A community-sourced compilation of how people are actually using Hermes Agent for multi-agent workflows, task delegation, and advanced automation patterns. All insights credited to original posters.

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1. THE KANBAN BOARD FEATURE

The built-in Kanban board is Hermes' native multi-agent orchestration layer. It supports task lanes, dependency engines, and durable SQLite persistence.

What Works:

• Board, lanes, and dependency engine all function correctly
• Dispatcher automation handles the core workflow: todo -> ready -> spawn profile
• Plugin architecture is solid and extensible

Current Limitations (as of May 2025):

• Triage lane with "AI will spec it" label has no implementation behind it yet
• Execution model spawns workers via hermes -p <profile> chat rather than lightweight delegate_task calls, which adds profile management overhead
• Early adopters reported bugs in the first few days post-release; run hermes update or /update in Telegram gateway to get the latest fixes

Community Voices:

u/OkSeries5363 (2 pts): "The plugin architecture is actually fine — the board, the lanes, the dependency engine all work. It's the execution model that I think is the problem. If the dispatcher could spawn workers as lightweight delegate_task calls instead of hermes -p <profile> chat, the whole thing would work for individuals without any profile management overhead."

• Source: Hermes Agent Just Added Real Multi-Agent

u/k0zakinio (13 pts): "I have tried this the last few days and endured nothing but pain. Is there a new release?"

• Source: Hermes Agent Just Added Real Multi-Agent

u/heroheman (2 pts): "Just run hermes update on your machine. Or /update if you use telegram gateway."

• Source: Hermes Agent Just Added Real Multi-Agent

u/itsdodobitch (16 pts): "I'm learning this the hard way: don't try to change Hermes too much, because the next 'Hermes update' will probably give you the feature you were trying so hard to build."

• Source: WHAT IS THE NEW KANBAN FEATURE

u/Pcorajr (9 pts): "It figures I just got done building a skill / integration using GitHub projects. Going to look into this based on your write up it has other benefits that interest me."

• Source: WHAT IS THE NEW KANBAN FEATURE

Source threads:

• WHAT IS THE NEW KANBAN FEATURE by u/itsdodobitch (187 pts, 59 comments)
• Hermes Agent Just Added Real Multi-Agent by u/SelectionCalm70 (133 pts, 28 comments)

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2. MULTI-AGENT COMMUNICATION PATTERNS

Community members have developed several approaches for inter-agent communication:

Pattern A: Shared Task Boards (GitLab / GitHub Issues) u/kingdruid (1 pt): "I have them talk via GitLab issues they generate and work on."

• Source: How do you make your agents communicate with each other

u/evrydayzawrkday (3 pts): "Ironically, I switched from OpenClaw to Hermes about a week ago, but doing this same thing with GitHub Features/Bugs for a site that I manage."

• Source: Hermes Agent Just Added Real Multi-Agent

Pattern B: Async Message Bus ("Noosphere") u/Adamzxd (3 pts): "I had trouble with my old OpenClaw agents communicating through the messaging functions because they would invoke each other and cause a cascading mess. I came up with a solution I call the 'Noosphere'. It's a CLI app that the agents use to write messages into. And it's totally asynchronous. Agents check in whenever they are invoked, sometimes respond, sometimes don't (within reason)."

• Source: How do you make your agents communicate with each other

Pattern C: Self-Hosted IM/Email u/Starrwulfe (1 pt): "Self-hosted Matrix server and good old fashioned internal local IMAP email. Just Postfix with Nextcloud Mail. I'm running them on my Nix OS NAS so they see the server and apps as one big tool chest now. No need for dashboards — they use Decks for task assignment, OnlyOffice, Obsidian... once you see it light up..."

• Source: How do you make your agents communicate with each other

u/Paerrin (1 pt): "I just set up an XMPP server and had Hermes wire it up."

• Source: How do you make your agents communicate with each other

Pattern D: Community Plugin for Cross-Agent Chat u/kaishi00 (1 pt): Shared a community plugin that enables agents to communicate in the same thread/channel with @mention support. Key detail: enable @mention: true or agents will talk to each other non-stop.

• Source: How do you make your agents communicate with each other

u/AxelFooley (1 pt): Noted that Telegram bots don't see messages from other bots by default — a key gotcha for Telegram-based agent comms.

• Source: How do you make your agents communicate with each other

Source thread:

• How do you make your agents communicate with each other by u/fifasas007 (7 pts, 16 comments)

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3. CODING AGENT WORKFLOWS

Two main approaches emerged from the community:

Approach A: Dedicated Coding Profile with Orchestrator QC u/An-R-Nguyen (3 pts): "I created a separate coding profile with one job: one-shot my request. The main profile will take request, work with coder profile, QC, kill and start over if needed. When a job is not one-shotted and has at least 80% quality pass, not worth the effort."

• Source: Hermes as a Coding Agent???

u/An-R-Nguyen (3 pts) on tool selection: "If you have clear checkpoint, backlog, ticket, large codebase -> OpenCode is better for isolating task and better for refactor. If you are gradually building your stuff and aiming for velocity -> Hermes is good due to the self-improve system (workflow-specific skill building), less repeating needed."

• Source: Hermes as a Coding Agent???

Approach B: Chat-Based Remote Coding u/Xiaomin4114 (4 pts): "The biggest use-case is it sits in chat. So you can do code from any device, or in teams, or while on the toilet. Everything else is pretty much the same though."

• Source: Hermes as a Coding Agent???

u/Xiaomin4114 (4 pts) on GitHub integration: "I got to GitHub, create a new account. Then I tell Hermes to create its own SSH key, and give me the pubkey, then I paste that into that new account on GitHub. Now I can share repos with that new account, and then Hermes can push code to that repo, and it shows up as coming from whatever identity Hermes is set up with, and not me."

• Source: Hermes as a Coding Agent???

u/Howard_banister (3 pts): "Completely agree, I think Hermes could be a great harness for coding with some modification."

