Hermes Agent v0.14.0 (v2026.5.16)

Release Date: May 16, 2026

Since v0.13.0: 808 commits · 633 merged PRs · 1393 files changed · 165,061 insertions · 545 issues closed (12 P0, 50 P1) · 215 community contributors (including co-authors)

The Foundation Release — Hermes Agent installs and runs anywhere now. Native Windows ships in early beta with a full PowerShell installer story, a pip install hermes-agent wheel lands on PyPI, lazy-deps reshape what pip install hermes-agent actually pulls down, the supply-chain checker scans every install/upgrade for unsafe versions, and a new OpenAI-compatible local proxy lets Codex / Aider / Cline talk to OAuth-only providers (Claude Pro, ChatGPT Pro, SuperGrok). The cold-start wave shaves ~19 seconds off hermes launch, browser-tool CDP calls run 180x faster, and hermes tools All-Platforms drops from 14s to under 1.5s. Two new messaging platforms (LINE and SimpleX Chat) and a Microsoft Graph foundation (Teams pipeline + webhook adapter) land alongside /handoff that finally transfers sessions live, vision_analyze passing pixels through to vision-capable models, x_search as a first-class tool, LSP semantic diagnostics on every write_file / patch, a unified pluggable video_generate, a computer_use cua-driver backend, cross-session 1-hour Claude prompt caching, a per-turn file-mutation verifier, plus 9 new optional skills. 50+ P1 closures, 12 P0 closures.

✨ Highlights

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  Native Windows support (early beta) — full PowerShell installer, native subprocess/PTY paths, taskkill-based process management, MinGit auto-install, Microsoft Store python stub detection, foreground Ctrl+C preservation, taskkill+ps2 fallback, npm prefix handling, and ~40 follow-up Windows-only fixes across CLI / gateway / TUI / curator / tools. Hermes finally runs natively on cmd.exe and PowerShell, no WSL required. (, , and many more)

  
  


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  pip install hermes-agent && hermes — Hermes Agent is now a real PyPI package. One command, no clone, no git, no shell installer. Wheel includes the Ink TUI bundle and shell launcher. (salvage of )

  
  


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  Cold-start performance wave — ~19s off hermes launch — skills cache, lazy Feishu import, no Nous HTTP at startup, plus PEP-562 lazy adapter imports (QQ, Yuanbao, Teams, Google Chat), deferred fal_client / google-cloud / httpx loads, models.dev disk-cache-first lookup, parallel doctor API checks, eager-skip plugin discovery on built-in subcommands, hermes tools All-Platforms drops from 14s to <1.5s, welcome banner skipped on chat -q. (, , , , )

  
  


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  180x faster browser_console evaluations — routed through the supervisor's persistent CDP WebSocket instead of spawning a fresh DevTools session per call. Real-world page interactions feel instant. ()

  
  


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  OpenAI-compatible local proxy — hermes proxy exposes any OAuth-authed provider (Claude Pro, ChatGPT Pro, SuperGrok) as an OpenAI-compatible endpoint that Codex / Aider / Cline / VS Code Continue can hit. Your subscription, your tools. ()

  
  


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  Two new messaging platforms — LINE + SimpleX Chat — LINE Messaging API lands as a first-class platform, SimpleX Chat salvages , –, , )

  
  


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  x_search — first-class X (Twitter) search tool — gated tool with OAuth-or-API-key auth, no skill needed to query the timeline. ()

  
  


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  LSP semantic diagnostics on every write — write_file and patch now run real language-server diagnostics on the post-edit file (delta-only) and surface real errors before they ship downstream. ()

  
  


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  Per-turn file-mutation verifier footer — after every turn that wrote files, the agent gets a verifier footer summarizing what actually changed on disk — catches silent overwrites and "wrote it but it didn't land" bugs. ()

  
  


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  computer_use cua-driver backend — proper focus-safe ops, non-Anthropic provider support, refresh on hermes update. Computer-use is no longer locked to a single SDK. (re-salvage of , )

  
  


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  Clarify with buttons — native inline keyboards on Telegram + Discord — the clarify tool renders multi-choice prompts as platform-native buttons instead of typed responses. ()

  
  


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  Discord channel history backfill (default on) — Hermes reads recent channel history when joining a thread so it actually knows what's been said. ()

  
  


