What Is Hermes Agent? Nous Research's Self-Improving AI Agent Explained

Hermes Agent is a free, MIT-licensed AI agent from Nous Research that you run on your own computer or server and talk to through chat apps like Telegram, Discord, Slack, WhatsApp and Signal. Nous announced it on February 25, 2026. It’s written in Python and is one of the two largest open source personal agents, alongside OpenClaw.

It is the software around a model, not a model: it works with whichever one you connect.

What makes it different: it writes its own skills

Nous calls Hermes Agent self-improving. In practice that means three things (docs):

• After a complex task, it writes a reusable skill describing how it did it, and refines that skill as it uses it again.
• It keeps a curated memory and can search across past sessions.
• It builds a profile of you over time.

The upshot is an agent that should get better at your recurring tasks without you writing prompts or plugins. It also means its behavior drifts as it learns, so it’s worth looking at what it has written into its skills now and then.

You can also run several separate agents as profiles, each with its own model, memory and skills, and put them in a group chat together.

What running it takes

Hermes Agent runs on macOS on Apple Silicon, Windows 10 or 11, or 64-bit Linux or WSL2. The installer script needs Git and curl and sets up Python 3.14 itself; macOS and Windows also have desktop packages, while Linux has no desktop package and uses the script (installation). Docker is supported too, and Android works through Termux on the command line.

You manage it from a terminal UI or a local web dashboard where you see sessions from every channel and switch chat platforms on and off. One gateway connects 20+ platforms. iMessage is the awkward one: it needs a separate BlueBubbles server running on a Mac.

Like OpenClaw, it’s built for people comfortable with a command line and with keeping a server running.

What it costs

The agent is free. You pay for the model, in one of three ways:

• Your own provider key, such as OpenRouter, OpenAI or any compatible endpoint. Pay-as-you-go.
• A local model, free per message (local models guide).
• Nous Portal, Nous’s subscription: Plus at $20 a month, Super at $100 and Ultra at $200, with 200+ models, hosted web search, image generation, speech and a cloud browser, plus one hosted cloud agent (4 to 8 GB RAM depending on tier). Portal also has free models.

Hosted web search, images and speech need either a Portal plan or your own keys for those services.

Privacy and safety defaults

Hermes Agent is one of the better-behaved large agents on privacy. It stores conversations, memory and skills under ~/.hermes, sends API calls only to the model provider you configure, and its metrics for Nous are off unless you choose “Share with Nous” (FAQ).

Isolation is a different story. Its terminal backend defaults to local, which runs commands directly on your machine. When a command matches its list of dangerous patterns, the default smart approval mode has a helper model rate it: low-risk ones run, clearly dangerous ones are refused, and you’re asked about the rest (security docs). To get real isolation, set terminal.backend: docker. Chat access is denied to everyone until you set allowlists or approve people through DM pairing. Details in Is OpenClaw safe?, which covers Hermes too.

Hermes Agent vs OpenClaw

The two are close in what they do. The differences that matter for self-hosting, from the table above:

• Telemetry: Hermes sends none by default; OpenClaw runs a daily update check that reports version and system details.
• Language: Hermes is Python, OpenClaw is TypeScript on Node.
• Business model: OpenClaw is run by a nonprofit foundation with nothing to sell; Nous sells Portal subscriptions next to the free code.
• Ecosystem: OpenClaw has more channels, providers and plugins.
• Mobile: OpenClaw has iOS and Android apps; Hermes has no native mobile app.

Hermes can import OpenClaw’s settings, memories and skills in one command, so switching is cheap. For the full comparison, see Hermes Agent vs OpenClaw and what OpenClaw is.

Related projects

• NemoClaw, NVIDIA’s alpha stack, can run Hermes Agent inside a locked-down OpenShell sandbox with egress control. See what NemoClaw is.
• ZeroClaw is a smaller alternative that ships with an OS sandbox on and no telemetry.

More options in Hermes Agent alternatives.