• Source: Hermes as a Coding Agent???

u/Stitch10925 (2 pts): Asked about tuning needed for larger projects and per-class vs per-method approaches.

• Source: Hermes as a Coding Agent???

Source thread:

• Hermes as a Coding Agent??? by u/Rheath72 (19 pts, 33 comments)

---

4. ACCESSING THE DASHBOARD REMOTELY

u/Mr_Moonsilver (7 pts): "Needs central hosting option, to be used across devices."

• Source: WHAT IS THE NEW KANBAN FEATURE

u/aaronmcbaron (6 pts): "Tailscale and nginx will let you access the dashboard securely from anywhere."

• Source: WHAT IS THE NEW KANBAN FEATURE

u/itsdodobitch (3 pts): Pointed to the official web dashboard and a community-built Mac desktop app that connects via SSH without requiring a browser or gateway layer.

• Official web UI: https://hermes-agent.nousresearch.com/docs/user-guide/features/web-dashboard
• Mac desktop app: https://github.com/dodo-reach/hermes-desktop
• Source: WHAT IS THE NEW KANBAN FEATURE

u/FourMonthsEarly (3 pts): "Wtf is there a webui?" — highlighting that many users were unaware of the built-in dashboard.

• Source: WHAT IS THE NEW KANBAN FEATURE

u/FanClubof5 (3 pts): Asked how multi-agent works with Docker since docs recommend one profile per container.

• Source: Hermes Agent Just Added Real Multi-Agent

u/Pepe_The_Citizen (4 pts): "The real question, does it work?"

• Source: Hermes Agent Just Added Real Multi-Agent

---

KNOWLEDGE TABLE: Multi-Agent Patterns at a Glance

Pattern	Description	Best For	Complexity	Community Reference
Kanban Board (built-in)	Native task lanes, dependency engine, auto-spawn profiles	Project management, multi-step workflows	Medium	u/OkSeries5363, u/k0zakinio
GitLab/GitHub Issues	Agents create and respond to issues as communication channel	Team workflows, traceable task history	Low	u/kingdruid, u/evrydayzawrkday
Noosphere (async CLI)	Custom async message bus agents write to	Prevent cascading agent loops	High	u/Adamzxd
Self-hosted IM/Email	Matrix, XMPP, or IMAP for inter-agent messaging	Full self-hosted infra, persistent comms	High	u/Starrwulfe, u/Paerrin
Community Plugin	@mention-based cross-agent chat in shared channel	Quick multi-agent setup in Discord/Telegram	Low	u/kaishi00
Dedicated Coding Profile	Separate profile for coding, main profile for QC gate	Greenfield projects, velocity-focused dev	Medium	u/An-R-Nguyen
Chat-Based Remote Coding	Code via chat from any device, GitHub SSH identity	Mobile coding, lightweight remote work	Low	u/Xiaomin4114
Tailscale + Nginx	Secure remote dashboard access across devices	VPS-hosted Hermes, multi-device access	Medium	u/aaronmcbaron

---

KNOWN ISSUES & WORKAROUNDS

Issue	Status	Workaround	Source
Kanban triage lane "AI will spec it" label non-functional	Confirmed	Use manual triage or skip to ready lane	u/OkSeries5363
Dispatcher spawns full profiles instead of delegate_task	Confirmed	Accept overhead or use community plugin for lightweight delegation	u/OkSeries5363
Early Kanban bugs (first 48 hrs post-release)	Fixed	Run hermes update or /update	u/k0zakinio, u/heroheman
Docker multi-agent setup unclear	Open question	No definitive answer yet	u/FanClubof5
Agents talking non-stop in shared channel	Confirmed	Set @mention: true in community plugin	u/kaishi00
Telegram bots don't see other bot messages	Confirmed	Use workarounds or alternative platforms	u/AxelFooley

---

Credits: u/itsdodobitch, u/SelectionCalm70, u/OkSeries5363, u/k0zakinio, u/CajunFrog, u/heroheman, u/Adamzxd, u/kingdruid, u/Starrwulfe, u/Paerrin, u/kaishi00, u/An-R-Nguyen, u/Xiaomin4114, u/aaronmcbaron, u/Mr_Moonsilver, u/evrydayzawrkday, u/Pepe_The_Citizen, u/FanClubof5, u/fifasas007, u/Rheath72, u/AxelFooley, u/FourMonthsEarly, u/Howard_banister, u/Stitch10925, u/Pcorajr

Source threads linked inline above. Compiled from r/hermesagent activity, May 2025.

This is a community compilation of what people are actually seeing with different models in Hermes: strengths, weak spots, costs, and practical setup notes. Click sources for full context.

Qwen 3.6

Community-reported feedback:

