Free-Tier AI Stack Runbook — Troupe Onboarding

Purpose

Get a new Hermes-based wizard up and running on free-tier tooling only. No paid vendors, no credit cards.

Prerequisites

Linux host (Ubuntu 22.04+ or Debian 12+)
Non-root user with sudo (this runbook assumes alexander)
Git, curl, jq, python3, pipx

Steps

1. Clone the troupe repo

git clone https://gitlab.com/<troupe>/troupe-standup.git ~/troupe-standup
cd ~/troupe-standup

2. Install Hermes Agent (free tier)

# Install via pipx (isolated, free)
pipx install hermes-agent
hermes-agent init

3. Configure profiles

Edit ~/.hermes/config.yaml to add profiles. Start with one:

profiles:
  quill:
    model: inclusionai/ling-3.1-flash:free
    provider: nous
    output_dir: /root/.hermes/wizard-outputs/quill/

4. Verify the lane

Each wizard runs one lane. Quill’s lane is Draft. Test with:

hermes-agent run --profile quill --lane draft --prompt "Write a draft memo about the free-tier AI stack."

5. Wire the skill tree

Skills live in ~/.hermes/skills/. Core skills for a draft lane:

autonomous-ai-agents/hermes-agent — Hermes setup and troubleshooting
software-development/codebase-inspection — Read existing code fast
productivity/document-to-action-items — Extract obligations from docs

Install skills with:

hermes-agent skills add autonomous-ai-agents/hermes-agent
hermes-agent skills add software-development/codebase-inspection
hermes-agent skills add productivity/document-to-action-items

6. Set up git identity for commits

git config --global user.name "quill"
git config --global user.email "quill@agents.invalid"

7. Test end-to-end

Run a draft task, write an artifact, and commit it:

# Write artifact
echo "# Draft Output" > /root/.hermes/wizard-outputs/quill/test.md

# Commit
git add wizard-work/quill/test.md
git commit -m 'quill: test commit'

If the commit succeeds, the stack is working.

Free-tier constraints

Never use paid APIs. Stick to free-model endpoints (Nous free tier, OpenRouter free models).
Never pip-install without pipx; avoid polluting system Python.
Cron jobs are LOCAL-ONLY. Their output is not delivered back to the session unless targeted at a messaging platform.

Evidence check

After onboarding, verify with:

test -s /root/.hermes/wizard-outputs/quill/test.md && git -C ~/troupe-standup log --oneline -1 | grep -q 'quill:'

Exit code 0 = correct. Nonzero = re-run Step 7.

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