hermes-agent/website/docs/user-guide/docker.md

# Hermes Agent — Docker

Want to run Hermes Agent, but without installing packages on your host? This'll sort you out.

This will let you run the agent in a container, with the most relevant modes outlined below.

The container stores all user data (config, API keys, sessions, skills, memories) in a single directory mounted from the host at `/opt/data`. The image itself is stateless and can be upgraded by pulling a new version without losing any configuration.

## Quick start

If this is your first time running Hermes Agent, create a data directory on the host and start the container interactively to run the setup wizard:

```sh
mkdir -p ~/.hermes
docker run -it --rm \
  -v ~/.hermes:/opt/data \
  nousresearch/hermes-agent
```

This drops you into the setup wizard, which will prompt you for your API keys and write them to `~/.hermes/.env`. You only need to do this once. It is highly recommended to set up a chat system for the gateway to work with at this point.

## Running in gateway mode

Once configured, run the container in the background as a persistent gateway (Telegram, Discord, Slack, WhatsApp, etc.):

```sh
docker run -d \
  --name hermes \
  --restart unless-stopped \
  -v ~/.hermes:/opt/data \
  nousresearch/hermes-agent gateway run
```

## Running interactively (CLI chat)

To open an interactive chat session against a running data directory:

```sh
docker run -it --rm \
  -v ~/.hermes:/opt/data \
  nousresearch/hermes-agent
```

## Upgrading

Pull the latest image and recreate the container. Your data directory is untouched.

```sh
docker pull nousresearch/hermes-agent:latest
docker rm -f hermes
docker run -d \
  --name hermes \
  --restart unless-stopped \
  -v ~/.hermes:/opt/data \
  nousresearch/hermes-agent
```

## Skills and credential files

When using Docker as the execution environment (not the methods above, but when the agent runs commands inside a Docker sandbox), Hermes automatically bind-mounts the skills directory (`~/.hermes/skills/`) and any credential files declared by skills into the container as read-only volumes. This means skill scripts, templates, and references are available inside the sandbox without manual configuration.

The same syncing happens for SSH and Modal backends — skills and credential files are uploaded via rsync or the Modal mount API before each command.