Hermes Agent Architecture

Local-first AI agent with native MCP, terminal, browser, and multi-model routing

Telegram / Web UI / CLI User Interaction Layer Gateway & Model Routing Layer Hermes Gateway model routing • fallback chain token counting • retry logic HTTP / WebSocket Config Manager ~/.hermes/config.yaml providers • models • tools YAML + ENV override Profile Manager ~/.hermes/profiles/ isolated workspaces skills • plugins • cron Session DB SQLite (FTS5) full history search ~/.hermes/sessions.db Memory persistent facts user prefs + env Model Provider Layer (Cloud) NVIDIA NIM integrate.api.nvidia.com nemotron-3-ultra needs NVIDIA_API_KEY OpenRouter openrouter.ai 100+ models free tier needs OPENROUTER_API_KEY Anthropic api.anthropic.com claude-sonnet-4 needs ANTHROPIC_API_KEY Cloudflare AI @cf/moonshotai/kimi Workers AI Gateway needs CF_AI_GATEWAY_KEY ZAI / GLM open.bigmodel.cn glm-4.7-flash needs ZAI_API_KEY Custom / Local api.llm7.io / Ollama OpenAI-compatible custom base_url ... extensible any OpenAI API Tool Execution Engine (Local) Terminal Tool bash / zsh / fish background + notify pty mode for REPL persistent env exec_code + process() File Tool read / write / patch search_files (ripgrep) syntax check on write large file pagination Browser Tool Camofox / CDP navigate / click / extract screenshot / PDF private tabs Web & Search web_search / fetch extract / summarize academic (arXiv) multiple backends Skills System ~/.hermes/skills/ YAML + markdown references / templates scripts / assets skill_view() loads M C P Client stdio / HTTP native in config Extensions & Integrations Cron Jobs scheduled agents no_agent script mode Delegation parallel subagents max 3 concurrent Platform Bridges Telegram / Discord WeChat / Feishu External APIs GitHub / Linear Notion / Airtable CF Workers wrangler deploy edge functions MCP servers stdio / SSE HTTP/WebSocket Legend UI Layer Gateway / Config Cloud Providers Local Tools Skills / MCP Extensions Auth / Security Boundary Region / Cloud

Core Philosophy

  • • Local-first: all execution on your machine
  • • Config-driven: YAML + ENV, no vendor lock-in
  • • Skills as plugins: drop-in markdown folders
  • • Persistent memory: survives session restarts
  • • Multi-profile: isolated workspaces per project

Getting Started Checklist

  • • Install: `curl -fsSL https://hermes-agent.dev/install.sh | bash`
  • • Configure: edit `~/.hermes/config.yaml` (provider + keys)
  • • Add skills: `~/.hermes/skills/` folder per skill
  • • Test: `hermes chat "hello"` or `hermes tui`
  • • Memory: auto-saves facts, survives restarts

Power Features

  • • Native MCP: stdio/HTTP servers in config.yaml
  • • Subagents: `delegate_task` for parallel work
  • • Cron: scheduled agents with `cronjob` tool
  • • Terminal: background + notify, pty for REPL
  • • Sessions: FTS5 search, scroll, bookend context

Hermes Agent Architecture • Generated with architecture-diagram skill • Local-first, config-driven, extensible