How-To Guide
Hermes Agent CLI — Complete Usage Guide
Master the Hermes CLI for managing your agent, skills, memory, and configuration from the terminal.
Quick answer
The Hermes CLI is your control panel: start and stop the agent, search memory, manage skills, and drop into an interactive TUI chat — all from the terminal. It is the canonical surface, so the gateway and Web UI reuse the same ~/.hermes config the CLI sets up.
The Hermes CLI is your control panel — start and stop the agent, search memory, manage skills, and drop into an interactive chat session, all from the terminal. Mastering it makes day-to-day Hermes management fast and scriptable.
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Before you start:
- ☑Hermes Agent installed
- ☑Hermes added to your PATH (run 'source ~/.bashrc' after install if the command is not found)
Steps
- 1
Basic commands
hermes start, hermes stop, hermes restart, hermes status — manage the agent process
- 2
Configuration
hermes config show to view current config, hermes config set key value to update
- 3
Memory management
hermes memory search 'query' to search, hermes memory export to backup
- 4
Skill management
hermes skills list to view skills, hermes skills install name to add new ones
- 5
Chat mode
hermes chat opens an interactive terminal session with your agent
- 6
Logs and debugging
hermes logs to tail live logs, hermes logs --level debug for verbose output
Pro Tips
- 💡Type '/' in 'hermes chat' to open the autocomplete dropdown for all slash commands — faster than memorizing them
- 💡Use 'hermes --continue' or 'hermes -c' to resume the last conversation without starting fresh
- 💡Alt+Enter or Ctrl+J in chat mode allows multi-line input — useful for pasting code blocks or longer prompts
Troubleshooting
❌ 'hermes' command not found
✅ Run 'source ~/.bashrc' or 'source ~/.zshrc' to reload your PATH. The installer adds Hermes to PATH but doesn't reload the current shell session.
❌ 'hermes chat' hangs on startup
✅ Check if the model provider is reachable with 'hermes status'. If using Ollama, ensure it's running with 'ollama serve'.
❌ hermes logs shows no output
✅ Hermes may not be running. Start it with 'hermes start', then tail logs again. Check if Hermes is running as a different user: 'ps aux | grep hermes'.
FAQ
What can I do from the Hermes CLI?
Start and stop the agent, search memory, browse and install skills, switch models with slash commands, and chat interactively in the TUI. It's the canonical surface every other front-end builds on.
Should I debug channel problems in the CLI?
Yes. The CLI shows raw tool calls and errors that channel UIs hide. Reproduce a Telegram or Web UI bug in the terminal first — it's usually a provider or config issue.
Does the CLI share state with the gateway and Web UI?
Yes. They all read the same ~/.hermes config, memory, and skills, so a change in one surface appears in the others.