• [9] u/trashacct383: "Qwen3.6-27B running locally in vLLM. Has been an absolute workhorse for me. 128k context size has been sufficient but I do find that after multiple context compactions Hermes can lose the thread. For larger projects, I use a combination of a project plan docum" Source: https://reddit.com
• [6] u/Jonathan_Rivera: "Qwen 3.6 27B" Source: https://reddit.com
• [5] u/xeeff: "planning it out with m2.7? I found that using qwen3.6 27b (even with heavy quant to fit in 24gb) for brains and using m2.7 as a do-er is a way better experience" Source: https://reddit.com
• [4] u/Maximum-Government: "I’m using huihui_ai/Qwen3.6-abliterated:35b" Source: https://reddit.com
• [4] u/Jonathan_Rivera: "Fixed. It looks like it will be mradermacher huihui-qwen3.6-27b-abliterated. Just try skipping again. Mon, May 4, 2026 Attendance: Present. Tardy in Period 01. GPA: 2.26. Rank: 364/488. Grades: - Pre-AICE Math 2: B - Creative Photo 1: F - AICE Marine Scienc" Source: https://reddit.com
• [3] u/EmuHefty: "One important thing you forgot is the right LLM is what will make your Hermes Agent do great work or not... I tried all Gemma4 models none of them was great at Agentic... But when I tried Qwen3.6 35b or 27b they work perfectly with Hermes it's like they are cu" Source: https://reddit.com
• [3] u/Almarma: "Very very true! The wrong main model will ruin your life, your experience with hermes and probably even the setup. Don’t cheap too much in the main model: Qwen3.6 Plus has been my favorite for weeks, now it’s DeepSeek V4 pro: cheaper for now, and even more cap" Source: https://reddit.com
• [3] u/rkdavies: "Great use for this! I've set up Qwen3.6-35B-A3B-heretic through llama.cpp and context tokens extended to 1000000 with 8 parallel sessions (128k tokens per session). It can manage my video library through Sonarr now. It manages to post news/information regularl" Source: https://reddit.com
• [2] u/My_Unbiased_Opinion: "This is the BEST uncensored 35B currently. It has the lowest KLD (a good thing). Doesn't fail tool calls either. https://huggingface.co/llmfan46/Qwen3.5-35B-A3B-uncensored-heretic" Source: https://reddit.com
• [2] u/Jan_Vollgod: "Qwen3.6 27b is ok with Rtx 3090, but yes it’s a pain and it hallucinate often. I am back on the 17gb gemma4 . For use with Hermes agent it’s good. The trick is to Set hard boundaries and strict rules for the agent. This will help with the endless looping" Source: https://reddit.com
• [2] u/Ohhai21: "I have a 3060 and use the carnice qwen 3.6 i-compact version.. i use llama-cpp-turboquant fork about 30-40 tok/s /llama-cpp-turboquant/build/bin/llama-server -m Carnice-Qwen3.6-MoE-35B-A3B-APEX-I-Compact.gguf --port 8082 -ctv turbo4 -ctk q8_0 -fa on -t 6 --te" Source: https://reddit.com
• [2] u/trashacct383: "FP8 and I use about 60gb vram for Qwen3.6-27B. Single Pro 6000 max-q card. With MTP at 3, I get over 90 tps with a single request, which scales very nicely with modest concurrency (under 16 is great, up to 70 tps per request with 16 concurrent requests)." Source: https://reddit.com

Minimax

Community-reported feedback:

• [22] u/ObsidianNix: "Minimax2.7. Hasn’t let me down. If I need something smarter either Claude or GPT but only after planning it out with 2.7. Also selfhost Gemma4-26b which is also great but I lack context size due to my computer" Source: https://reddit.com
• [4] u/idefix1515: "Minimax offers a lot more usage for $20" Source: https://reddit.com
• [4] u/Legitimate-Ball4932: "Main and delegation model is Minimax 2.7 and auxiliary is done by flash 2.5 lite (2.5 flash for vision only). Once my credits are empty on AIStudio I will make the shift with oss120b to auxiliary. Why 120b not 20b? Because the costs are marginal for both. I do" Source: https://reddit.com
• [3] u/donotfire: "Minimax fasho" Source: https://reddit.com
• [2] u/itsdodobitch: "MiniMax M2.7 with the 10$/m token plan. Not top notch intelligence, far from that, but force me to think more and learn twice 😅" Source: https://reddit.com
• [1] u/urii13: "Can you talk a bit about what you are doing with Claude Code here? Are you using Minimax on Claude Code with the repo that has all the code from Claude Code?" Source: https://reddit.com
• [1] u/trainermade: "I’m not following the question. If you just google Minimax Claude Code, the official Minimax website shows how you can use the Minimax model directly with CC. I’m just using the Minimax model and CC as the harness." Source: https://reddit.com
• [1] u/Big_Bit_5645: "I think you answered their question. They were wondering if you were delegating to claude code likely (via anthropic harness) or using minimax as the agent in claude code." Source: https://reddit.com
• [1] u/karkoon83: "My issue is the intelligence of the model is mixed. It is running hermes well. The challenge is coding. GLM models perform way better than Minimax." Source: https://reddit.com
• [1] u/mmosquera91: "The problem with GLM is how low the quota is. Minimax seems unlimited sometimes" Source: https://reddit.com
• [1] u/mmosquera91: "I tried that my GLM harnesses minimax for coding, but even like that it's eating tokens" Source: https://reddit.com
• [1] u/Temporary-Leek6861: "yaa minimax is fun for the first 10 minutes then it starts improvising. deepseek flash is boring and predictable which is exacty what you want from an agent thats supposed to do the same task reliably every day" Source: https://reddit.com

DeepSeek

Community-reported feedback:

• [20] u/Bloedhgarm: "Deepseek v4 Flash, pretty powerful at low cost and high caching" Source: https://reddit.com
• [6] u/Purple-Insane: "Deepseek v4 Flash" Source: https://reddit.com
• [5] u/Bloedhgarm: "I directly use Deepseek, it’s the cheapest and I don’t care about the data that it has because nothing if it is really confidential" Source: https://reddit.com
• [3] u/Almarma: "Very very true! The wrong main model will ruin your life, your experience with hermes and probably even the setup. Don’t cheap too much in the main model: Qwen3.6 Plus has been my favorite for weeks, now it’s DeepSeek V4 pro: cheaper for now, and even more cap" Source: https://reddit.com
• [2] u/Almarma: "I'm also using it now with DeepSeek v4, but Pro instead (it's really cheap right now) and I'm in love with it. Is DS flash good enough too? Is it proactive using tools and such? I remember trying 3.2 some weeks ago and it was infuriating, because it was unable" Source: https://reddit.com
• [2] u/Almarma: "I'm using it directly through DeepSeek Platform. The v4 pro is really cheap and really efficient using cache, so it does a lot for very little. In Openrouter I was spending like 2-3$ per day doing my stuff, and in DeepSeek I went down to 1-1.5$ per day (half t" Source: https://reddit.com
• [2] u/Mugen0815: "I tried chatgpt pro and claude pro but both ran into rate-limits fast. Now I bought 20$ on openrouter today and tried deepseek-v4-flash. After 1 day of heavy use, id say, this might work for me. Feels pretty smart and 20$ should last for a month. The model its" Source: https://reddit.com
• [2] u/urii13: "Deepseek can beat it, no?" Source: https://reddit.com
• [2] u/st3v3_w: "I've been trying to find a decent replacement for Opus which I used via my Claude subscription (which is no longer allowed by anthropic). Using Claude via the API is far too expensive for me. Glm 5.1 would get easily sidetracked and start investigating random " Source: https://reddit.com
• [1] u/dontforgetthef: "I had it save to memory the file location and created a skill about updating it, like when it should. Saving the file location to memory seemed to work well. I just tell it “save it to Herme’s Vault” and have different folders for sessions, skills, automations" Source: https://reddit.com
• [1] u/Maleficent-Anything2: "I installed Hermes yesterday. With deepseek v4 through open router. Apparently spent $10 doing in that day. Not 25c :) What might I be doing wrong?" Source: https://reddit.com
• [1] u/dontforgetthef: "No clue what you’re doing with it but I use the Deepseek api directly and mostly 4 Flash. Also every time you switch models it needs to re-read a whole chat if you’re doing that a lot. Maybe keep chats shorter or start a new one when switching models." Source: https://reddit.com

