hermes-agent/docs/cli.md

CLI

The Hermes Agent CLI provides an interactive terminal interface for working with the agent.

Running the CLI

# Basic usage
./hermes

# With specific model
./hermes --model "anthropic/claude-sonnet-4"

# With specific provider
./hermes --provider nous        # Use Nous Portal (requires: hermes login)
./hermes --provider openrouter  # Force OpenRouter

# With specific toolsets
./hermes --toolsets "web,terminal,skills"

# Verbose mode
./hermes --verbose

Architecture

The CLI is implemented in cli.py and uses:

• Rich - Welcome banner with ASCII art and styled panels
• prompt_toolkit - Fixed input area with command history
• KawaiiSpinner - Animated feedback during operations

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│  HERMES-AGENT ASCII Logo                        │
│  ┌─────────────┐ ┌────────────────────────────┐ │
│  │  Caduceus   │ │ Model: claude-opus-4.5     │ │
│  │  ASCII Art  │ │ Terminal: local            │ │
│  │             │ │ Working Dir: /home/user    │ │
│  │             │ │ Available Tools: 19        │ │
│  │             │ │ Available Skills: 12       │ │
│  └─────────────┘ └────────────────────────────┘ │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
│ Conversation output scrolls here...             │
│                                                 │
│ User: Hello!                                    │
│ ────────────────────────────────────────────── │
│   (◕‿◕✿) 🧠 pondering... (2.3s)                │
│   ✧٩(ˊᗜˋ*)و✧ got it! (2.3s)                    │
│                                                 │
│ Assistant: Hello! How can I help you today?    │
├─────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ ❯ [Fixed input area at bottom]                  │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Commands

Command	Description
/help	Show available commands
/tools	List available tools grouped by toolset
/toolsets	List available toolsets with descriptions
/model [name]	Show or change the current model
/prompt [text]	View/set/clear custom system prompt
/personality [name]	Set a predefined personality
/clear	Clear screen and reset conversation
/reset	Reset conversation only (keep screen)
/history	Show conversation history
/save	Save current conversation to file
/config	Show current configuration
/quit	Exit the CLI (also: /exit, /q)

Configuration

The CLI is configured via cli-config.yaml. Copy from cli-config.yaml.example:

cp cli-config.yaml.example cli-config.yaml

Model & Provider Configuration

model:
  default: "anthropic/claude-opus-4.6"
  base_url: "https://openrouter.ai/api/v1"
  provider: "auto"  # "auto" | "openrouter" | "nous"

Provider selection (provider field):

• auto (default): Uses Nous Portal if logged in (hermes login), otherwise falls back to OpenRouter/env vars.
• openrouter: Always uses OPENROUTER_API_KEY from .env.
• nous: Always uses Nous Portal OAuth credentials from auth.json.

Can also be overridden per-session with --provider or via HERMES_INFERENCE_PROVIDER env var.

Terminal Configuration

The CLI supports multiple terminal backends:

# Local execution (default)
terminal:
  env_type: "local"
  cwd: "."  # Current directory

# SSH remote execution (sandboxed - agent can't touch its own code)
terminal:
  env_type: "ssh"
  cwd: "/home/myuser/project"
  ssh_host: "my-server.example.com"
  ssh_user: "myuser"
  ssh_key: "~/.ssh/id_rsa"

# Docker container
terminal:
  env_type: "docker"
  docker_image: "python:3.11"

# Singularity/Apptainer (HPC)
terminal:
  env_type: "singularity"
  singularity_image: "docker://python:3.11"

# Modal cloud
terminal:
  env_type: "modal"
  modal_image: "python:3.11"

Sudo Support

The CLI supports interactive sudo prompts:

┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│  🔐 SUDO PASSWORD REQUIRED                               │
├──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│  Enter password below (input is hidden), or:             │
│    • Press Enter to skip (command fails gracefully)      │
│    • Wait 45s to auto-skip                               │
└──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

  Password (hidden): 

Options:

• Interactive: Leave sudo_password unset - you'll be prompted when needed
• Configured: Set sudo_password in cli-config.yaml to auto-fill
• Environment: Set SUDO_PASSWORD in .env for all runs

Password is cached for the session once entered.

Toolsets

Control which tools are available:

# Enable all tools
toolsets:
  - all

# Or enable specific toolsets
toolsets:
  - web
  - terminal
  - skills

Available toolsets: web, search, terminal, browser, vision, image_gen, skills, moa, debugging, safe

Personalities

Predefined personalities for the /personality command:

agent:
  personalities:
    helpful: "You are a helpful, friendly AI assistant."
    kawaii: "You are a kawaii assistant! Use cute expressions..."
    pirate: "Arrr! Ye be talkin' to Captain Hermes..."
    # Add your own!

