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

---
sidebar_position: 2
title: "Configuration"
description: "Configure Hermes Agent — config.yaml, providers, models, API keys, and more"
---

# Configuration

All settings are stored in the `~/.hermes/` directory for easy access.

## Directory Structure

```text
~/.hermes/
├── config.yaml     # Settings (model, terminal, TTS, compression, etc.)
├── .env            # API keys and secrets
├── auth.json       # OAuth provider credentials (Nous Portal, etc.)
├── SOUL.md         # Optional: global persona (agent embodies this personality)
├── memories/       # Persistent memory (MEMORY.md, USER.md)
├── skills/         # Agent-created skills (managed via skill_manage tool)
├── cron/           # Scheduled jobs
├── sessions/       # Gateway sessions
└── logs/           # Logs (errors.log, gateway.log — secrets auto-redacted)
```

## Managing Configuration

```bash
hermes config              # View current configuration
hermes config edit         # Open config.yaml in your editor
hermes config set KEY VAL  # Set a specific value
hermes config check        # Check for missing options (after updates)
hermes config migrate      # Interactively add missing options

# Examples:
hermes config set model anthropic/claude-opus-4
hermes config set terminal.backend docker
hermes config set OPENROUTER_API_KEY sk-or-...  # Saves to .env
```

:::tip
The `hermes config set` command automatically routes values to the right file — API keys are saved to `.env`, everything else to `config.yaml`.
:::

## Configuration Precedence

Settings are resolved in this order (highest priority first):

1. **CLI arguments** — `hermes chat --max-turns 100` (per-invocation override)
2. **`~/.hermes/config.yaml`** — the primary config file for all non-secret settings
3. **`~/.hermes/.env`** — fallback for env vars; **required** for secrets (API keys, tokens, passwords)
4. **Built-in defaults** — hardcoded safe defaults when nothing else is set

:::info Rule of Thumb
Secrets (API keys, bot tokens, passwords) go in `.env`. Everything else (model, terminal backend, compression settings, memory limits, toolsets) goes in `config.yaml`. When both are set, `config.yaml` wins for non-secret settings.
:::

## Inference Providers

You need at least one way to connect to an LLM. Use `hermes model` to switch providers and models interactively, or configure directly:

| Provider | Setup |
|----------|-------|
| **Nous Portal** | `hermes model` (OAuth, subscription-based) |
| **OpenAI Codex** | `hermes model` (ChatGPT OAuth, uses Codex models) |
| **OpenRouter** | `OPENROUTER_API_KEY` in `~/.hermes/.env` |
| **Custom Endpoint** | `OPENAI_BASE_URL` + `OPENAI_API_KEY` in `~/.hermes/.env` |

:::info Codex Note
The OpenAI Codex provider authenticates via device code (open a URL, enter a code). Credentials are stored at `~/.codex/auth.json` and auto-refresh. No Codex CLI installation required.
:::

:::warning
Even when using Nous Portal, Codex, or a custom endpoint, some tools (vision, web summarization, MoA) use OpenRouter independently. An `OPENROUTER_API_KEY` enables these tools.
:::

## Optional API Keys

| Feature | Provider | Env Variable |
|---------|----------|--------------|
| Web scraping | [Firecrawl](https://firecrawl.dev/) | `FIRECRAWL_API_KEY` |
| Browser automation | [Browserbase](https://browserbase.com/) | `BROWSERBASE_API_KEY`, `BROWSERBASE_PROJECT_ID` |
| Image generation | [FAL](https://fal.ai/) | `FAL_KEY` |
| Premium TTS voices | [ElevenLabs](https://elevenlabs.io/) | `ELEVENLABS_API_KEY` |
| OpenAI TTS + voice transcription | [OpenAI](https://platform.openai.com/api-keys) | `VOICE_TOOLS_OPENAI_KEY` |
| RL Training | [Tinker](https://tinker-console.thinkingmachines.ai/) + [WandB](https://wandb.ai/) | `TINKER_API_KEY`, `WANDB_API_KEY` |
| Cross-session user modeling | [Honcho](https://honcho.dev/) | `HONCHO_API_KEY` |