Gemini

Community-reported feedback:

• [2] u/VegetableBluebird827: "Was Gemini 3.1 flash-lite-preview.. just got removed from free tier lol" Source: https://reddit.com
• [2] u/CaliZ06: "Great points. TY. I made the mistake of using Gemini Pro (outside of Hermes) as my 'expert' to optimize config. I wasted so much time not just asking Hermes about itself. e.g Smart routing, still in the config, not in the build. Gemini tried so many config's t" Source: https://reddit.com
• [2] u/Jazzlike_Rough_2491: "Hermes will be good with any Gemini models. You have to make sure that you are selecting the correct model from your provider during setup or in your config.yaml. model: provider: openrouter model: google/gemini-2.5-flash for example. * `google/gemini-2." Source: https://reddit.com
• [2] u/asphalt2020: "Google workspace, Gemini 2.5 flash lite for most tasks and low brain stuff, Gemini 3.1 flash or pro for higher level stuff. Gemini 2.5 flash lite is free for me at the moment. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ The API costs for Anthropic models are too high for what I am doing. If" Source: https://reddit.com
• [1] u/haltingpoint: "What are you using this through? What I want to do is set up open router to only use the deepseek models through one provider but also enable it to use a Gemini model for other types of high context tasks directly with my AI studio key. Is there a way to set t" Source: https://reddit.com
• [1] u/leophin: "i am not trying to use it with open router , i just want to use my gemini subscription plan so configuring it for that only" Source: https://reddit.com
• [1] u/Drugba: "I haven’t used any of the Gemini models with Hermes, but my experience using them both for coding agents and as the model backing some features in software I’ve built hasn’t been great. They’re extremely capable, but I’ve always struggled with getting them to " Source: https://reddit.com
• [1] u/Jonathan_Rivera: "The "What model are you running your agent on?" thread (122 comments) has real-world Gemini experiences mixed in: https://redd.it/1t3lscj Short answer: Gemini 2.0 Pro works fine for basic tasks but tends to struggle with complex tool calling compared to Claude" Source: https://reddit.com
• [1] u/case_8: "I’m using Gemini 3 Flash Preview. Kind of surprised no-one else has mentioned it, because Hermes is high on the list of apps using it on Openrouter." Source: https://reddit.com

Claude/GPT

Community-reported feedback:

• [22] u/ObsidianNix: "Minimax2.7. Hasn’t let me down. If I need something smarter either Claude or GPT but only after planning it out with 2.7. Also selfhost Gemma4-26b which is also great but I lack context size due to my computer" Source: https://reddit.com
• [5] u/Brice21: "I use OpenAI GPT-5.4mini. But here are some data’s : https://openrouter.ai/apps/hermes-agent" Source: https://reddit.com
• [4] u/trainermade: "I’m using plus high speed. No issues. Runs hermes. Claude code. Tooling. Cron jobs." Source: https://reddit.com
• [3] u/Ryankolp: "Gpt-5.5 Very chatty but gets the job done!" Source: https://reddit.com
• [2] u/rapidincision: "Very true. Was pivoting with GLM 5.1 but its not actually cutting it for me as when I switched to GPT-5.5 (medium)" Source: https://reddit.com
• [2] u/ButterscotchTiny1114: "I’ve gone and added a new gmail account to my main for Hermes, it the responds to me sending an email and can reply as well as send emails to me for research. Im not giving access to my main inbox at this time. Im using chat GPT mini latest version and it’s ve" Source: https://reddit.com
• [2] u/Ryankolp: "Use the login feature. Do you have claude code? The easiest way to setup everything in hermes is to connect claude code to it. If not, yes, sign in dont use api credits your codex plan works just fine." Source: https://reddit.com
• [2] u/pokeaboke: "Im using GPT 5.5 extra high …. And yes , very happy with it. I was using it inside of codex and it was okay… but inside of Hermes it’s a different beast entirely. It understands the full context of what I’m working on without very complicated or overly detaile" Source: https://reddit.com
• [2] u/MordantWastrel: "Opencode go at $10 is also sufficient - lots of good models although not the frontier openai ones!" Source: https://reddit.com
• [2] u/Mugen0815: "I tried chatgpt pro and claude pro but both ran into rate-limits fast. Now I bought 20$ on openrouter today and tried deepseek-v4-flash. After 1 day of heavy use, id say, this might work for me. Feels pretty smart and 20$ should last for a month. The model its" Source: https://reddit.com
• [2] u/asphalt2020: "Google workspace, Gemini 2.5 flash lite for most tasks and low brain stuff, Gemini 3.1 flash or pro for higher level stuff. Gemini 2.5 flash lite is free for me at the moment. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ The API costs for Anthropic models are too high for what I am doing. If" Source: https://reddit.com
• [2] u/st3v3_w: "I've been trying to find a decent replacement for Opus which I used via my Claude subscription (which is no longer allowed by anthropic). Using Claude via the API is far too expensive for me. Glm 5.1 would get easily sidetracked and start investigating random " Source: https://reddit.com

