Hermes Agent is a self-improving AI agent built by Nous Research. It features automatic skill creation, cross-session memory, and 70+ skills that it ships with by default.

Quick start

ollama launch hermes

Ollama handles everything automatically:

1. Install — If Hermes isn't installed, Ollama prompts to install the Hermes command-line agent
2. Model — Pick a model from the selector (local or cloud)
3. Onboarding — Ollama configures the Ollama provider, points Hermes at http://127.0.0.1:11434/v1, and sets your model as the primary
4. Gateway — Optionally connects a messaging platform (Telegram, Discord, Slack, WhatsApp, Signal, Email) and launches the Hermes chat

Recommended models

Cloud models:

• kimi-k2.5:cloud — Multimodal reasoning with subagents
• glm-5.1:cloud — Reasoning and code generation
• qwen3.5:cloud — Reasoning, coding, and agentic tool use with vision
• minimax-m2.7:cloud — Fast, efficient coding and real-world productivity

Local models:

• gemma4 — Reasoning and code generation locally (~16 GB VRAM)
• qwen3.6 — Reasoning, coding, and visual understanding locally (~24 GB VRAM)

More models at ollama.com/search.

Connect messaging apps

Link Telegram, Discord, Slack, WhatsApp, Signal, or Email to chat with your models from anywhere:

hermes gateway setup

Reconfigure

Use Hermes's model picker to change providers or models later:

hermes model

Manual setup

If you'd rather drive Hermes's own wizard instead of ollama launch hermes, install it directly:

curl -fsSL https://hermes-agent.nousresearch.com/install.sh | bash

Hermes launches the setup wizard automatically. Choose Quick setup:

How would you like to set up Hermes?

 →  Quick setup — provider, model & messaging (recommended)
    Full setup — configure everything

Connect to Ollama

1. Select More providers...
2. Select Custom endpoint (enter URL manually)
3. Set the API base URL to the Ollama OpenAI-compatible endpoint:

   API base URL [e.g. https://api.example.com/v1]: http://127.0.0.1:11434/v1

4. Leave the API key blank (not required for local Ollama):

   API key [optional]:

5. Hermes auto-detects downloaded models, confirm the one you want:

   Verified endpoint via http://127.0.0.1:11434/v1/models (1 model(s) visible)
     Detected model: kimi-k2.5:cloud
     Use this model? [Y/n]:

6. Leave context length blank to auto-detect:

   Context length in tokens [leave blank for auto-detect]:

Connect messaging

Optionally connect a messaging platform during setup:

Connect a messaging platform? (Telegram, Discord, etc.)

 →  Set up messaging now (recommended)
    Skip — set up later with 'hermes gateway setup'

Launch

Launch hermes chat now? [Y/n]: Y