Hermes Agent Fundamentals Training Course

Introduction to the Hermes Agent

• Understanding what the Hermes Agent is and how it differs from IDE copilots.
• The concept of a self-improving agent and its closed learning loop.
• Overview of architecture: backends, platforms, and tools.

Installation and Setup

• Installing the Hermes Agent locally.
• Deploying within Docker containers.
• Remote deployment via SSH, Daytona, Singularity, and Modal.
• Configuring API keys for OpenAI, Anthropic, OpenRouter, and the Nous Portal.

Interacting with the Agent

• Navigating the CLI interface and using basic commands.
• Setting up and utilizing the Telegram bot.
• Integrating with Discord and Slack.
• Establishing WhatsApp connectivity.

Built-in Tools

• Web searching and content extraction.
• File operations: reading, writing, editing, and searching.
• Executing terminal commands and bash scripting.
• Image generation and vision analysis.
• Text-to-speech capabilities.

Persistent Memory

• Cross-session memory management using FTS5 recall.
• Using LLM summarization for long-term context retention.
• Performing memory search and retrieval.

The Skills System

• Understanding skills and the process of creating them.
• Skill persistence across different sessions.
• Accessing community skills and exploring agentskills.io.

MCP Integration

• Connecting to MCP servers.
• Programmatically extending tool capabilities.

Scheduled Automations

• Utilizing the built-in cron scheduler.
• Setting up recurring tasks and generating reports.
• Distributing automation results across platforms.

Developer Automation Use Cases

• Autonomously running terminal commands.
• Spawning isolated subagents.
• Managing parallel workstreams and batch processing.

Security and Best Practices

• Implementing approval modes for commands and edits.
• Ensuring data privacy on self-hosted infrastructure.
• Maintaining environment isolation.

Production Deployment

• Running the agent on a $5 VPS.
• Adopting serverless deployment patterns.
• Monitoring agent health and logs.

Troubleshooting

• Resolving common installation issues.
• Debugging tool failures.
• Tuning memory and performance.

Summary and Next Steps

• Recap of key capabilities.
• Resources for continued learning.
• Transitioning to advanced Hermes topics.