Runs Hermes on open-weight models: coded a game, built his website, does server maintenance and security
Open agent
Hermes Agent
Self-improving personal agent from Nous Research: it writes skills from experience, keeps curated memory, and runs on many backends.
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Self-improving personal agent from Nous Research: it writes skills from experience, keeps curated memory, and runs on many backends.
- GitHub stars
- 254,311
- Latest release
- v0.22.2Oct 15, 2026
- Runs
- Local + cloud
- X posts this month
- 23of 123 in our brief
Top features
- Closed learning loopautonomous skill creation, self-improving skills, FTS5 cross-session search
- Kanban board for coordinating multiple agents
- Batch trajectory generation for training tool-calling models
What people are building with it
"Hermes Agent is driving my Microduck!", a robot walking 0.58 m from a single sentence
Fully local on "Qwen3.8-Flash-Next on an RTX 5060 Ti (16GB) + offload 96GB RAM"
Basis: in our X Brief (Sep 16 – Oct 16, 2026), 23 of 123 tallied posts were about Hermes, the most of any agent. OpenClaw was close behind with 22. That's a narrow lead in one month of posts, not a quality ranking. OpenClaw has more GitHub stars.
Hermes on X this month
Counts come from the X Brief tally (Sep 16 – Oct 16, 2026). The brief notes that most complaints are about upgrades and memory configuration.
Hermes vs OpenClaw Full comparison →
| Hermes Agent | OpenClaw | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | 254,311 | 392,167 |
| X Brief posts | 23 | 22 |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Runs | Local + cloud | Local + cloud (unverified) |
| Latest release | v0.22.2 · Oct 15, 2026 | v2026.10.4 · Oct 16, 2026 |
| Cost | Free and open source (MIT) | Free (MIT) |
What it is
Self-improving personal agent from Nous Research: it writes skills from experience, keeps curated memory, and runs on many backends.
GitHub repo · hermes-agent.nousresearch.com · @NousResearch
X account: maker account; @Hermes_Agent is an unrelated crypto project, not official
Install
curl -fsSL https://hermes-agent.nousresearch.com/install.sh | bashWindows: iex (irm https://hermes-agent.nousresearch.com/install.ps1)Android/Termux APT repo
raw.githubusercontent.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/HEAD/README.md · checked
Models
Any model: Nous Portal (300+ models), OpenRouter, OpenAI, custom endpoints and others; switch with `hermes model`.
raw.githubusercontent.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/HEAD/README.md · checked
Cost
Free and open source (MIT). Bring your own keys, or use a Nous Portal subscription, which bundles models plus a Tool Gateway (web search, image gen, TTS, cloud browser). Portal lists per-token model prices.
Unverified: Nous Portal subscription price not capturedportal.nousresearch.com · checked
Features
- Closed learning loop: autonomous skill creation, self-improving skills, FTS5 cross-session search raw.githubusercontent.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/HEAD/README.md
- Kanban board for coordinating multiple agents x.com/minhng92/status/2107093452962074776 · user report
- Batch trajectory generation for training tool-calling models raw.githubusercontent.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/HEAD/README.md
Use cases
"Hermes + DeepSeek Flash … I used it to gamify learning about Linux Networking Skills" for a teenager
Fully local on "Qwen3.8-Flash-Next on an RTX 5060 Ti (16GB) + offload 96GB RAM"
Claimed result: "Hermes alone: $4.29, 23 min. Hermes + oh-my-hermes: $0.66, 5 min"
figures self-reported, unverified
Built a pentesting agent for recon, vulnerability hunting and reporting (video)
Built 'Hermes Mobile', an unofficial open-source Android client (chat, model switching, files over Tailscale) using Hermes
"100+ tested workflows with full code", an example archive
"Hermes Fleet for iOS has been APPROVED for External TestFlight", built to "manage my Hermes Agent fleet from my iPhone"
"Hermes Agent is driving my Microduck!", a robot walking 0.58 m from a single sentence
A Claude subscription used inside Hermes via the Direct SDK plugin, with an install video
One VPS running "my Hermes agent, Claude Code, Codex"
Runs Hermes on open-weight models: coded a game, built his website, does server maintenance and security
Burned 1B tokens in 30 days with Hermes; thread on what he built
Wired the Kanban view to Hermes for an automated short-form content pipeline for his app
Complaints and issues
- Antivirus false positives quarantining bundled uv.exe on Windows (acknowledged in README)
- "It broke all of my pipelines. Now I'll have to adapt my scripts again" (on v0.22) @ProDrifterDK ·
- "When are we getting always-on agents???" @schlekx ·
- One agent is "stuck on v0.21 and refuses to upgrade … Could not resolve the stable source channel" @DougVos ·
- The round-robin across free search providers "didn't work for me in two recent Hermes installations" @richardjhd ·
- Update failed · GitHub issue
- Asks why Hermes "*requires* the built in memory provider remain enabled when using a different provider" @hypermageia ·
- Desktop wishlist ("a mobile app. this was the loudest ask by far") @witcheer ·
- Setup on Omarchy: "it pops up the browser window BEHIND the terminal" @jetpen ·
- muse-spark turns end mid-task on finish_reason=stop · GitHub issue
- Hermes shows passwords in Telegram chat (11 reactions) · GitHub issue
FAQ
Do I need a Nous subscription?
No. It works with any provider; Nous Portal is an optional single-login alternative to collecting separate keys.
raw.githubusercontent.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/HEAD/README.md · checked
Does it run on Windows?
Yes, natively via the PowerShell installer; WSL2 also works.
raw.githubusercontent.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/HEAD/README.md · checked
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