We have a very passive relationship with AI right
now. Think about your daily routine. You open
a tab, type a prompt, and wait for an answer.
Then you take that answer and do the actual work
yourself. But imagine an AI that doesn't just
wait around for your questions. Imagine one that
actually acts. It runs tasks in the background.
It checks your servers. It messages your phone
with updates while you sleep. It is a massive
behavioral shift, honestly. We are moving from
an AI that just answers to an AI that... takes
independent action. It's the difference between
having a smart encyclopedia and, well, having
an actual employee. Okay, let's unpack this.
Welcome to the Deep Dive. Today, we were looking
at a huge stack of GitHub documentation, developer
blogs, and Reddit threads. All about a project
called Hermes Agent. Exactly. Our mission is
to explore what it takes to build a self -hosted
AI personal assistant. we're going to cover what
hermes actually is we'll see how it compares
to heavyweights in the space too right and we
will break down the five core pillars of its
brain and crucial for anyone listening we're
going to look at how to safely set it up yeah
so it works strictly for you without you know
breaking your computer exactly so let's start
with what hermes actually is because the repositories
are going viral right now They really are. I
mean, for a long time, we treated AI like a very
smart search box. You asked a coding question,
you copied the answer, you pasted it into your
editor. You were the one moving the data. It
was useful, but it was highly manual. You were
still the bottleneck. Exactly. Now, looking at
the developer community, user expectations are
fundamentally shifting. People don't want a search
box anymore. They want a personal operator. They
want an AI that remembers their preferences.
They want it to understand their ongoing projects.
And Hermes isn't just another chat bot you log
into. It is an open source framework for building
your own personal assistant. And self -hosted
is a key term here. Yeah. You don't just log
into a website. You run it yourself. You can
put it on a VPS. That is a rented remote computer
running constantly in the cloud. Right. Or you
can run it on a Mac Mini sitting on your desk.
You could even run it on an Android phone using
an app called Termux. Right. And because it lives
on your infrastructure, it is always there. It
doesn't go to sleep when you close a browser
tab. It is a persistent entity. It is also multi
-channel. This is the part that fascinates me.
You don't open a special AI app to talk to it.
You talk to it via Telegram, Discord, Slack,
or WhatsApp. The documentation points to Telegram
as the easiest starting point. And that choice
changes the psychology of how you use it. Yeah,
it makes Hermes feel like a real human assistant
living inside your phone. You just text it, you
are at the grocery store, you get an idea, and
you just send a message to your bot. And it actually
uses tools. Look, standard AI is like a smart
dictionary. It knows a lot of things, but it
just sits on the shelf. Right. Hermes is like
giving an assistant their own desk. You give
them a set of tools, a memory system, a calendar,
and a phone number. It can run actual terminal
commands. It uses browser automation to look
at websites. It even has vision to analyze images
you send it. That is the crucial difference here.
The workspace is where it runs. The tools are
what it uses to manipulate that workspace. The
calendar is for its scheduled tasks. It isn't
just generating text. It is executing logic.
Whoa. Beat. I mean, imagine an assistant that
remembers your exact workflows. And it can run
them in the background without you typing a thing.
It's wild. It's pulling reports and formatting
data while you literally go for a walk. That
is the real promise here. It isn't about writing
a better poem. It creates reusable workflows
for the tedious digital chores you repeat often.
But this makes me wonder, does this mean we're
replacing our standard chat GPT habit entirely?
No, it just moves AI from conversation to...
actual background task execution okay that makes
sense it is a different kind of tool entirely
and that brings us to the broader landscape yeah
if we're going to invest time setting this up
we need to know where it fits we don't want you
using a hammer to drive a screw exactly let's
look at how armies compares to other big names
in the agent space specifically claude code and
open claw right if we connect this to the bigger
picture the ai agent space is fragmenting really
fast Six months ago, an agent was just a buzzword.
Now, different tools have very specialized jobs.
Let's start with Cloud Code. Going through the
developer blogs, it is clear this is built for
focused, deep work. desk work. Exactly. Cloud
Code is what you use when you are sitting at
your computer staring at a massive code base.
It excels at local environment management. It
edits your files, manages your repositories,
and works deep inside your terminal. It is a
dedicated coding partner. But it is not a mobile
first assistant. You aren't going to text Cloud
Code on WhatsApp while you're driving to remind
you about a meeting. No. Or to summarize a news
article. Right. It is heavy machinery. Then on
the other end of the spectrum, you have something
like OpenClaw. The repositories show this is
a much heavier system. Okay. It is basically
a multi -agent gateway. Wait. A gateway system.
So it connects messaging apps, multiple specialized
agents, and external plugins into one massive
architecture. Yeah. That sounds incredibly complicated.
It is. It is powerful, but it can feel very brittle.
It is really designed for power users, startup
founders, or developers building complex commercial
platforms. So when you have that many moving
parts, if one plugin updates, the whole house
of cards might fall. Exactly. It requires constant
maintenance. Which leaves us with Hermes Agent.
