this one covers monday 12th to sunday 18th october, plus four posts from sunday 11th that went up after last week's issue was already frozen. the big one is Hermes Agent v0.22.0, out on wednesday: a setup chat on first launch, connectors for your apps, local models in one click and stable release channels. around it: seven Wingtips (the series passed 100 on tuesday), four Autopilot prompts, six question-and-answer posts, six short Hermes Desktop videos, and a lot of community plugins, from a phone harness to Telegram stickers. thank you for reading.

this week's tips

seven Hermes Wingtips, each run live before posting. the series passed 100 on tuesday, and all of them are on GitHub in one place, with a single file you can point your Hermes Agent at (link in the first reply of that post).

• #97: let your agent ask before it starts: add "ask me a few questions first" to your message. in the terminal, the agent puts its questions together in one panel, with choices to pick or room for your own answer.
• #99: copy the agent's last answer: /copy in the terminal chat puts the agent's last answer on your clipboard, ready to paste into an email or a doc.
• #100: choose how your Hermes Agent updates: a source install now goes from one published release to the next when you update. for every commit on main, hermes update --set-channel main. Hermes Desktop has the same switch under Settings > About > Updates > Update channel.
• #101: Minimize to tray in Hermes Desktop: Settings > Appearance > Window layout > Minimize to tray. closing the main window then hides Hermes Desktop in the system tray, and your sessions keep running.
• #102: /reasoning high: the model does more thinking before each answer, for the rest of the session.
• #103: Favorites: click the star next to a model in the Hermes Desktop model picker. it moves into a Favorites section at the top, wherever you pick a model in the app.
• #104: /restart: send it in the chat with your bot. the agent finishes the task it is working on, restarts, and messages you when it is back.

four Hermes Autopilot prompts, each with a copy-and-paste prompt in the first reply:

• #18: check your latest backup would bring your setup back: it opens the backup in a temporary folder, then compares your config, memory, skills, jobs and chats with the live setup, without touching it.
• #19: what your Hermes Agent knows about you: it lists each fact from its memory and your past chats, with where it came from, then removes from memory only the lines you want.
• #20: skills one step away: some of its skills need a key, an app or a sign-in first. it checks each one, lists what is missing, then picks three that fit you from its memory of you.
• #21: what your Hermes Agent does on its own: it reads its own settings and lists each self-run job, with whether it is on for you.

six things to know

six question-and-answer posts this week, every line checked against the live docs before posting:

• Hermes Desktop on your laptop, your Hermes Agent on another machine: two routes. over SSH the app opens the tunnel and starts the backend on the server for you; as a Remote gateway you keep hermes serve --host <tailscale-ip> --port 9119 running there and the app attaches to it. any bind other than localhost turns on the login gate, chats and memory stay on the machine that owns the profile, and you can register several machines under Settings > Gateways.
• keeping your token spend down: /usage for the session, /insights for the last 30 days, hermes prompt-size for the fixed cost of every message. hermes tools and hermes skills trim what gets sent on every call, compression.threshold_tokens sets a cost ceiling per call, a /model switch or fallback re-reads the whole conversation at full price through the prompt cache, and delegation.model pins subagents to a cheaper model.
• context files: .hermes.md first, then AGENTS.md, then the files you keep for other coding tools; one project file type loads per session. SOUL.md sits outside that order and loads every time. inside a git repo every AGENTS.md from the root down loads, and /context ends with the list of what loaded and what was skipped.
• several Hermes agents working together: a profile per specialist agent, with a --description so the Kanban orchestrator knows what it is good at. a subagent for an answer you need now, a Kanban task for work that crosses agents or must survive a restart. handoffs happen in task comments, DISCORD_ALLOW_BOTS=mentions lets bots answer each other in a group chat with a loop guard behind it, and hermes kanban runs <id> shows every attempt.
• Hermes Agent v0.22.0, for new and existing users: installs follow tested stable releases by default and hermes update snapshots each profile first; memory providers such as Honcho and Mem0 move to the plugin catalog with their data. connectors: ask for an app in a chat, sign in once in your browser, and the agent uses it in the same turn, with no Nous account needed to start. Settings > Providers > Local Models checks every catalog model against your GPU before you download, and existing installs get the setup chat from Settings > Advanced > Desktop & startup > Run onboarding again.
• keeping your Hermes Agent safe: the approval mode decides which flagged commands reach you, and approvals.deny patterns hold even under /yolo. the terminal backend can be local, a hardened docker container with docker_forward_env: [] to keep secrets out, ssh, or Hermes Cloud. API keys live in ~/.hermes/.env or come from Bitwarden or 1Password, tool output that looks like a key is redacted, Passwords & Logins fills a site password without the model seeing it, and the gateway turns every user away until you allowlist yourself or approve a DM pairing code.

