Hermes-Agent on Derek's Guides

Getting Started with Hermes Agent

Sat, 13 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Hermes Agent is an AI agent runtime for doing real work from the terminal, Discord, and other messaging platforms. It can call tools, read and write files, run commands, search the web, use MCP servers, remember durable preferences, and load reusable skills when a task needs a known workflow.

That makes it more than a chatbot. It is closer to an operator shell with an LLM attached. Useful, sharp, and worth treating with the same respect you give kubectl, talosctl, or a production database prompt.

Hermes Agent Architecture

Sat, 13 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Hermes Agent is easiest to understand as a runtime made of layers. The model is important, but it is only one layer. The useful behavior comes from the way the model is wrapped with tools, skills, memory, profiles, and gateway adapters.

graph TD
 User[User] --> CLI[CLI]
 User --> Desktop[Desktop App]
 User --> Gateway[Discord / Telegram / Slack Gateway]
 CLI --> Agent[Hermes Agent Loop]
 Desktop --> Agent
 Gateway --> Agent
 Agent --> Model[LLM Provider]
 Agent --> Tools[Toolsets]
 Agent --> Skills[Skills]
 Agent --> Memory[Memory]
 Agent --> MCP[MCP Servers]
 Agent --> Sessions[Session Store]
 Tools --> System[Filesystem / Terminal / Browser / APIs]
 MCP --> Services[External and Local Services]

Agent Loop

At the center is the agent loop:

Skills, Memory, and Context in Hermes

Sat, 13 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Hermes has several ways to remember things. They are not interchangeable. Putting the right information in the right layer is what keeps an agent useful instead of turning it into a haunted clipboard.

The Layers

Layer	Use it for	Do not use it for
Current context	The active task and immediate conversation	Durable knowledge
Session search	Finding what happened in prior chats	Source-of-truth documentation
Memory	Stable preferences and environment facts	Task logs, secrets, temporary state
Skills	Repeatable procedures and workflows	One-off project status
Obsidian	Plans, runbooks, incidents, architecture notes	Code or manifests
Git	Code, manifests, config, published docs	Private scratch notes

The mistake is treating all of these as “memory.” They are different systems with different jobs.

Hermes as a GitOps SRE Assistant

Sat, 13 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Hermes is most useful when it acts like an SRE assistant, not a magic production button. The workflow is simple: investigate, plan, change the source of truth, validate the result, and document what happened.

That order matters.

Operating Principles

My homelab has a few rules for Hermes-driven work:

Forgejo is the source of truth for private infrastructure state.
GitHub is the source of truth for public guides like this site.
Komodo manages Docker Compose infrastructure and management-plane stacks.
ArgoCD manages Kubernetes application workloads.
Talos nodes are immutable. No SSH archaeology, no hand-edited snowflakes.
Secrets stay out of chat and docs. Use 1Password, environment references, or SOPS-encrypted files.
Documentation is part of the task. If it is not documented, it did not happen.

Hermes can help with every part of that flow, but it does not get to invent a new source of truth because it found a convenient command.