It sits in a very specific practical lane. It
is lightweight. It is telegram first. And it
is designed to be a self -improving personal
assistant. Hermes is for when you are walking
around with your phone, but you still want your
digital work to move forward. You want something
that grows with your specific habits. And as
a bonus, the architecture is great for testing
new open source language models. Yeah, definitely.
But hold on. If I am using cloud code for my
programming and I am setting up Hermes for my
daily schedule, aren't I just giving myself a
management headache? I mean, it feels that way
at first, but separation of concerns is actually
it. s practice here right you wouldn't ask your
accountant to also design your logo exactly you
want specialized tools for complex tasks hermes
acts as the project manager while claude is the
factory worker so if i'm just coding an app is
hermes the wrong tool yes use claude code for
deep coding and hermes for daily assistant tasks
got it now we really need to look under the hood
to understand how hermes manages to be so fiercely
independent we have to examine its brain Yeah,
the architectural docs break this down into five
core pillars. These five pillars are the exact
mechanisms that turn it from a reactive, forgetful
chatbot into a proactive, reliable agent. Pillar
number one is memory. And honestly, this is the
biggest friction point with AI right now. Most
AI models wake up with total amnesia. Oh, absolutely.
Every single section starts totally fresh. That
is incredibly frustrating. You don't want to
explain your business model, your project context,
and your personal communication style every single
time you open a chat. Ermi solves this at the
root level using two specific markdown files.
Let's break those down. The first is the user
file. This file is entirely about who you are.
Right. It holds your professional role, your
preferences, and your writing style. You can
literally write in the file, keep my email simple,
warm, and direct. And the mechanism here is crucial.
Every time Hermes wakes up to do a task, it secretly
reads that file first. It gives itself a crash
course on who you are before it even sees your
prompt. The second file is the memory file. This
holds your project context. Yeah. So business
information, server environment details, recurring
facts, stuff that doesn't change daily. Yeah.
But the docs warn you have to be careful here.
You really do. You only save durable facts, not
temporary task statuses. If you save every little
to -do item, the file gets bloated and the AI
gets confused. Exactly. Pillar two is skills.
If memory dictates what the AI needs to remember,
skills dictate how it repeats a task. They act
as reusable recipes for your repeated digital
chores. These live in individual skill files.
They contain step -by -step instructions. They
also use YAML front matter. Let's define that.
Hidden code tags that tell the AI when to trigger
skills. So instead of just guessing how you want
to report formatted, it reads the hidden tags,
sees the trigger word, and pulls up the exact
blueprint you created last week. And I have to
admit, I still wrestle with prompt drift myself.
Yeah. Beat. Yeah, it's so common. You know, having
to constantly rewrite instructions because the
AI slowly forgets what I want it to do by the
10th message in a chat. This skill system. completely
fixes that. It absolutely does. You stop asking
the agent to improvise every time. You give it
a rigid track to run on. Which brings us to pillar
three, the soul. This lives in the soul file.
This one's fascinating. This file gives the agent
its actual personality and tone. You can make
it warm and empathetic. You can make it highly
sarcastic. Or you can make it strictly technical,
returning only code and no apologies. And this
matters deeply if Hermes is, for example, drafting
customer support replies for your business. A
generic robotic assistant sounds totally forgettable.
You want it to sound like your brand. How does
the sole pillar actually change the output practically?
It dictates the tone, preventing your assistant
from sounding like a generic corporate robot.
Right. It literally changes the weights of the
words the model chooses. Pillar four is cron
jobs. Let's define that jargon too. Scheduled
tasks that run automatically at a specific time.
This is the feature that turns Hermes from a
reactive tool into a proactive operator. You
aren't just messaging it, it is messaging you.
You schedule a market research summary for 7
a .m. or database backup every Friday at midnight.
It just happens without a prompt. And pillar
five is the self -improving loop. This is the
absolute magic of the system. It is the process
of turning your manual corrections into permanent
skills. You ask Hermes to do a piece of work.
It does it, but maybe the output is messy. You
correct it. Then Hermes saves that newly improved
workflow. It searches its past sessions to keep
continuity. It literally rewrites its own instructions.
So the next time it runs that task, the output
is simply better. It learns from its mistakes.
Okay, we are going to talk about how to safely
set this architecture up next, right after this.
Sponsor, here's where it gets really interesting.
We know how its brain works with the markdown
files and the cron jobs. Now, how do we safely
give it a body in the real world? Because we
definitely do not want an autonomous AI accidentally
destroying our personal files. Setup and security
are absolutely critical here. Remember, Hermes
can run terminal commands. That means it can
delete files. It can install software. That is
incredibly powerful, but very risky. The documentation
strongly recommends running it on a separate
VPS or an isolated Docker container. Let's define
Docker container, a secure digital box keeping
software isolated from your main computer. Think
of Docker like putting the AI in a soundproof
room inside a shared house. If the AI makes a
massive mess, the house stays perfectly clean.
You just delete the room and start over. It keeps
everything safely organized. You log into your
remote server, install Docker, create a clean
folder, and then run the official installation
script. Right. You do not just download it to
your desktop. During that setup, you connect
it to Telegram using a tool called Botfather.
