would be migrated
hermes import-agent openclaw --migrate-secrets # also bring allowlisted API keys
hermes import-agent claude-code # or codex / cursor
What gets imported from OpenClaw:
- 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), only with
--migrate-secrets - TTS assets — workspace audio files
- Workspace instructions — AGENTS.md (with
--workspace-target)
hermes claw migrate still works as the older spelling. See the OpenClaw migration guide and Import from Other Agents.
Contributing
We welcome contributions! See the Contributing Guide for development setup, code style, and PR process.
Start with the PM developer workflow for activation, daily use, dependency changes, and leaving the environment. Development Setup covers the separate test environment and verification commands.
Community
- 💬 Discord
- 📚 Skills Hub
- 🐛 Issues
- 🔌 computer-use-linux — Linux desktop-control MCP server for Hermes and other MCP hosts, with AT-SPI accessibility trees, Wayland/X11 input, screenshots, and compositor window targeting.
- 🔌 HermesClaw — Community WeChat bridge: Run Hermes Agent and OpenClaw on the same WeChat account.
License
MIT — see LICENSE.
Built by Nous Research.