from Nous Research

• Hermes Agent v0.22.0: about 6,080 merged PRs from 2,500+ contributors since v0.21.0, the largest release window Hermes has shipped. a fresh Hermes Desktop install opens on a short setup chat that runs on a free trial model, so you are talking to Hermes before you have an API key. around it: connectors for apps like Gmail, Linear and Notion, local models in one click with llama.cpp set up for your hardware, tested stable releases, a plugin catalog with 600 reviewed plugins, website sign-in through your password manager, and one gateway and one backend for all your profiles.
• five merged PRs from the two weeks before: hermes update moves from one release to the next (#135847), cron scripts run in your own Python environment with --interpreter (#125392), vision models see the images MCP tools return (#133815), /s is short for /steer (#125803), and plugin skills show up in the slash menu as /plugin:skill (#133175).
• the Nous Portal free tier: 11 free models at $0 for your Hermes Agent. run hermes model and pick Nous Portal.
• Fish Audio in Hermes Agent: hermes plugins install fish-audio --enable, then hermes fish login and /fish model drama-3-preview. voice replies, read-aloud and voice notes go through Drama 3, in the CLI, your messaging apps and Hermes Desktop.
• REA, an official plugin: point Hermes Agent at an app and ask how it works. it opens native programs and libraries, .NET assemblies, Electron and JavaScript apps, Android packages and firmware images, and network and browser captures, pulls out decompiled code and call graphs, and Hermes explains them or builds from them.
• Hermes Agent on the RTX Spark laptops: if you are getting one, Hermes Agent is already in the Windows agent setup. pick it there, the new onboarding sets you up, and it runs on the laptop itself or in the cloud.
• session auto-prune: Teknium's post on the change, made on your feedback. auto-prune is off by default, and a quick check on new sessions prompts you when the session database is about to fill the disk. merged on main, it ships with the next tagged release.
• The Verge's local AI diary: a Mac Studio, a local model, and Hermes Agent doing the work. a good read.
• Hermes Agent for your work, now a playlist: the last section of the video map, six videos, one per job: marketing, leads, paid ads, sales and ops, customer support and research. the YouTube link sits in the first reply.

hermes desktop, on video

short screen recordings, one feature each:

• Hermes on your phone, from zero: hermes dashboard, Channels > Telegram, Create with QR, scan it, tap Create then Connect this bot, Save and restart. Hermes creates the bot and adds your Telegram account to its allowed users.
• a tour of nousresearch.com: the menus up top, Cmd+K (Ctrl+K on Windows and Linux) for a search that includes how to get Hermes, the mission, and the latest announcements below.
• the pet, popped out: shift-click the pet and it leaves the window. drag it anywhere, double-click to hide or bring back the app, click it to send a prompt, and a mail icon appears when a turn finishes. shift-click again to put it back.
• cache hit rate and tokens per second in the status bar: right-click the status bar > Show in status bar, then tick Cache hit rate, Tokens per second and Turn timer. no status bar? Cmd+Shift+S on Mac, Ctrl+Shift+S on Windows and Linux.
• two ways to add to a running turn: send a message while the agent works and it joins the current turn; press Cmd+Enter and it waits in a queue above the composer, where you can still edit or delete it.
• the new first launch: on a new computer it runs on a free trial model, so you can start talking to it with no API key. on an install you already have, Settings > Advanced > Desktop & startup > Run onboarding again.