Kimi

Community-reported feedback:

• [5] u/Fair-Yogurtcloset-21: "Kimi-k2.6 solid" Source: https://reddit.com
• [1] u/RawFreakCalm: "So I was trying a skilled setup thing originally, then tried one big super agent and found it worked really well. So far it hasn’t been an issue. Something I like about what you’re doing is classifying tasks. Perplexity does a good job knowing what model to us" Source: https://reddit.com
• [1] u/kamil234: "I use kimi k2.6" Source: https://reddit.com
• [1] u/BlackFarya: "Kimi K2.6, no extraño nada de opus 4.6" Source: https://reddit.com
• [1] u/urii13: "Pagas la suscripción de Kimi, alguna otra, o pagas por API?" Source: https://reddit.com
• [1] u/zd0l0r: "DeepSeek v4 flash for operating, pro for intelligence, Minimax m2.7 for fallback. Sometimes Kimi k2.6 or Qwen 3.6 plus/max for testing" Source: https://reddit.com
• [1] u/Milgraph: "Kimi k2.6 for planning and coding and deepseek v4 pro for cron jobs and autonomous workflows" Source: https://reddit.com
• [1] u/Beautiful_Trip_5461: "Kimi2.6 pas chère et très performant" Source: https://reddit.com
• [1] u/Other_Cheesecake_320: "Running it on Kimi k2.6 it’s pretty good, waiting for GLM to release a multi modal option to see vision which would replace kimi in a heart beat" Source: https://reddit.com
• [1] u/nickfitnesslife: "Currently running Minimax M2.7 as my main agent and then a second Coding profile with kimi K2.6." Source: https://reddit.com

Llama/Gemma

Community-reported feedback:

• [22] u/ObsidianNix: "Minimax2.7. Hasn’t let me down. If I need something smarter either Claude or GPT but only after planning it out with 2.7. Also selfhost Gemma4-26b which is also great but I lack context size due to my computer" Source: https://reddit.com
• [3] u/EmuHefty: "One important thing you forgot is the right LLM is what will make your Hermes Agent do great work or not... I tried all Gemma4 models none of them was great at Agentic... But when I tried Qwen3.6 35b or 27b they work perfectly with Hermes it's like they are cu" Source: https://reddit.com
• [3] u/rkdavies: "Great use for this! I've set up Qwen3.6-35B-A3B-heretic through llama.cpp and context tokens extended to 1000000 with 8 parallel sessions (128k tokens per session). It can manage my video library through Sonarr now. It manages to post news/information regularl" Source: https://reddit.com
• [2] u/Jan_Vollgod: "Qwen3.6 27b is ok with Rtx 3090, but yes it’s a pain and it hallucinate often. I am back on the 17gb gemma4 . For use with Hermes agent it’s good. The trick is to Set hard boundaries and strict rules for the agent. This will help with the endless looping" Source: https://reddit.com
• [2] u/Ohhai21: "I have a 3060 and use the carnice qwen 3.6 i-compact version.. i use llama-cpp-turboquant fork about 30-40 tok/s /llama-cpp-turboquant/build/bin/llama-server -m Carnice-Qwen3.6-MoE-35B-A3B-APEX-I-Compact.gguf --port 8082 -ctv turbo4 -ctk q8_0 -fa on -t 6 --te" Source: https://reddit.com
• [2] u/nicholas_the_furious: "I use q8 GGUF with llama.cpp and also feel the 128k cliff. It isn't huge, but I can tell it may take a few tries to get right instead of being immediately correct I'm it's output. If that's acceptable, I keep going. If not, I clean up my context before continu" Source: https://reddit.com
• [2] u/Big-Swordfish3724: "Gemma 4 31B and Qwen/Qwen3.6-35B-A3B" Source: https://reddit.com
• [1] u/Clean_Initial_9618: "Can you elaborate on your gemma4 setup like how have you setup hard boundaries ?" Source: https://reddit.com
• [1] u/Ale_110: "Hey I have the same setting. Can you please be more specific on your use case and model version? I succeeded in having my 3060 just do basic whisper plus similar real person answer to messages in Italian and web search and summarization. But to be honest it's " Source: https://reddit.com
• [1] u/G-DannY: "1. Auto model loading / routing (Right now I have to): * Kill server * Paste new command * Reload model * Is there a way to: * Auto-switch models based on request? * Or keep multiple models warm and route between them? llama-swap [https://github.com/mostlygeek" Source: https://reddit.com
• [1] u/stosssik: "What are you doing with Gemma?" Source: https://reddit.com
• [1] u/kirath99: "Qwen3.6-35B-A3B-UD-IQ2_M.gguf running locally on llama.cpp - 256k context. Running like a dream" Source: https://reddit.com

Good time to try out a Featured flair to highlight community members work.

I'll give it a go later today. Looks interesting. https://github.com/dodo-reach/hermes-desktop

u/itsdodobitch

Nous Research AMA Summary - April 29, 2026

Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/LocalLLaMA/comments/1sz2y76/ama_with_nous_research_ask_us_anything/

---

Best Local Model for Hermes Agent

Q (Dthen_): Which local models have you had the most success running Hermes with?

A (alt-glitch): Qwen3.6-27B is the canonical local model to use Hermes Agent with!

---

Gemma 4:31b Support

Q (seamonn): Any success with Gemma 4: 31b?

A (NousResearch): Some success yes, but the community has resolved around Qwen being more reliable and stronger at agentic work atm.