## OpenRouter Provider Routing

When using OpenRouter, you can control how requests are routed across providers. Add a `provider_routing` section to `~/.hermes/config.yaml`:

```yaml
provider_routing:
  sort: "throughput"          # "price" (default), "throughput", or "latency"
  # only: ["anthropic"]      # Only use these providers
  # ignore: ["deepinfra"]    # Skip these providers
  # order: ["anthropic", "google"]  # Try providers in this order
  # require_parameters: true  # Only use providers that support all request params
  # data_collection: "deny"   # Exclude providers that may store/train on data
```

**Shortcuts:** Append `:nitro` to any model name for throughput sorting (e.g., `anthropic/claude-sonnet-4:nitro`), or `:floor` for price sorting.

## Terminal Backend Configuration

Configure which environment the agent uses for terminal commands:

```yaml
terminal:
  backend: local    # or: docker, ssh, singularity, modal
  cwd: "."          # Working directory ("." = current dir)
  timeout: 180      # Command timeout in seconds
```

See [Code Execution](features/code-execution.md) and the [Terminal section of the README](features/tools.md) for details on each backend.

## Memory Configuration

```yaml
memory:
  memory_enabled: true
  user_profile_enabled: true
  memory_char_limit: 2200   # ~800 tokens
  user_char_limit: 1375     # ~500 tokens
```

## Context Compression

```yaml
compression:
  enabled: true
  threshold: 0.85    # Compress at 85% of context limit
```

## Reasoning Effort

Control how much "thinking" the model does before responding:

```yaml
agent:
  reasoning_effort: "xhigh"   # xhigh (max), high, medium, low, minimal, none
```

Higher reasoning effort gives better results on complex tasks at the cost of more tokens and latency.

## TTS Configuration

```yaml
tts:
  provider: "edge"              # "edge" | "elevenlabs" | "openai"
  edge:
    voice: "en-US-AriaNeural"   # 322 voices, 74 languages
  elevenlabs:
    voice_id: "pNInz6obpgDQGcFmaJgB"
    model_id: "eleven_multilingual_v2"
  openai:
    model: "gpt-4o-mini-tts"
    voice: "alloy"              # alloy, echo, fable, onyx, nova, shimmer
```

## Display Settings

```yaml
display:
  tool_progress: all    # off | new | all | verbose
```

| Mode | What you see |
|------|-------------|
| `off` | Silent — just the final response |
| `new` | Tool indicator only when the tool changes |
| `all` | Every tool call with a short preview (default) |
| `verbose` | Full args, results, and debug logs |

## Context Files (SOUL.md, AGENTS.md)

Drop these files in your project directory and the agent automatically picks them up:

| File | Purpose |
|------|---------|
| `AGENTS.md` | Project-specific instructions, coding conventions |
| `SOUL.md` | Persona definition — the agent embodies this personality |
| `.cursorrules` | Cursor IDE rules (also detected) |
| `.cursor/rules/*.mdc` | Cursor rule files (also detected) |

- **AGENTS.md** is hierarchical: if subdirectories also have AGENTS.md, all are combined.
- **SOUL.md** checks cwd first, then `~/.hermes/SOUL.md` as a global fallback.
- All context files are capped at 20,000 characters with smart truncation.

## Working Directory

| Context | Default |
|---------|---------|
| **CLI (`hermes`)** | Current directory where you run the command |
| **Messaging gateway** | Home directory `~` (override with `MESSAGING_CWD`) |
| **Docker / Singularity / Modal / SSH** | User's home directory inside the container or remote machine |

Override the working directory:
```bash
# In ~/.hermes/.env or ~/.hermes/config.yaml:
MESSAGING_CWD=/home/myuser/projects    # Gateway sessions
TERMINAL_CWD=/workspace                # All terminal sessions
```