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  Zed ACP Registry integration + uvx distribution — Hermes is in the Zed registry, installable via uvx (no npm). Plus hermes acp --setup-browser bootstraps browser tools for registry installs. (salvage of , )

  
  


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  OpenRouter Pareto Code router — wire a new OpenRouter router with min_coding_score knob. Pick the cheapest model that meets your quality bar. (, )

  
  


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  9 new optional skills — Hyperliquid (perp/spot trading via SDK + REST) ( + ), pinggy-tunnel, watchers (RSS/HTTP/GitHub via cron), Notion overhaul for the Developer Platform (May 2026). (, , , , ) ()

  
  


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  Plugins can run any LLM call via ctx.llm — plugins get a first-class hook to make their own LLM requests through the active provider/credentials, no manual wiring. Plus tool_override flag for replacing built-in tools. ()

  
  


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  Brave Search (free tier) + DuckDuckGo (DDGS) as web-search providers — two new free search backends alongside Tavily / SearXNG / Exa. ( + )

  
  


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  Provider rename — Alibaba Cloud → Qwen Cloud, picker reorder — matches what the world calls it. Existing config keys still work. ()



• PyPI wheel packaging — pip install hermes-agent && hermes (salvage of )


• Recognise Shift+Enter as a newline key + Windows docs (salvage )


• Preserve Ctrl+C for Windows foreground runs ()


• Stop spamming cwd-missing + tirith-spawn warnings on every terminal call ()

Windows-specific fixes (40+ across cli / tools / gateway / curator / TUI)

A long tail of native-Windows fixes shipped alongside the beta — taskkill-based subprocess management, MinGit auto-install, Microsoft Store python stub detection, npm prefix handling, native PTY paths, signal handling differences, foreground process management, ANSI sequence handling, path normalization, file-locking semantics, and many more. Full list in commit log under fix(windows) / feat(windows) / windows.

🚀 Performance Wave

Cold start

• Cut ~19s from hermes cold start — skills cache + lazy Feishu + no Nous HTTP at startup ()


• Cache Nous auth + .env loads — hermes tools All Platforms from 14s to <1.5s ()


• Defer heavy google-cloud imports in google_chat to first adapter use ()


• Defer httpx import in teams to first webhook call ()


• models.dev cache-first lookup, skip network when disk cache is fresh ()

Runtime

• 180x faster browser_console evaluations — route through supervisor's persistent CDP WebSocket () ()

Prompt caching

• Cross-session 1h prefix cache for Claude on Anthropic / OpenRouter / Nous Portal ( + )

📦 Installation & Distribution

PyPI + supply-chain

• PyPI wheel packaging — pip install hermes-agent && hermes (salvage of )


• Supply-chain advisory checker + lazy-install framework + tiered install fallback ()


• Skip browser download when system chromium exists ()

Nix

• extraDependencyGroups for sealed venv extras ()


• Refresh npm lockfile hashes — keeps Nix flake builds reproducible

Docker

• Bootstrap auth.json from env on first boot () ()


• hermes acp --setup-browser bootstraps browser tools for registry installs ()


• Expose HERMES_SESSION_ID env var to agent tools ()

Goals (Ralph loop)

• /subgoal — user-added criteria appended to active /goal () — rolled back in window (

Compression

• Make protect_first_n configurable ()

Stream retry

• Log inner cause, upstream headers, bytes/elapsed on every drop ()


• NovitaAI provider (salvage ) () ()


• Optional codex app-server runtime for OpenAI/Codex models ()


• Codex-runtime: skip unavailable plugins during migration () ()


• Pass reasoning.effort to xAI Responses API ()


• Rename Alibaba Cloud → Qwen Cloud, reorder picker ( + ) ()


• Inject tool-use enforcement for GLM models () ()


• Prevent stale Ollama credentials after provider switch ()


• Auxiliary client: rotate pooled auth after quota failures (salvage )


• Auxiliary client: skip providers without credentials immediately ()


• Auth: send Nous refresh token via header ()


• MiniMax: harden OAuth dashboard and runtime ()

📱 Messaging Platforms (Gateway)

New platforms

• LINE Messaging API platform plugin () () () () () () ()


• Keep gateway running when platforms fail; add per-platform circuit breaker + /platform ()


• Add chat_id to hook_ctx for message source tracking () ( ()


• Telegram notification mode (salvage )