---

Xiaomi MiMo V2.5 Pro

Q (No_Fix_4658): What about xiaomi mimo v2.5 pro?

A (NousResearch): That model is 1T parameters - so likely can't run locally.

---

Minimum Hardware Requirements

Q (GreeneryCA): Would love to know the answer for diff spec ranges. For instance I'm on 8gb vram and 32gb ram.

A (NousResearch - teknium): Right now I really think 27B is the bare minimum to have a fruitful experience, which would put 8GB out of range. You can get some value from qwen 9B, but you are going to have to deal with some pain, thats the only sub 27B model I've seen that has had any uptake.

---

Quantization & Optimized Variants

Q (smolpotat0_x): Which quant works best? e.g., Q4_K_M? What do you think of the "hermes optimized" variants like carnice v2 27b or the ornstein 27b?

A (minimax_zed): You could try a small quantization of unsloth/Qwen3.6-35B-A3B-GGUF with MoE offload. You'd probably also want to spend a little time slimming down the Hermes default prompt & context. Also who knows, it feels like in another 3-6 months the 9B models might start being as capable as the 20-30B models are now.

---

What Problem Does Hermes Solve?

Q (Jonathan_Rivera): What do I actually use this for? What problem are you hoping Hermes becomes known for solving?

A (emozilla): Here's a framing we've found helpful when pitching to new users: What's something you do on your computer all the time that annoys or bores you? Just tell Hermes to do that for you.

A (artemgetman): Same framing, works pretty well. You can't just throw a use case at new users without asking first. Everybody has different tasks they need help with.

---

Behavioral Drift in Self-Improving Loops

Q (ale007xd): How do you prevent long-term behavioral drift in a self-improving loop without a formal state transition system? Do you have internal constraints or validation layers?

A (alt-glitch): The architecture makes drift visible and correctible -- skills and memory are plaintext on disk, not opaque weights. You can inspect everything the agent has learned. We're actively building out the ability for Hermes to go back and refine skills it's used in past sessions. I'd be skeptical of anyone claiming formal guarantees in this space.

---

Hermes Agent Differentiator & Philosophy

Q (FrostByghte): What is Hermes Agent's real differentiator? What is the endgame and guiding philosophy?

A (alt-glitch): Hermes Agent is built to keep learning and growing as an agent (via skills/memories). Design decisions include:

• Written in Python and extensible for RL environments, evals, post-training, research experiments
• Care into what skills, tools, plugins we maintain -- every extra tool has to prove its worth
• First class support for being able to use it from wherever via our gateways
• Ability to decouple the agent loop from its execution (docker, modal, remote server)
• I personally hate what I call "configslop" with agents that you have to build yourself

---

Top 5 Use Cases

Q (Sad-Enthusiastic): What are the top 5 use cases you see implemented using Hermes?

A (NousResearch):

1. Coding
2. Research and news gathering, especially cronjob related reports
3. Monitoring for systems and anomalies (backend team uses it daily to analyze bugs in Nous Portal)
4. General assistant work (admin assistant, memo writing, emails)
5. Niche tasks - creating art, aligning expense reports, research assistant, acting as interface for a server, post-training team uses it to build RL environments and analyze data

---

Local vs Cloud Model Boundaries

Q (my_name_isnt_clever): Built in support to keep a clear local vs cloud boundary would be greatly appreciated. I had Hermes pushing full summary tasks to Gemini when my local endpoint was struggling.

A (NousResearch): Happy to continue to support this more. We recently added a way to configure all auxiliary models more easily inside hermes model command -- "Configure Auxiliary Models" to set each one individually.

Follow-up (my_name_isnt_clever): The most straightforward method I've seen is to flag a provider as private/cloud and configure permissions for the two categories separately. Restrict specific tools and directories to queries from cloud-flagged providers.

---

Small Model Training (4B-8B)

Q (interAathma): Do you have any plans to train small LLM model 4b to 8b for hermes agent specifically?

A (phragg): We're looking more in the 120b range!

A (NousResearch): On policy distillation is quite powerful.

---

What's Coming After v0.11.0

Q (PracticlySpeaking): What are some things we can look forward to?

A (NousResearch):

• Curator (merged): https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/17277 -- consolidates and prunes skills, tracks skill use automatically
• Computer Use for all models: https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/16936
• Multi-Agent coordination: https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/issues/16102
• GUI Chat and many more things

---

Web UI / Dashboard TUI

Q (trashacct383): Any plans to integrate a Web UI for chat?

A (phragg): hermes dashboard --tui -- hidden behind a feature flag until we flesh out the new TUI quirks. Feedback welcome on GitHub issues or Discord.

---

MCP Lazy Loading

Q (Il_Signor_Luigi): Can MCP server loading be "on demand" -- lazy loading tools only when that specific MCP is needed?

A (emozilla): Absolutely clear, we had a call last night discussing adding exactly this!

A (NousResearch): Changing the tools available breaks caching and pollutes context, so any operation that changes, adds, or removes tools requires a new session.

---

Distributed Training Program

Q (stackrainer): How far are you wanting to scale the distributed llm training program? Could someone with a single 5090 donate resources?

(No direct answer from team recorded)

---

How to Support/Cooperate with Nous Research

Q (Lyuseefur): Is there any way to cooperate more with Nous Research to promote local AI adoption?

A (NousResearch): Join the Discord and build with us and help drive decisions around what direction Hermes Agent should move in. https://discord.gg/NousResearch

---

Hiring

Q (alkibijad / Lucyan_xgt): Are you hiring?

A (NousResearch): Careers page at https://careers.nousresearch.com

---

Memory System Architecture

Q (Important_Quote_1180): For Hermes, his memory file is small so I have him only use it as an index to my RAG. Am I missing something?

A (NousResearch): Hermes stores all past chat sessions to search over whenever it needs to, so the always-in-context memory is only for things that every chat session should remember.