Built-in personalities:

• helpful, concise, technical, creative, teacher
• kawaii, catgirl, pirate, shakespeare, surfer
• noir, uwu, philosopher, hype

Animated Feedback

The CLI provides animated feedback during operations:

Thinking Animation

During API calls, shows animated spinner with thinking verbs:

  ◜ (｡•́︿•̀｡) pondering... (1.2s)
  ◠ (⊙_⊙) contemplating... (2.4s)
  ✧٩(ˊᗜˋ*)و✧ got it! (3.1s)

Tool Execution Animation

Each tool type has unique animations:

  ⠋ (◕‿◕✿) 🔍 web_search... (0.8s)
  ▅ (≧◡≦) 💻 terminal... (1.2s)
  🌓 (★ω★) 🌐 browser_navigate... (2.1s)
  ✧ (✿◠‿◠) 🎨 image_generate... (4.5s)

Multi-line Input

For multi-line input, end a line with \ to continue:

❯ Write a function that:\
  1. Takes a list of numbers\
  2. Returns the sum

Environment Variable Priority

For terminal settings, cli-config.yaml takes precedence over .env:

1. cli-config.yaml (highest priority in CLI)
2. .env file
3. System environment variables
4. Default values

This allows you to have different terminal configs for CLI vs batch processing.

Session Management

• History: Command history is saved to ~/.hermes_history
• Conversations: Use /save to export conversations
• Reset: Use /clear for full reset, /reset to just clear history
• Session Logs: Every session automatically logs to logs/session_{session_id}.json

Session Logging

Sessions are automatically logged to the logs/ directory:

logs/
├── session_20260201_143052_a1b2c3.json
├── session_20260201_150217_d4e5f6.json
└── ...

The session ID is displayed in the welcome banner and follows the format: YYYYMMDD_HHMMSS_UUID.

Log files contain:

• Full conversation history in trajectory format
• Timestamps for session start and last update
• Model and message count metadata

This is useful for:

• Debugging agent behavior
• Replaying conversations
• Training data inspection

Context Compression

Long conversations can exceed model context limits. The CLI automatically compresses context when approaching the limit:

# In cli-config.yaml
compression:
  enabled: true                    # Enable auto-compression
  threshold: 0.85                  # Compress at 85% of context limit  
  summary_model: "google/gemini-2.0-flash-001"

How it works:

1. Tracks actual token usage from each API response
2. When tokens reach threshold, middle turns are summarized
3. First 3 and last 4 turns are always protected
4. Conversation continues seamlessly after compression

When compression triggers:

📦 Context compression triggered (170,000 tokens ≥ 170,000 threshold)
   📊 Model context limit: 200,000 tokens (85% = 170,000)
   🗜️  Summarizing turns 4-15 (12 turns)
   ✅ Compressed: 20 → 9 messages (~45,000 tokens saved)

To disable compression:

compression:
  enabled: false

Quiet Mode

The CLI runs in "quiet mode" (HERMES_QUIET=1), which:

• Suppresses verbose logging from tools
• Enables kawaii-style animated feedback
• Hides terminal environment warnings
• Keeps output clean and user-friendly

For verbose output (debugging), use:

./hermes --verbose

Skills Hub Commands

The Skills Hub provides search, install, and management of skills from online registries.

Terminal commands:

hermes skills search <query>                      # Search all registries
hermes skills search <query> --source github      # Search GitHub only
hermes skills install <identifier>                # Install with security scan
hermes skills install <id> --category devops      # Install into a category
hermes skills install <id> --force                # Override caution block
hermes skills inspect <identifier>                # Preview without installing
hermes skills list                                # List all installed skills
hermes skills list --source hub                   # Hub-installed only
hermes skills audit                               # Re-scan all hub skills
hermes skills audit <name>                        # Re-scan a specific skill
hermes skills uninstall <name>                    # Remove a hub skill
hermes skills publish <path> --to github --repo owner/repo
hermes skills snapshot export <file.json>         # Export skill config
hermes skills snapshot import <file.json>         # Re-install from snapshot
hermes skills tap list                            # List custom sources
hermes skills tap add owner/repo                  # Add a GitHub repo source
hermes skills tap remove owner/repo               # Remove a source

Slash commands (inside chat):

All the same commands work with /skills prefix:

/skills search kubernetes
/skills install openai/skills/skill-creator
/skills list
/skills tap add myorg/skills