Hermes Agent is an open-source, self-improving AI agent from Nous Research. It runs on your own server 24/7, remembers what it learns across sessions, and gets more capable the longer you use it. It turns successful workflows into reusable skills, connects to 15+ messaging platforms (Slack, Discord, Telegram, and more), and works with any LLM provider. All data stays local in a SQLite database. MIT-licensed and free, with costs limited to optional VPS hosting and LLM API calls.

• Built-in Learning Loop: Automatically creates reusable skills from successful workflows, improving its performance on your specific tasks over time. The only agent framework with verifiable, on-disk learned skills.
• Persistent Cross-Session Memory: Remembers your preferences, projects, and past conversations using curated memory files (MEMORY.md, USER.md) and FTS5 full-text search across sessions.
• 15+ Messaging Platform Gateway: Operates from CLI, Telegram, Discord, Slack, WhatsApp, Signal, Matrix, Microsoft Teams, Google Chat, Email, SMS, Home Assistant, and more, all from a single deployment.
• Model Agnostic: Use any LLM you want, including OpenRouter (200+ models), OpenAI, Nous Portal, NVIDIA NIM, Hugging Face, or your own endpoint. Switch models with one command.
• Subagent Delegation: Spawns child agent instances with isolated context and restricted toolsets, letting you break complex tasks into parallel subtasks.
• Scheduled Automations: Set up natural language cron jobs for reports, backups, monitoring, and briefings that run unattended.
• Browser Automation: Full web automation through Browserbase cloud, Browser Use cloud, or local Chrome/Chromium. Navigate sites, fill forms, and extract data.
• Flexible Execution Backends: Run on local, Docker, SSH, Singularity, Modal, Daytona, or Vercel Sandbox with container hardening and namespace isolation.
• Skills System : Automatically generates and reuses “skills” from completed tasks, creating a growing library of reusable procedures that reduce repetition and improve efficiency over time.

• Learns and Improves Over Time: The learning loop creates verifiable skill files on disk. You can read, edit, or delete learned behaviors, giving you full control over what the agent retains.
• Free and Open Source: MIT-licensed with no enterprise tier, no usage caps, and no feature gating. Fork it, modify it, or run it commercially.
• Platform Flexibility: Not locked to a single IDE or model provider. Works across 15+ messaging platforms and hundreds of LLM models.
• Useful for Advanced Automation and Research Workflows: Includes Atropos RL environments, trajectory generation, and trajectory compression for training next-generation tool-calling models.
• Strong Customization Options: It supports multiple deployment environments, custom skills, memory systems, and configurable workflows for different use cases.

• Technical Setup Required: This is self-hosted infrastructure, not a managed SaaS product. You need to configure your own server, manage API keys, and review the skills the agent writes. Not beginner-friendly.
• Token Usage Can Become Expensive for Complex Workflows: Long-running tasks, tool-heavy workflows, and autonomous actions can significantly increase API usage and costs, depending on the selected model and provider.
• Less Focused on Coding-Only Workflows: Hermes can handle development tasks, but users who only want coding assistance may prefer tools built specifically around software engineering workflows and IDE experiences.
• No Built-in Web UI: Interaction happens through CLI or messaging platforms. There is no official web dashboard; a community-built GUI project exists but is not yet merged into the main codebase.

• Always-On Personal Assistant via Messaging: Deploy Hermes Agent on a VPS and connect it to Telegram, Discord, or Slack. Ask it to research topics, manage files, or run scheduled tasks. It remembers your preferences and improves with every interaction.
• Automated Code Review and GitHub Workflows: Set up cron-based PR reviews using authenticated GitHub CLI tools. Hermes can periodically check for new pull requests, review code changes, post comments, and learn your team's review standards over time.
• Smart Home Control: Connect to Home Assistant and control your smart home through natural conversation. List devices, read sensor states, and trigger automations from any messaging platform.
• Content and Report Generation: Schedule daily or weekly briefings, market summaries, or project status reports. Hermes generates them on a cron schedule and delivers them to your preferred messaging channel without manual intervention.
• Rapid Prototyping and App Development: Use the learning loop to accelerate repeated tasks. Users report building and launching multiple small applications in a single day because Hermes retains knowledge of frameworks, deployment steps, and preferences across sessions.
• Site Reliability and Monitoring: Build an autonomous SRE agent that detects incidents, applies known fixes from its skill library, and learns from production issues to prevent future occurrences.