01What Hermes AI Agent Is and How It Works

Hermes AI agent is an open-source AI agent built by Noose Research that learns and improves on its own over time. It is the fastest growing AI agent ever, gaining 47,000 GitHub stars in under two months.

Hermes uses something called a closed gap learning loop. Here is how it works: You give Hermes a task. It does the task.

Then it looks at what it just did and turns those steps into a reusable skill. It saves that skill in its memory. The next time you give it a similar task, it loads the skill it already made and does the task faster.

No extra prompting is needed from you.

This learning loop means every hour you spend with Hermes makes it more useful. Hour 100 with Hermes is dramatically better than hour 1. Most other AI tools do not improve this way.

02Main Features of Hermes Agent

Hermes has over 40 built-in tools. These include web search, browser automation, code running, image generation, file handling, and text-to-speech. It can also create videos with diagrams and animations.

Other key features are:

  • Profiles: You can run multiple separate instances of Hermes on the same machine. Each instance has its own memory, skills, and personality.
  • Scheduled automations: You tell Hermes what you want done and when, in plain English. It runs on a built-in cron schedule.
  • Sub-agents: Hermes can spawn isolated mini-agents for parallel tasks. If you give it three things to research, it spins up three sub-agents at once.
  • Sandbox options: Run Hermes locally, in Docker, over SSH, on a cloud GPU cluster, or through serverless platforms like Modal or Daytona.
  • Pluggable memory: You can use native Honcho memory or Obsidian for memory storage.

03How to Set Up Hermes AI Agent

Setting up Hermes is straightforward. Follow these steps to get started:

  1. Go to the Hermes GitHub repository at newsresearch/hermes-agent.
  2. Install Hermes using the command line. You can run it on your laptop, in Docker, or on a remote server.
  3. If you are coming from OpenClaw, use the one-command migration tool. Type hermes clog migrate in the terminal to pull over your settings, memories, skills, and API keys.
  4. Connect Hermes to your preferred messaging platform like Telegram, Discord, Slack, or WhatsApp.
  5. Give Hermes a first simple recurring task, like monitoring a topic or summarizing emails.
  6. Let Hermes run and watch it build skills automatically. It will get better with each task.

04How to Use Hermes: Real Examples

Julian showed several practical examples of using Hermes. You can set up a task once and it runs forever without you touching it again.

For example, you can tell Hermes to check five competitor websites every morning and send you a summary in Telegram at 8am. Say that once in plain English and Hermes runs it every day. You can also have it monitor your emails, pull out important information, and send you a digest in WhatsApp every afternoon.

Jeffrey Quesnel, CEO of Noose Research, demonstrated Hermes writing a 79,000-word novel across multiple sessions. No human editing was done between sessions. The agent remembered the characters, plot, and style.

It just kept going. You can use these same capabilities for content repurposing, marketing research, or customer follow-ups.

05Results and Comparisons: Hermes vs OpenClaw

Hermes hit 40,000 GitHub stars in 45 days. OpenClaw took 61 days to reach the same milestone. In the last seven days alone, Hermes gained three times more stars than OpenClaw.

This has never happened with any AI agent before.

One user reported they installed Hermes on the same server as OpenClaw. It took about 11 minutes. Within two hours, Hermes created three skill documents from tasks given to it.

It completed a similar research task 40% faster using those skills. There was no prompt tuning or manual feedback. The agent taught itself.

With OpenClaw, you have to write better skills and prompts yourself. And it often breaks. With Hermes, the agent writes its own skills and improves them during use.

Hermes also has a built-in migration tool for OpenClaw users. You type one command and it pulls over everything.

06Tips, Limits, and Mistakes to Avoid with Hermes

Hermes learns automatically, so you do not need to write skills or prompts manually. However, there are some things to keep in mind.

  • Let it run: Hermes improves over time. Do not interrupt its learning loop by resetting or reinstalling often.
  • Use profiles: If you give Hermes mixed tasks, its memory can get messy. Use separate profiles for different projects like marketing research and customer follow-ups.
  • Check security: Hermes ships with safer defaults like command approval and memory scanning. Still, be careful about what tasks you give it.
  • Choose the right memory provider: Hermes supports Honcho and Obsidian for memory. Pick one that fits your workflow.
  • Plan for serverless: The serverless option saves money because your agent hibernates when idle. But it may need to wake up for each task.

One mistake to avoid is comparing Hermes to OpenClaw on prebuilt skills. OpenClaw has a larger skill marketplace, but Hermes builds its own skills on the fly.

07Who Hermes Is For and Why It Matters

Hermes is for anyone who wants a set-it-and-forget-it AI agent. It is built by Noose Research, a real AI lab with 20 employees and $50 million in funding. The team has been building open source AI tools since before most people knew what an AI agent was.

This matters because the age of agents that learn and improve is here. With Hermes, you tell an agent once what you need. It remembers, gets better, and runs in the background.

People who set up these automated workflows now will have a big advantage over the next 12 months. Hermes ships frequent updates, often multiple versions per week. It is not slowing down.

If you run a business, Hermes can automate lead generation, content creation, and customer follow-ups. You can connect it to your business apps and let it work while you focus on other things.