> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://mintlify.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Hermes Agent

> The self-improving AI agent built by Nous Research. It creates skills from experience, improves them during use, and runs anywhere.

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="Quickstart" icon="rocket" href="/getting-started/quickstart">
    Install Hermes and start your first conversation in under 2 minutes
  </Card>

  <Card title="CLI Usage" icon="terminal" href="/user-guide/cli">
    Learn the interactive terminal interface, slash commands, and keybindings
  </Card>

  <Card title="Messaging Gateway" icon="message" href="/user-guide/messaging">
    Connect Hermes to Telegram, Discord, Slack, WhatsApp, Signal, and more
  </Card>

  <Card title="Skills System" icon="brain" href="/user-guide/features/skills">
    Procedural memory that grows with every complex task you complete
  </Card>
</CardGroup>

## What is Hermes Agent?

Hermes is a self-improving AI agent built by [Nous Research](https://nousresearch.com). Unlike conventional agents that reset after every session, Hermes builds up a persistent model of you and your work — creating skills from experience, improving them during use, and searching its own past conversations to recall relevant context.

You can run it on a \$5 VPS, a GPU cluster, or serverless infrastructure that costs nearly nothing when idle. It's not tied to your laptop — talk to it from Telegram while it works on a cloud VM.

## Key capabilities

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="Closed learning loop" icon="arrows-rotate">
    Autonomous skill creation after complex tasks. Skills self-improve during use. FTS5 session search with LLM summarization for cross-session recall.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Any model, no lock-in" icon="sliders">
    Use Nous Portal, OpenRouter (200+ models), OpenAI, Anthropic, or your own endpoint. Switch with `hermes model` — no code changes.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Lives where you do" icon="mobile">
    Telegram, Discord, Slack, WhatsApp, Signal, and CLI — all from a single gateway process. Voice memo transcription included.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Runs anywhere" icon="server">
    Six terminal backends: local, Docker, SSH, Daytona, Singularity, and Modal. Serverless persistence means your environment hibernates when idle.
  </Card>

  <Card title="40+ built-in tools" icon="wrench">
    Terminal, file ops, web search, browser automation, code execution, image generation, TTS, and more — all configurable per platform.
  </Card>

  <Card title="MCP integration" icon="plug">
    Connect any MCP server to extend Hermes with external tools, APIs, and data sources.
  </Card>
</CardGroup>

## Quick install

```bash theme={null}
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/main/scripts/install.sh | bash
```

Works on Linux, macOS, and WSL2. The installer handles Python, Node.js, dependencies, and the `hermes` command. No prerequisites except git.

After installation:

```bash theme={null}
source ~/.bashrc   # reload shell (or: source ~/.zshrc)
hermes             # start chatting!
```

<Note>
  Windows native is not supported. Install [WSL2](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/install) first, then run the command above.
</Note>

## Common entry points

| What you want to do        | Command                |
| -------------------------- | ---------------------- |
| Start a conversation       | `hermes`               |
| Choose your LLM            | `hermes model`         |
| Enable/disable tools       | `hermes tools`         |
| Set up messaging platforms | `hermes gateway setup` |
| Run the setup wizard       | `hermes setup`         |
| Diagnose issues            | `hermes doctor`        |
| Update to latest version   | `hermes update`        |

## Built by Nous Research

Hermes Agent is open source under the MIT license and built by [Nous Research](https://nousresearch.com), the team behind the Hermes model family and cutting-edge AI research.

* [Discord community](https://discord.gg/NousResearch)
* [Skills Hub](https://agentskills.io) — community-contributed skills
* [GitHub Issues](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/issues)
* [GitHub Discussions](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/discussions)