---

Non-Obvious Things That Made Hermes Work Better

Q (Tommonen): What are some of the most important things that were not obvious, but made the system work a lot better?

A (NousResearch): Having an extremely strong foundation on coding tools/terminal operation tools.

---

Desktop App & Easy Setup Pathway

Q (AkiDenim): Plans for a desktop app? A "click once, pay some bills, forget about setup" pathway?

A (NousResearch): Yes to question one. To question two, we already have a lot of the foundation with Nous Portal/Tool Gateway, all that's left is hosting the agent itself as well, and is on the roadmap.

---

Future Model Releases

Q (greatwilt): Any plans to finetune any more recent architectures?

A (alt-glitch): Hermes Agent as a harness has definitely given us a lot more to explore, especially in agentic RL. I'd keep an eye out for some releases in the near future if I were you.

---

Hermes Used to Develop Hermes

Q (Fedor_Doc): Do you use Hermes to assist its own development for coding and research?

A (emozilla): Almost exclusively. I would say 95-99% of the development and research for Hermes Agent is done via Hermes Agent. The big closed models (Opus 4.7, GPT 5.5) are still the best, but models like Kimi-K2.6 are quite close.

---

Mistral Medium 3.5 Fine-Tune

Q (Sicarius_The_First / DeepOrangeSky): Will you tune the new Mistral-Medium-3.5?

(No direct answer from team recorded)

---

Trust Controls & Telemetry

Q (setthatonfire): Are you thinking about stronger trust controls? Zero data retention, provider allowlists, no-fallback mode, per-run receipts?

A (alt-glitch): I'm literally speccing that out as I write this. Expect more work on this in the next few releases. Telemetry is tricky and we wanna get it right before adding that option.

---

Autonomous Execution (No Clarify Loop)

Q (Stitch10925): A task that takes 10 mins takes 30 because Hermes stops for feedback at every step.

A (setthatonfire - community solution): Add to AGENTS.md:

## Default operating rule
If the path is clear, do the work and report after.
Do not make the user keep re-approving momentum.

## Stop only for
- destructive actions with real blast radius
- real product decisions
- conflicting requirements
- missing context that tools cannot retrieve
- any deletion of files, branches, data, or code until user explicitly says ok
- any config edit until user explicitly says ok

## Execution rule
- Bundle obvious next steps
- Prefer action over recap
- Use tools instead of describing intentions
- Verify claims with real output before finalizing
- Do not narrate obvious work you can just do
- Do not stop at soft handoff language when the next safe step is clear

---

Why So Many Bundled Skills?

Q (RealestReyn): Hermes seems good at creating skills, why does it come with like a hundred bundled?

A (alt-glitch): So that you don't have to make them! You can enable/disable any skills via hermes skills.

---

Local Model Speed & Reliability vs OpenCode

Q (shokuninstudio): Hermes is slow and flaky with local models compared to OpenCode. Plans to improve?

A (emozilla): The tool calling prompting in the backend has been very carefully crafted but it's sort of "you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink" -- the model itself needs to be trained to do the calls. We are working on the model side too, hopefully have more on this soon.

---

Multi-Agent / Simultaneous Agents

Q (Ok-Internal9317): Will simultaneous agents system be invented for Hermes? How will internal communication work?

A (NousResearch): Check out our plans: https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/issues/16102

---

Model Collapse & Synthetic Data

Q (ivanf): How do you prevent Model Collapse via Procedural Homogenization when training data becomes mostly synthetic, agent-generated interactions?

(No direct answer from team recorded)

---

Original Motivation for Hermes

Q (PitifulRice6719): What was your initial motivation for starting to build Hermes?

A (emozilla): It was actually built as an internal tool to help us on our model research work. u/teknium-official wanted something to help automate some of the things the model team was doing. We open sourced it sort of unsure if it would have any use to anyone else.

---

Self-Evolving Knowledge Base

Q (Evening-Fox9785): Recommended way to organize a self-evolving knowledge base? Models create lots of .md files but seldom clean them up.

A (NousResearch): We have just introduced the Curator system so that on a schedule (default 7 days), the curator will consolidate and prune skills that get auto-generated. Our built-in skills system is the best system long term. Curator PR: https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/17307

---

Human Override for Skills (Pin Skills)

Q (Due-Year1465): Plans to introduce human override to skills so Hermes stops rewriting them?

A (NousResearch): It's a good idea. I'll implement right now.

---

Skill Bloat & User Feedback for Skill Updates

Q (ready_to_fuck_yeahh): Two suggestions: (1) Separate fixed user skills from self-improving skills. (2) Skill updates based on user feedback rather than self feedback.

A (alt-glitch): This is valid! Will look into it. Opened issue: https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/issues/17583

---

VPS vs Mac Mini

Q (artemgetman): Best to run Hermes on VPS or Mac Mini?

A (NousResearch): Depends what you want. Mac has specific skills for iMsg and Apple Notes. VPS is more secure, etc.

---

Anthropic API Billing Controversy

Q (snowdrone): What's the deal with Anthropic reportedly switching to API billing if Hermes.md is anywhere within a repo's commit history?

(No direct answer from team recorded)

---

Security Vulnerabilities

Q (reatafort): What is your plan to address the security vulnerabilities reported on Twitter?

(No direct answer from team recorded)

---

Auxiliary Models Strategy

Q (Gadobot3000): How to balance commercial models for certain skills vs local models for repeatable skills?

A (NousResearch): Our auxiliary system works pretty well but will be expanded. Setting cheaper local models as your vision model (e.g., Nvidia's nemotron nano 3), Gemini Flash as compression model, and your most powerful model as main agent makes sense.

---

Windows Support

Q (reddit_mini): When are you making full Windows support?

A (phragg): Not a huge priority because WSL2 checks that box. I'm also a Windows user. We will eventually have native support, but not at this moment.

---

Harness vs Model: Where's the Most Interesting Work?

