Tools & toolsets

40+ built-in tools, the toolset system, and per-platform configuration

Hermes ships with over 40 tools organized into named toolsets. Every platform (CLI, Telegram, Discord, etc.) uses the same core tool list. You can enable or disable individual tools without touching code.

What tools are

Tools are functions the agent calls during a conversation. When you ask Hermes to do something, it decides which tools to invoke, runs them, reads the results, and continues reasoning. Tools are the mechanism behind everything from running a terminal command to searching the web to creating a scheduled task.

Each tool has:

• A name the model uses to call it
• A JSON schema describing its parameters
• A handler function that runs the actual logic
• An optional availability check (e.g., requiring an API key)

The toolset system

Tools are grouped into toolsets — named collections you can enable or disable together. The default toolset for the CLI is hermes-cli, which includes every core tool. You can compose custom toolsets from individual tools or from other toolsets.

Some toolsets are composite: they include other toolsets by reference. For example, the debugging toolset includes web, file, and direct terminal/process tools.

Configure active toolsets in ~/.hermes/config.yaml:

toolsets:
  - hermes-cli

Core tools

The _HERMES_CORE_TOOLS list defines every tool enabled on all platforms by default.

Web

Tool	Description
web_search	Search the web and return titles, URLs, and descriptions
web_extract	Scrape and summarize content from specific URLs

The web backend is configurable (firecrawl, parallel, or tavily). Set web.backend in config.yaml or choose during hermes tools setup.

Terminal & processes

Tool	Description
terminal	Execute shell commands; supports foreground, background, PTY mode, and per-command workdir
process	Manage background processes: poll, wait, list, kill

The terminal tool routes to whichever backend is configured (local, docker, ssh, modal, daytona, or singularity). See Terminal backends for details.

Background mode — pass background=true to get a session_id immediately. Use process(action="wait") to block until it completes, or process(action="poll") to check progress without blocking.

PTY mode — pass pty=true for interactive CLI tools (Python REPL, Codex, Claude Code) that require a pseudo-terminal.

File operations

Tool	Description
read_file	Read files with line numbers and pagination (offset/limit); use instead of cat
write_file	Write or overwrite a file; creates parent directories automatically
patch	Targeted find-and-replace using fuzzy matching (9 strategies); use instead of sed/awk
search_files	Search file contents (regex) or find files by glob; use instead of grep/find/ls

Vision & image generation

Tool	Description
vision_analyze	Analyze an image and answer questions about it
image_generate	Generate an image from a text description

Browser automation

Tool	Description
browser_navigate	Open a URL in a managed browser
browser_snapshot	Capture a DOM/accessibility snapshot of the current page
browser_click	Click an element by selector or coordinates
browser_type	Type text into a focused input
browser_scroll	Scroll the page or a specific element
browser_back	Navigate back
browser_press	Press a keyboard key
browser_close	Close the current tab
browser_get_images	Extract image URLs from the page
browser_vision	Analyze the current page with vision
browser_console	Read the browser console log

Code execution & delegation

Tool	Description
execute_code	Run a Python script that calls tools via RPC; collapses multi-step pipelines into a single turn
delegate_task	Spawn an isolated subagent with its own context window for complex parallel subtasks

Planning & memory

Tool	Description
todo	Create and track a task list for multi-step work
memory	Read and write persistent memory (MEMORY.md / USER.md)
session_search	Full-text search across past conversations with LLM summarization

Skills

Tool	Description
skills_list	List available skills with filtering and search
skill_view	Read the content of a specific skill
skill_manage	Create, edit, patch, or delete skills

Scheduling & messaging

Tool	Description
cronjob	Create, list, edit, pause, resume, trigger, and remove scheduled jobs
send_message	Send a message to any connected platform (Telegram, Discord, Slack, etc.)
text_to_speech	Convert text to audio using Edge TTS, ElevenLabs, or OpenAI
clarify	Ask the user a clarifying question (multiple-choice or open-ended)

Mixture of agents

Tool	Description
mixture_of_agents	Run advanced multi-model reasoning for complex problem-solving

Honcho memory (optional)

Tool	Description
honcho_context	Retrieve context from Honcho user modeling
honcho_profile	Read the Honcho user profile
honcho_search	Search Honcho memory
honcho_conclude	Write session conclusions to Honcho

Honcho tools are gated on the Honcho integration being active. See Memory for setup.

Home Assistant (optional)

Tool	Description
ha_list_entities	List Home Assistant entities
ha_get_state	Get the current state of an entity
ha_list_services	List available services
ha_call_service	Call a Home Assistant service

Home Assistant tools are gated on the HASS_TOKEN environment variable.

Tool categories

Web

web_search, web_extract — research and content extraction

Terminal

terminal, process — command execution and process management

Files

read_file, write_file, patch, search_files — file manipulation

Browser

11 browser tools — full web automation via Browserbase

Vision

vision_analyze, image_generate — image analysis and generation

Memory & Skills

memory, todo, session_search, skills_list, skill_view, skill_manage

Delegation

execute_code, delegate_task — code execution and subagent spawning

Scheduling

cronjob, send_message — cron jobs and cross-platform messaging

Enabling and disabling tools

hermes tools command

Run hermes tools from your terminal to open an interactive menu for enabling or disabling tools per platform:

hermes tools

This writes your choices to ~/.hermes/config.yaml under the toolsets key.

/tools slash command

Inside a running chat session, use /tools to see which tools are currently active.

Per-platform configuration

Each platform can have its own toolset. The platform toolsets (hermes-cli, hermes-telegram, hermes-discord, etc.) all use the same _HERMES_CORE_TOOLS list by default. To restrict a platform, define a custom toolset:

# ~/.hermes/config.yaml
toolsets:
  - web
  - file
  - terminal

Or reference one of the built-in scenario toolsets:

Toolset	Description
safe	No terminal; includes web, vision, image generation, and MoA
debugging	Terminal + web + file tools
research	Web + vision
browser	Full browser automation + web search
code_execution	execute_code only
delegation	delegate_task only

Changing toolsets takes effect on the next session start. Toolset changes mid-conversation would break Anthropic prompt caching and significantly increase API costs.