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Hermes Agent Bot: What It Is, A 7-Step Quick-Start And Where A Chat Bot Fits In An Agent OS

By Julian Goldie · 7 October 2026 · agentos.guide

A Hermes Agent bot is your Hermes Agent running inside a chat app such as Telegram, Discord, Slack or WhatsApp, so you can message it from your phone.

It works through the messaging gateway that is built into Hermes Agent, the free, open-source agent from Nous Research.

Below you'll get what it is, a quick-start, every platform, the safety rules, the costs and how a bot fits into an Agent OS.

Hermes Agent bot at a glance

Here is the whole answer in one table before the detail.

Every command on this page was checked against the official Hermes messaging docs and against the help text on my own install, which is version 0.21.4.

I drive most of my Hermes work from the Bots tab in my Agent OS, so the Telegram steps come from the docs and the CLI help and not from one of my recordings.

What a Hermes Agent bot is and the problem it solves

Hermes Agent is a free AI agent that can use tools, run commands, remember things and work on a schedule.

Most people use it in a terminal or in the desktop app.

That works until you leave your desk.

The messaging gateway fixes that by connecting Hermes to the chat apps you already carry around.

The docs describe the gateway as a single background process that connects to all your configured platforms, handles sessions, runs cron jobs and delivers voice messages.

The bot isn't a cut-down chatbot, because each message goes through the full agent with its tools, memory and skills.

Hermes Agent is released under the MIT licence, so you don't pay for the software.

The Hermes Agent bot quick-start

This is the shortest route from nothing to a working Telegram bot.

The docs tell you to keep the bot token secret, because anyone who has it can control the bot.

If it leaks, you revoke it with /revoke in BotFather.

The bot's username has to be unique and has to end in "bot".

There is a no-terminal route as well.

The docs say the Messaging page in the dashboard and the desktop app has a "Create with QR" button for Telegram, which creates the bot, detects your user ID and restarts the gateway.

On a Linux server that must survive a reboot, the docs give sudo hermes gateway install --system for a boot-time service.

The CLI help says hermes gateway run is the recommended form for WSL and Docker.

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Which platforms a Hermes Agent bot runs on

The docs list Telegram, Discord, Slack, WhatsApp, Signal, SMS, Email, Home Assistant, Mattermost, Matrix, DingTalk, Feishu/Lark, WeCom, Weixin, BlueBubbles for iMessage, QQ, Yuanbao, Microsoft Teams, LINE, ntfy and your browser.

These are the seven I'd expect most people to choose from.

I'd start with Telegram, because it needs one free token and no public server.

Slack is the natural choice for a team that already works there, and the command hermes slack manifest --agent-view --write generates the app manifest for you.

The built-in WhatsApp bridge is not the official Business API, so the docs recommend a dedicated phone number.

The docs also describe a WhatsApp Business Cloud API route, which needs a Meta Business account and a public webhook.

How a Hermes Agent bot behaves in DMs and groups

In a direct message, the bot answers every message from an allowed user.

Groups need one extra piece of knowledge, which is Telegram's privacy mode.

Privacy mode is switched on for every new bot.

With it on, the bot only sees slash commands, replies to its own messages and service messages.

You turn it off by sending /mybots to BotFather and choosing Bot Settings, Group Privacy and Turn off.

You then have to remove the bot from the group and add it again, because Telegram caches the setting when the bot joins.

Making the bot a group admin is the other fix, because admin bots receive every message.

Your allowlist still applies inside a group.

Setting telegram.require_mention: true keeps the bot quiet until someone tags it, replies to it or uses a wake word you configure.

On Discord, Hermes answers every DM and only answers in server channels when it is mentioned.

If several Hermes bots share one group, the docs say each profile needs its own bot token.

Approvals and safety on a Hermes Agent bot

A bot with terminal access needs sensible locks, and Hermes ships with them switched on.

• The gateway denies every user who isn't on an allowlist or paired through a direct message.
• An unknown user gets a one-time pairing code, and you approve it with hermes pairing approve telegram followed by the code.
• Pairing codes expire after one hour, and hermes pairing revoke removes someone's access.
• Hermes checks commands against a list of dangerous patterns before running them.
• The default approval mode is smart, which approves low-risk commands, denies dangerous ones and asks you about the uncertain ones.
• You answer a prompt with /approve or /deny in the chat.
• Scheduled jobs deny dangerous commands by default, because nobody is there to answer.
• You can make yourself an admin and limit other users to the slash commands you choose.

There is a setting that lets every user in, and the docs mark it as not recommended for bots with terminal access.

The command I'd keep close is hermes pause, which the help text describes as a global emergency stop for new work.

The commands you'll use most

Sessions don't reset after a quiet period, so the bot keeps its context until you type /new.

Voice notes on Telegram are transcribed automatically, and the local option uses faster-whisper with no API key.