Q (nickludlam): Has the most interesting work shifted from fine-tuning models into agent harnesses, tool calling, and prompt engineering?

A (NousResearch - teknium): I think that models should be aligned to capabilities and mechanisms for expressing those capabilities, so having a harness to focus the model capabilities around makes far more sense.

---

Harness Engineering vs Model Quality

Q (FrequentAstronaut331): Do you see evolutionary harnesses dynamically allocating resources as part of the roadmap?

A (emozilla): Yes, we've really just begun to scratch the surface of agent/harness design. Much of what makes Hermes Agent great is an emergent property from the models -- it just needed to be unlocked by the harness. Even if there were no more model releases, we could probably scale up the productivity factor on the harnesses by an order of magnitude.

---

Tailscale / Remote Access

Q (fmedinaq): Are you considering Tailscale or another VPN for exposing Hermes API?

A (emozilla): Yup, a ton of us use Tailscale to access our Hermes Agents.

---

Why Python Instead of Rust

Q (Tommonen): What made you decide Python instead of Rust?

A (alt-glitch): Python is more extensible and lets us move fast. Python's also one of the few languages models of all sizes can write code, debug, and build in. And the agent being in Python helps a lot for a research lab because you can use it as a training harness. Hermes Agent hooks up nicely with RL environments!

---

Multi-User / Enterprise Deployment

Q (Own_Mix_3755): Plans to support multiuser workflows? We'd deploy on DGX Spark for 20-25 people.

A (alt-glitch): Active area we're working on. In the meanwhile, docker compose with user templates is the best way for isolation. You can also run DGX Spark as an inference server and have everyone's Hermes Agent live on their personal devices. Expect better support for use cases like yours soon!

---

Subscription Model Risk & API Billing Concerns

Q (FilthyCasual2k17): Worried about providers switching away from subscription models. Plans for specialized versions for locally run LLMs with lower token output?

A (NousResearch): We are working across the industry to make models of all sizes work better in Hermes Agent. The self improvement loop also helps with efficiency -- once it tries a lot of things to solve a task and solves it, it never has to do that exploration again.

---

Web UI for Configuration

Q (amchaudhry): Will there be a web UI for configuration or is Hermes CLI always?

A (NousResearch): There is partial access to configuration through our existing web UI -- run hermes dashboard. We plan on expanding that to fully support configuration.

---

Image/Video Models

Q (LatentSpacer): Any plans for image/video models?

A (NousResearch): We have a variety of image gen model tooling and providers. Video yes, eventually!

---

Most Interesting Self-Developed Skill

Q (Ytocin): What is the most interesting self-developed skill/memory you have seen a Hermes agent create?

A (NousResearch - teknium): The hermes-agent-dev skill that powers all of my PR Review, development and planning for Hermes Agent.

---

Vision Routing to Native Model

Q (lacerating_aura): Wouldn't it make more sense to detect if the core model is multimodal and let it handle vision tasks directly?

A (NousResearch): We recently did exactly that -- vision routes to native capability first, unless otherwise set or unavailable!

---

Hermes Motivation & Vision

Q (alphatrad): What was your team's motivation behind Hermes when you started? What's your vision looking forward?

A (NousResearch): We started it to do Agentic RL.

---

Key Model Differentiators

Q (Sad-Enthusiastic): What are the key differentiators between your models and comparable ones?

A (NousResearch): Our last model is almost a year old, so, nothing right now ^_^

---

A2A Protocol Support

Q (billy_booboo / intellidumb): How do you see A2A affecting the Hermes ecosystem? Are you using spec v1.0.0?

A (phragg): A few PRs in the mix for the next release:

1. Kanban support: https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/issues/16102
2. Profile management: https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/16419

---

Claude Design Competitor

Q (Pleasant-Shallot-707): Are you considering tooling to compete with Claude Design?

A (NousResearch): Not at this time. We did implement a claude-design skill recently: https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/16358

---

New Model Releases

Q (34574rd / noctrex): Any planned model releases? Hermes-4 or NousCoder?

A (NousResearch): We are exploring the best pathways to make existing models much stronger in Hermes Agent.

---

Five Year Roadmap

Q (thegreatmiyagi): What's the five year roadmap?

(No direct answer from team recorded)

---

"Great Concept, Bad Execution" Criticism

Q (Bridgestone68): What is your approach on people saying "Great concept, bad execution" about Hermes?

A (NousResearch): Haven't heard it so don't have an approach yet 😉

---

Best Model for Hermes Agent (from team)

Q (TexBluBoy / AdFeisty5686): What is a recommended local LLM? Should I try different quantization options?

A (alt-glitch): Gemma 4 is quite capable as well if that's a model/architecture you'd like to explore.

---

Coding Agent Used for Hermes Development

Q (sarcasmguy1): What coding agent harness do you use for coding within Hermes?

A (NousResearch): We use almost exclusively Hermes Agent for developing Hermes Agent.

---

Hermes Philosophical Divide vs Minimal Harnesses (Pi)

Q (rob417): Hermes ships with lots of built-in tools vs Pi which ships bare minimum. Thoughts on this divide?

(No direct answer from team recorded)

---

LM Studio Native Support

Q (semero): Any plan for native support for local LLM apps like LM Studio?

(No direct answer from team recorded)

---

Auxiliary Features Recommendations

Q (smolpotat0_x): Which auxiliary features do you recommend paying attention to aside from vision and compression?

A (minimax_zed): Keep meaning to send a PR to fix this but if you use a reasoning model for title generation it will often timeout and you'll get no session titles.

---

Key Links Mentioned

• Curator PR: https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/17277
• Computer Use PR: https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/16936
• Multi-Agent Issue: https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/issues/16102
• Profile Management PR: https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/16419
• Claude Design Skill PR: https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/pull/16358
• Skill Override Issue: https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/issues/17583
• Discord: https://discord.gg/NousResearch
• Careers: https://careers.nousresearch.com

r/LocalLLaMA/