from the community

• what you told us about Hermes Desktop: most of you said it feels steadier and snappier, and for several of you it is now the daily driver. you want a clearer line between bots and sessions, sessions and projects that are easier to sort, your bots and tabs following you from one computer to the next, roles when a team shares one gateway, and more voice. a few asks are already in the app: Simple mode under Settings > Appearance > Window & layout, the live context meter in the status bar, and Cmd/Ctrl+Shift+N for a second window. all of it goes to the team.
• a light and dark dashboard theme: from r/hermesagent, for the Hermes Agent web dashboard. one font across the UI, rounded cards and buttons, the film-grain overlay off. each theme is one YAML file in ~/.hermes/dashboard-themes/, and it shows up in the theme switcher next to the built-in ones.
• redline: a Hermes Desktop plugin for reviewing the documents and code your agent writes. it opens the file in a pane next to the chat; select a passage, leave a comment or a change request, send one note or a batch, and the pane refreshes while the agent edits. in the Hermes plugin catalog.
• qdrant-memory: a long-term memory plugin from r/hermesagent. the model you already use picks facts out of your chats and saves them, a new session searches those memories, and by default they sit in a local Qdrant store inside your Hermes home. in the plugin catalog.
• phone-harness: Hermes Agent uses your real phone the way you do. it sees the screen, taps, swipes and types, so it works with apps that have no API; iPhone through iPhone Mirroring on a Mac, Android over adb, or a cloud phone. every script asks you first, it checks with you before it sends, posts, buys or deletes, and it never types passwords, PINs or 2FA codes.
• Herald OS kept shipping: the Petdex pet on the Herald OS desktop, and a Pet Room where you watch your subagents pass notes to each other, live.
• JARVIS Desk Bot: a small ESP32 robot you talk to. say "Jarvis", ask for something, and it talks back while the agent works, with short updates like "checking your tasks". long jobs go to background helpers that report back out loud, and speech recognition and the voice run on your own server.
• sem-weave: 3.4k stars on GitHub, now in the plugin catalog. your Hermes Agent reviews code by function instead of by line: a definition plus every caller with file and line, a summary of your uncommitted work by function, the tests a change touches, and a merge preview for two agents on two branches. it looks and reports, it never applies edits itself.
• /bro: a one-file community skill. type /bro after a reply that is too dense and your agent explains the same thing again in plain language; paste text after it and it explains that instead.
• telegram-stickers: in the plugin catalog, so your Hermes Agent answers you on Telegram with stickers. Telegram's own packs work out of the box, send it stickers you like and it learns their packs, and "send stickers less often" or "only when I ask" changes it, in words.

local AI beyond Hermes

three bench mornings and three duck sessions on the RTX 5090 this week:

• harness transfer on a 2.6B model: FineEnvs' four published versions of Liquid AI's LFM2.5-2.6B inside Hermes Agent, on the same 250 held-out data-analysis tasks. the version fine-tuned on a bigger model's successful runs across several harnesses solved 30.5% against 13.6% for the base, better on 110 tasks and worse on 19. the RL versions moved less: OpenCode-only RL added 8.4 points, multi-harness RL 1.8, inside the noise.
• Microduck's get-up walker on Hugging Face: it gets back up when it falls, and it trained with ±1° of gear play in every servo. in the simulator it was on the ground 35 times and got back up 31. the get-up is Pollen's stand-up policy, taught to my walk with their method.
• Qwen3.8-27B in under 10 GB: Underdog-Saluki-27B, a 7.9 GB file, against four other files of the same model on my thinking board, 16k token budget, 1,583 questions each. the Q6_K file at 22.9 GB scored 89.7; the two Ternary-Bonsai-2 files at 7.2 GB and 5.9 GB both scored 88.7; Saluki scored 85.7 and spends 1.5x to 1.8x the tokens per correct answer. Saluki's advantage is that it loads on stock llama.cpp, where the Bonsai files need PrismML's fork.
• Microduck's rough-ground walk, v2: retrained with the same ±1° of gear play. on the hardest block grids, stairs and slopes it now stays on its feet in 8 of 9 takes, against 4 of 9 for v1. on Hugging Face as walk-rough v2.
• LFM2.5-24B-A2B against Qwen3.6-35B-A3B: Liquid's model card says LFM wins IFEval and trails on GPQA Diamond, and both held on my card, thinking on, 16k budget: IFEval 93.35 against 87.25, GPQA Diamond 68.69 against 76.77. on GPQA, 48 of LFM's 62 misses hit the 16k cap mid-thought. also MATH-500 93.0 against 72.8, HumanEval+ 92.07 against 95.12, MBPP+ 81.48 against 81.22, and 444 tok/s against 271.
• Microduck on slippery floors: 3,000 more rounds in the simulator with the grip on its feet turned way down. on the slipperiest floor, with the sim shoving it once or twice a second, it stayed up for 20 s in 8 of 15 tries; the walk it started from managed 1 of 15. on a normal floor, no difference.

that's the week. if you are new here, the v0.22.0 question-and-answer post above is the place to start this time, and Flightplan #4 still covers the basics. see you next week.