• Telegram guest mention mode ()


• Split-and-deliver oversized edits instead of silent truncation (salvage of )


• Preserve DM topic routing via reply fallback (salvage ) () ()


• Channel history backfill — default on, broadened scope () ()

WhatsApp

• Surface quoted reply metadata from Baileys ()

Feishu / Google Chat / others

• Feishu: native update prompt cards ()


• Google Chat: repair setup prompt imports ()


• Google Chat: honor relay-declared sender_type (salvage of ) ()


• Add weixin, and more to gateway docs (salvage of )

🖥️ CLI & TUI

CLI

• Show YOLO mode warning in banner and status bar () ()


• Delegate tool: show user's actual concurrency / spawn-depth limits in description () () () () () () () () () () ()


• Fix Langfuse observability — trace I/O, tool outputs, placeholder credentials (closes ) ()


• MiniMax 'Login' button launched Claude OAuth (salvage )


• Update cron modals ()


• Analytics: prevent silent token loss and add Claude 4.5–4.7 pricing ()

🔧 Tools & Capabilities

Vision & video

• vision_analyze returns pixels to vision-capable models ()


• image_gen: actionable setup message when no FAL backend is reachable () ()

LSP & write-time diagnostics

• Semantic diagnostics from real language servers in write_file/patch ()

Search & web

• Brave Search (free tier) and DDGS search providers ()

X (Twitter)

• Gated x_search tool with OAuth-or-API-key auth ()


• Support externally managed Camofox sessions () () () ()

Per-turn verifier

• Per-turn file-mutation verifier footer ()


• Orchestrator board tools — kanban_list + kanban_unblock (carve-out of )


• stranded_in_ready diagnostic for unclaimed tasks () ()


• Dedupe notifier delivery via atomic claim + rewind on failure (salvage )


• Keep notifier subscriptions alive across retry cycles (salvage )


• Drop caller-controlled author override in kanban_comment (salvage of ) ()

🧠 Plugins & Extension

Plugin surface

• Run any LLM call from inside a plugin via ctx.llm () () ()


• Hindsight-client as optional dependency ()

Profile & distribution

• Shareable profile distributions via git ()


• Support name-based lookup for job operations ( + ) () ()


• Scan assembled prompt including skill content for prompt injection () ()


• Richer info panels on the Skills Hub ( )


• Hint at hermes curator pin in the rename block () ()


• api-testing (REST/GraphQL debug, salvages )


• Unified EVM multi-chain skill (salvages + folds in base/) ()


• osint-investigation (closes )


• pinggy-tunnel ()


• Notion overhaul for the Developer Platform (May 2026) ( + ) () ()


• Cover remaining SSRF fetch paths in skills-hub (salvage )


• Use credential_pool for custom endpoint model listing probes (salvage )


• Require dashboard auth for plugin API routes (salvage )


• Sanitize env and redact output in quick commands + remove write-only _pending_messages ()


• Sanitize Google Chat sender_type from relay (salvage of ) ()


• Rewrite security policy around OS-level isolation as the boundary ()


• Remove public security advisory page () ()


• Codex-runtime: de-dup [plugins.X] tables and stop leaking HERMES_HOME () ()


• MCP: stop retrying initial MCP auth failures ()


• Gateway: enable text-intercept for multi-choice clarify fallback ()


• Gateway: keep running when platforms fail; per-platform circuit breaker + /platform ( JSON-string batch + diagnostic logging ()


• Profiles+banner: exclude infrastructure from --clone-all + fix stale update-check repo resolution ()


• ACP: inline file attachment resources (salvage )


• CI: unblock shared PR checks (, ); /subgoal returned in simpler form via ) rolled back to restore full-width borders ()

📚 Documentation

• Repair Voice & TTS provider table () ()


• Mention Weixin in gateway help and docstrings (salvage of )


• Richer info panels on the Skills Hub () () ( — release lead, architecture, ~406 PRs merged in window

Top community contributors

• — 13 PRs · Markdown-table TUI rendering, HERMES_SESSION_ID env var, hindsight-client optional dep, Nix extraDependencyGroups


• — 8 PRs · /sessions slash command, personality switching preserves session, cron modals, dashboard analytics


• — 4 PRs · Nous Portal as model metadata authority, provider polish


• — 3 PRs · platform/gateway work

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