The first consumer AI agent built around compounding value — it runs in the background, executes scheduled tasks, and gets better every time through a persistent learning loop, reaching you through WhatsApp, Telegram, Slack, and Signal.
Two architectural innovations sit underneath everything Hermes does — SOUL.md and the learning loop. Together they make it the first agent whose value compounds the longer it runs.
A short file written once that acts as the agent's permanent memory of who you are. Contains family details, interests, communication preferences. Loads automatically before every session, every scheduled task, every message. You never explain yourself again.
Every task execution evaluates what worked and saves an improved procedure. Week six is sharper than week one — not because you changed anything, but because the agent has been quietly improving. ChatGPT Tasks fire the same fixed prompt with no memory of last week's results.
Runs tasks on a schedule, reaches you through messaging apps, keeps working after you close your laptop. Week after week without you.
WhatsApp, Telegram, Slack, and Signal from a single gateway. WhatsApp needs no developer account — just scan a QR code and the agent lives in your contacts.
Free NVIDIA NIM cloud models (100+ options) or Ollama local execution where nothing leaves your machine. Same agent, both paths.
One message to set up: "Every Sunday at 7am, check school calendar, weather, F1/NBA schedules, flight prices to Miami. Send to WhatsApp." Week one: basic. Week eight: it learned which sections you read first, which teams you care about, and placed weather first because you're getting dressed when you read it. It figured all of that out from watching how you responded each week.
Casual text updates — "30 min run, felt good" or "Slept 5 hours" — logged the same way you'd text a friend. After five weeks and 34 entries, the agent proactively surfaced that meeting-heavy days correlated with skipped workouts. Month three is genuinely more useful than month one.
Message Hermes from WhatsApp what image you want. The ComfyUI skill builds the workflow, runs it on your laptop, sends the result back — no app to open, no nodes to wire, no data leaving your machine. Every image free and private after local setup.
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/main/scripts/install.sh | bash ; hermes setup. Detects OS, sets up Python, walks through config. Five minutes.
Option A: NVIDIA NIM — free cloud, 100+ models, no GPU needed. Option B: Ollama — local, private, nothing leaves your machine. Mandatory: 64K context window (OLLAMA_CONTEXT_LENGTH=65536).
Select WhatsApp during setup. QR code appears in terminal. Open WhatsApp → Settings → Linked Devices → Link a Device. Scan. Agent now lives in your contacts. Restrict to your number: WHATSAPP_ALLOWED_USERS=+1XXXXXXXXXX.
Run hermes gateway install for permanent background service surviving reboots. Then hermes backup --quick before any customization. Migrate from OpenClaw: hermes claw migrate.
Scheduled tasks need the host running when they fire. Laptop closed at 7am Sunday? Briefing waits. Fix: macOS Wake for Network Access, or run on a $5 VPS for reliability.
Pattern-matches on your responses. Accidentally reply enthusiastically to a bad briefing? It doubles down. No "unlearn" command — edit the skill file directly or wipe memory and start over.
Point Hermes at GPT-4o or Claude, and your kids' school schedule and health data go to OpenAI or Anthropic on every run. Run Ollama locally for full privacy — you give up some quality.
Claude launched integrations for Blender, Autodesk Fusion, Adobe, Ableton, SketchUp, Splice. Anthropic pledged €240K to Blender Development Fund — later restructured as one-time donation after community feedback. The connector is the thing that matters.
Sundar Pichai announced Gemini generates Word, Excel, PDF, and presentations directly from chat — free for all 750M users. Microsoft charges $360/user/year for Copilot. Only 3.3% of M365 users have paid for Copilot.
The provision letting OpenAI exit Microsoft obligations upon declaring AGI is gone. OpenAI still pays Microsoft 20% of revenue through 2030. Amazon is the quiet winner — can now take on workloads Azure exclusivity was blocking.
Same agents powering the Cursor app now run inside your products, pipelines, and backend systems. Rippling and Notion already using it to auto-catch and fix bugs. Cursor crossed $2B ARR. The SDK makes them infrastructure.
Launched with zero announcement. One prompt, one infinite canvas — agent plans, generates, edits, iterates until done. Films, manga sets, product ads. Users just started posting results.
Viktor (sponsor) lives inside Slack/Teams, plugs into 3,000+ tools. 11,000+ teams. A landscaping owner runs 63 workflows. A $10M DTC brand had Viktor build a Klaviyo audit, cash flow model, and checkout debug report in week one.
Persistent AI for individuals — runs in background, learns from repeated use, reaches you via messaging.
AI that executes recurring tasks without user presence — value compounds with each execution.
Standing brief file — who you are, what matters, how you like answers. Write once, loads forever.
Evaluates and improves task procedure every run — week six sharper than week one without user changes.
Tasks run on schedule, agent reaches you via messaging — keeps working after laptop closes.
WhatsApp, Telegram, Slack, Signal — one gateway process, QR scan for WhatsApp, no dev account needed.
Ollama backend — models run entirely on user's machine. Cloud option via NVIDIA NIM for higher quality.
Nous Research's open-source consumer AI agent — 100K GitHub stars in 7 weeks.
Predecessor agent — 512 vulnerabilities found Jan 2026, including CVE-2026-25253 machine takeover.
Slack/Teams AI assistant — 3,000+ tools, 11,000+ teams, every action needs human approval first.
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/main/scripts/install.sh | bash ; hermes setup
NVIDIA NIM (free, 100+ models) or Ollama (local, private). 64K context window mandatory.
Scan QR code from terminal — agent lives in your contacts. No developer account needed.
hermes gateway install — survives reboots. This is the line that makes Sunday briefings actually land at 7am.
Family, interests, preferences — write once, loaded before every interaction forever.
Message: "Every Sunday at 7am, check weather, sports, flights. Send to WhatsApp." That's it.
hermes backup --quick. Migrate from OpenClaw: hermes claw migrate.