You can also type a slash followed by the name of any installed skill.

🔥 Want the exact Hermes setup I run inside my Agent OS?

Inside the AI Profit Boardroom you get the installable Agent OS, step-by-step video tutorials, four coaching calls a week and 3,400+ members building real automations.

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What a Hermes Agent bot costs

Hermes Agent is free, and BotFather issues Telegram bot tokens for free.

The model is the part that can cost money.

You can pick a model marked free on Nous Portal, run a local model or pay for a stronger hosted one.

The docs note that bots need a model provider and tool providers for speech and web search, and that a Nous Portal subscription bundles them.

Free model lists rotate, so I don't build an important process on one free model.

An always-on bot also needs a machine that stays awake.

Your own computer adds no bill, and a server or a managed host does.

My Hermes Cloud guide covers the managed route from Nous Research, and my best Hermes Agent VPS ranking covers servers.

Bot Mode and Hermes Bots are a different feature

The word "bot" gets used for three things around Hermes.

Bot Mode launched in August as a public beta plugin, and it is MIT licensed.

Each bot has its own avatar, chat, memory and routines, and you can pin a different model to each one.

Bots message each other through the Agent Inbox, and an @mention hands a question to another bot and brings the answer back.

A bot in Bot Mode is simply a Hermes profile, which is why it adds no patches to the core.

My Hermes Bot Mode guide has the screen recordings, and the sister post on Hermes Agent Bot Mode explains the feature on its own.

How a Hermes Agent bot fits an Agent OS

My Agent OS is a dashboard that gives one Hermes agent many doors.

My Hermes Command Desk guide shows thirteen of them, including chat, voice, tickets and the control room.

A gateway bot is the door you carry in your pocket.

In the Bots tab, I create a bot with three boxes, which are a name, a title and a description.

In my latest Hermes video I also mention creating a Hermes bot from an active profile, so a profile I already use for one model becomes a named bot.

The two worlds connect through cron.

The help text for hermes cron create shows that the --deliver flag accepts telegram, discord and signal as targets.

It also accepts bot-chat with a profile name, which drops the result into that bot's own chat.

That gives you a clean rule for an Agent OS.

Anything you need on the move goes to Telegram, and anything that belongs to one bot's job goes to that bot's chat.

The hermes send command is useful here too, because it pipes text from any script to a configured platform without calling a model.

My sister post on Hermes Agent background work covers the service, cron and background sessions in more depth.

Tips and limits before you rely on it

• A cold boot drops Telegram messages that arrived while the gateway was offline, unless you set drop_pending_on_cold_boot to false.
• Two running gateways can't poll the same Telegram bot token.
• Hermes uses long polling by default, and the docs describe a webhook mode for cloud machines that sleep when idle.
• Files are sent by the gateway process, so a file that only exists inside a Docker container can't be delivered until you mount a shared folder.
• The WhatsApp bridge can stop working after a WhatsApp update, and the docs say to update Hermes and re-pair.
• The bot is only as good as the model behind it, because Hermes is the harness and not the brain.

FAQ

What is a Hermes Agent bot?

A Hermes Agent bot is Hermes Agent connected to a chat app through its built-in messaging gateway. You message it on Telegram, Discord, Slack, WhatsApp or another supported platform and the same agent answers with its tools, memory and skills.

How do I create a Hermes Telegram bot?

Send /newbot to @BotFather and copy the token, get your numeric user ID from @userinfobot, then run hermes gateway setup and choose Telegram. Run hermes gateway to test it and hermes gateway install to keep it running.

Is a Hermes Agent bot free?

Hermes Agent is free under the MIT licence and a Telegram bot token is free. The model behind the bot can be free or paid, and an always-on bot needs a machine that stays switched on.

Who can message my Hermes bot?

By default the gateway denies every user who is not on an allowlist or paired through a direct message. You add user IDs to the allowlist or approve a one-time pairing code with hermes pairing approve.

How does a Hermes bot fit into an Agent OS?

The bot is one more door into the same agent. Scheduled jobs can deliver to Telegram when you need them on the move, or to a named bot's own chat with the bot-chat delivery target.

Is a Hermes Agent bot the same as Bot Mode?

No. A Hermes Agent bot usually means Hermes on a messaging platform. Bot Mode is a separate desktop plugin from Nous Research that shows your Hermes profiles as a roster of named bots.

Final word on the Hermes Agent bot

Create the token, lock the allowlist, install the service and give the bot one small scheduled job.

Once that job lands in your chat every morning, you'll understand why I treat the phone as one more door into my Agent OS, and why it starts with a Hermes Agent bot.

Related guides on agentos.guide

→ Hermes Bot Mode: The Named Agent Engine

→ The Hermes Command Desk: One AI Employee In Every Room

→ Hermes Cloud: The 60-Second AI Employee

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