Open Source • MIT License

The Agent
That Grows With You

Hermes Desktop is a native application built around the same agent you get from the CLI and the gateway — same config, same API keys, same sessions, same skills, same memory. One agent, every surface.

Download for macOS View on GitHub
macOS 12+ Windows 10/11 Linux
Creator
Nous Research
License
MIT License
Platform
macOS, Windows, Linux
Tech Stack
Electron, React, TypeScript
Features

What makes Hermes Desktop different from a normal AI chat app

Six capabilities that turn a stateless chatbot into a persistent, multi-surface agent that remembers, schedules, delegates, and experiments.

#1

Lives Everywhere

Telegram, Discord, Slack, WhatsApp, Signal, Email, CLI — and a growing list of platforms. One agent, one memory, every surface.

#2

Persistent Memory

It learns your projects, auto-generates skills, and never forgets how it solved a problem. The same memory follows you across every surface.

#3

Focused Automation

Natural-language scheduling for reports, backups, and briefings — running unattended through the gateway, focused every time.

#4

Tasks Multiplied

Isolated subagents with their own conversations, terminals, and Python RPC scripts for zero-context-cost parallel pipelines.

#5

Browse the Web

Web search, browser automation, vision, image generation, text-to-speech, and multi-model reasoning — all from the same agent.

#6

Isolated Sandboxing

Five backends — local, Docker, SSH, Singularity, Modal — with container hardening and namespace isolation for safe experimentation.

Overview

What Hermes Desktop is and how the agent works across every surface

A clear explanation of what Hermes Desktop is, who built it, what the agent can do, and how to get started.

What Is Hermes Desktop? The Multi-Surface Agent That Remembers Everything

Hermes Desktop is not a separate product or a lightweight clone of the CLI. It uses the same Hermes Agent core and settings, and drives it through a modern, thoughtfully designed native UI built with Electron and React. If you have used hermes in a terminal, everything you set up there is already here, and anything you do here shows up there.

The desktop app is organized as a chat-first window with a left sidebar for navigation. It is built to allow managing multiple simultaneous agent conversations, configuring messaging providers, creating artifacts, browsing project folder structures, and working on multiple projects at once.

The agent persists state across sessions. It learns your codebase, your habits, and your preferred tools. When you connect Telegram, Discord, Slack, or any supported surface, the agent carries that memory with it — no context reset, no starting over.

Explainer • 4 min read Read the full docs →
Quick Start

How to go from reading about Hermes Desktop to running it

The packaged app ships only the Electron shell. On first launch it installs the Hermes runtime and everything is interchangeable with the CLI.

01

Download the App

Choose the build for your platform — macOS 12+, Windows 10/11, or any Linux distro. The download is a single native installer.

02

Install and Launch

Run the installer. On first launch, the app bootstraps the Hermes runtime into ~/.hermes automatically.

03

Configure Providers

Add your API keys, connect messaging platforms, and configure MCP servers — all from the settings UI, no YAML editing required.

04

Start a Conversation

Your agent is ready. Start chatting, spawn subagents, schedule automated tasks, or browse the web — all from the same application.

FAQ

The fastest answers to the questions people ask first

Start here if you want to know the creator, what the agent can do, the platforms it supports, or the hardware requirements without reading the full docs.

Hermes Desktop comes from Nous Research. The project lives at NousResearch/hermes-agent on GitHub and is released under the MIT License. The desktop app is one of several interfaces alongside the CLI, TUI, and web dashboard.
Hermes Desktop shares the same agent core, config, API keys, sessions, skills, and memory as the CLI. It is not a separate product — it provides a native UI for the same agent. Everything you set up in one is available in the other.
Hermes Desktop runs on macOS 12+, Windows 10/11, and any Linux distribution. It ships as native installers for each platform and bootstraps the Hermes runtime on first launch.
The agent connects to 10+ messaging platforms, maintains persistent memory across sessions, runs scheduled automations, spawns isolated subagents with their own contexts, searches the web, automates browsers, generates images, and runs code in five sandbox backends (local, Docker, SSH, Singularity, Modal).
The desktop app runs on standard consumer hardware. Memory and storage requirements depend on the model provider and the number of active subagents. The app itself is lightweight — the Electron shell ships minimal, with the runtime bootstrapped on first launch.
Primary Sources

Every claim on this page is grounded in the project repository or official documentation

Follow these links for the source code, detailed documentation, and community discussion.

GitHub Repository

The source for the Hermes Agent project, including the desktop app, CLI, TUI, and web dashboard.

NousResearch/hermes-agent →

Desktop Documentation

The official user guide for the Hermes Desktop application, covering installation, configuration, and usage.

Read the docs →

Landing Page

The main Hermes Agent website with the latest announcements, downloads, and feature previews.

Visit hermes-agent.nousresearch.com →