This gives you a unique bot token. But the community
forums highlight a massive security warning here.
They do. You absolutely must lock the bot strictly
to your specific Telegram user ID. Yes. If you
skip that step, anyone who finds your bot on
Telegram can start texting it. And since it has
terminal access, random strangers could be running
malicious commands on your private server. It
is a huge vulnerability. Another strict rule.
Never, ever paste your API keys, your passwords,
or your tokens directly into the chat window.
You store those secrets safely in .env files.
That's a hidden digital safe used specifically
for storing your private passwords. And you use
a .gitignore file to protect them from being
uploaded to public code repositories. Clean security
habits from day one are essential. The developers
also recommend disabling any tools you don't
actually need yet. If you aren't using browser
automation, turn it off. Limit the attack service.
So why shouldn't I just run this locally on my
MacBook right now? An autonomous agent with terminal
access could accidentally break your personal
computer files. That is a terrifying thought.
So we put it in a safe space, we lock it down,
then we build our first workflows. Yeah, and
the community guides say you should not build
complex multi -step automations on day one. Start
very small. The very first workflow you build
should be connecting a private GitHub repository
for daily cron job backups. This makes total
sense. You are backing up the memory and skill
files. You are literally saving the brain and
habits of your assistant. If the server crashes,
you don't lose the weeks of training you put
in. The second recommended workflow is a 7 a
.m. morning briefing. You set a cron job for
Hermes to pull your top priorities, scan relevant
industry news, and flag urgent calendar reminders.
It sends it to your phone right when you wake
up. It makes Hermes feel genuinely helpful immediately.
You get a clean, customized start to your day.
The third recommended workflow is a weekly server
health check. Reviewing disk usage, checking
running services, and scanning error logs. Hermes
lives on a server, so ask it to manage that server.
Exactly. Checking disk usage isn't just asking,
is the disk full? It's having the AI run the
command, read the output, notice that a log file
is eating up 80 % of the drive, and texting you
to ask if it should clear it. It built a great
maintenance habit early on. We have the setup,
we have the safety checks in place. What does
this actually look like in the wild when it starts
working along? This is where we look at the real
-life applications. Sure, you can use it as a
simple personal assistant for reminders, but
the architecture scales up beautifully. You can
use it as a full business operator. monitoring
a Discord community, summarizing hundreds of
YouTube comments to find common questions, or
drafting technical support replies based on your
actual documentation. What's fascinating here
is that the value isn't day one perfection. You
have to adjust your expectations. The real value
is day 30 automation. Exactly. Think about a
content creator workflow. Hermes could draft
scripts, pull research, and create data diagrams.
You can give it a cron job and say, every Friday
at 4 p .m., review my audience comments from
the week and create 10 new content ideas. It
just happens. And you can interact using voice,
which is huge for accessibility and speed. You
can be out on a walk, not looking at a screen,
and just brain dump a chaotic voice message into
Telegram. Hermes will transcribe it, parse out
the actionable items, and create a structured
task list in your system. It also has vision
capabilities. You can feed it UI screenshots
from an app you were building or complex data
diagrams and ask it to check for visual errors.
Or you can use it as a dedicated, relentless
research assistant. You ask it to monitor specific
AI news feeds during the week. Compare three
different software tools. Pull the pricing. format
it into a table, and save the findings directly
to its memory. And this all feeds right back
into that magic self -improving loop we talked
about earlier. You start with one real messy
task. You let Hermes attempt to help. You review
the output and you correct it. You say, no, don't
use bullet points. Use numbered lists and keep
the summaries under two sentences. And then you
save that exact pattern as a permanent skill.
What happens if the first research reported generates
is completely useless? You correct it, then tell
it to save that improved format as a skill. It
is so incredibly practical. You are not just
sitting around waiting for the big tech companies
to make the base AI model smarter. You are actively
teaching your specific instance how to work perfectly
for you. Beat. you build a fundamentally better
way of working together. By offloading these
routines, it drastically reduces the number of
small, exhausting decisions you have to make
every single day. So let's bring this all together.
Hermes Agent and tools like it represent a fundamental
shift in computing. We are moving from renting
intelligence one prompt at a time to owning an
evolving operator to sex silence. It builds its
own memory. It builds daily habits. It builds
complex workflows tailored exclusively to the
messy reality of your life. It is definitely
not magic out of the box. I think that's important
to stress. It requires genuine guidance and discipline.
You have to actively prune its memory and take
the time to create those foundational skills.
But the compounding return on your time is immense.
Once you get those skills dialed in, it operates
silently in the background, constantly pushing
your work forward while you focus on the big
picture. It essentially becomes a custom, lightweight
operating system for your professional life.
Before we wrap up today, I want you to think
about this. Look closely at your daily routine
right now. What is the one tedious digital chore
you do every single morning? Pulling data, checking
a dashboard, formatting an email that you can
hand off to an autonomous assistant right now.
Thank you for joining us on this deep dive. We
covered a lot of technical ground today, but
hopefully it gave you a blueprint for the future.
So what does this all mean? It means your new
assistant is waiting for instructions. Out hero
music.