explaingit

anna-oake/hermes-agent

Analysis updated 2026-08-07 · repo last pushed 2026-04-15

Audience · pm founderComplexity · 4/5MaintainedLicenseSetup · moderate

TLDR

An AI assistant that remembers past conversations and builds skills over time. You run it on a server and chat with it from your phone using Telegram, Discord, or Slack.

Mindmap

mindmap
  root((repo))
    What it does
      Remembers past sessions
      Learns new skills
      Schedules recurring tasks
    How you use it
      Terminal interface
      Chat via Telegram
      Chat via Discord
    Tech stack
      Connects to OpenAI
      Connects to OpenRouter
      Runs on cloud servers
    Use cases
      Founder knowledge base
      Researcher automation
      Personal task runner
    Flexibility
      Runs on cheap VPS
      Works on GPU cluster
      Switch AI providers
    License
      MIT open source
      Built by Nous Research

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What do people build with it?

USE CASE 1

Keep a running knowledge base of decisions and context across weeks of work that persists between sessions.

USE CASE 2

Run scheduled tasks like daily reports or nightly data audits from a remote server you chat with from your phone.

USE CASE 3

Generate batch training data on a recurring schedule without manual intervention.

USE CASE 4

Manage personal automations by texting your agent from your phone and having it execute on a cloud server.

What is it built with?

PythonOpenAIOpenRouterTelegramDiscordSlack

How does it compare?

anna-oake/hermes-agent000madz000/rfid-attendance00kaku/gallery-slider-block
LanguageTypeScriptJavaScript
Last pushed2026-04-152024-07-222021-05-19
MaintenanceMaintainedDormantDormant
Setup difficultymoderateeasyeasy
Complexity4/52/52/5
Audiencepm founderdevelopergeneral

Figures from each repo's GitHub metadata at analysis time.

How do you get it running?

Difficulty · moderate Time to first run · 1h+

Requires a cloud server plus API keys for your chosen AI provider and configuration of a messaging gateway like Telegram or Discord.

Use freely for any purpose, including commercial use, as long as you keep the copyright notice.

In plain English

Hermes Agent is a self-improving AI assistant that learns from every interaction and builds a deepening understanding of you over time. Instead of starting each conversation fresh, it remembers past sessions, creates new skills from complex tasks, and refines those skills as you use them. You can run it on a cheap cloud server and chat with it from your phone via Telegram, Discord, or Slack, so it's always available even when your laptop is closed. Under the hood, it's a terminal-based tool that connects to any major AI model you choose, OpenAI, OpenRouter, or several others, and lets you switch between them without changing your setup. It works through two main entry points: a terminal interface for direct work, or a messaging gateway that pipes conversations through the chat apps you already use. It has a built-in scheduler for recurring tasks like daily reports or nightly backups, and it can spawn subagents to handle multiple workstreams in parallel. The README doesn't go into deep technical detail on the learning loop, but it describes a system where the agent curates its own memory, periodically nudges itself to save knowledge, and searches its own past conversations to recall context across sessions. This is built for people who want an AI assistant that persists and grows rather than resetting every time. A founder could use it to maintain a running knowledge base of decisions and context across weeks of work. A researcher could have it run scheduled audits or generate batch training data. Someone managing personal automation could talk to it from their phone and have it execute tasks on a remote server. What's notable is the flexibility: it runs on everything from a $5 VPS to a GPU cluster, supports serverless setups that cost nearly nothing when idle, and isn't locked to any single AI provider. The project is built by Nous Research and released under an MIT license.

Copy-paste prompts

Prompt 1
Set up Hermes Agent on a $5 cloud VPS and connect it to my Telegram so I can chat with my AI assistant from my phone.
Prompt 2
Using Hermes Agent, create a scheduled task that runs every morning at 8am to summarize my notes from yesterday and send the summary to me on Discord.
Prompt 3
Help me configure Hermes Agent to switch between OpenAI and OpenRouter models without changing my setup, and explain how to pick the right one for different tasks.
Prompt 4
I want to use Hermes Agent to build a persistent knowledge base of my startup decisions over weeks, show me how to set up the memory and skill learning loop so it remembers context across sessions.
Prompt 5
Set up Hermes Agent in a serverless configuration that costs almost nothing when idle but can still handle my scheduled automation tasks.

Frequently asked questions

What is hermes-agent?

An AI assistant that remembers past conversations and builds skills over time. You run it on a server and chat with it from your phone using Telegram, Discord, or Slack.

Is hermes-agent actively maintained?

Maintained — commit in last 6 months (last push 2026-04-15).

What license does hermes-agent use?

Use freely for any purpose, including commercial use, as long as you keep the copyright notice.

How hard is hermes-agent to set up?

Setup difficulty is rated moderate, with roughly 1h+ to a first successful run.

Who is hermes-agent for?

Mainly pm founder.

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