New in Hermes · animated agent pets The framework · a pet that shows what your agent's doing

The Hermes Agent Sidekick™.

Your AI agent now has an animated pixel pet that reacts to everything it does — resting, thinking, done, or stuck — so you read its status in a single glance.

idle thinking done failed Your agent working away reasoning · running tools The Sidekick changes pose to match a pixel pet, live You — one glance you just KNOW
Your agent works → the Sidekick changes pose to match → you read its status in one glance.

↓ the announcement from Nous Research

Straight from Nous Research

The makers of Hermes just shipped this. See it yourself.

Official sources + resources ↓
the announcementNous Research on X → the agentHermes by Nous Research → docs · the pet engineHermes docs →

"Boba — a tiny otter sipping bubble tea while keeping you company in your coding agent." — that's the actual pet I installed for this guide, out of nearly three thousand.

— the petdex gallery, the pet I selected for the screenshots below

✦
The whole idea · five poses, one glance

Same pet. Five faces. One for whatever your agent's doing.

This is the magic. The pet isn't decoration — it's a status light with a personality. As your agent moves through its work, the pet swaps pose to match. You stop reading spinners and log lines. You just look at the little guy and know. These are the five real poses, straight from my dashboard:

Pet idle — sipping calmly
Idle
Resting, waiting for you.
Pet thinking — working
Thinking
Working — reasoning, running tools.
Pet done — waving
Done
It finished — reply just landed.
Pet failed — teary
Failed
Something errored. Go look.
Pet waiting — on you
Waiting
Stuck on you — needs an OK.

Yes — the crying one means a run failed. You'll never miss it again.

Thinking it? "It's a cute toy. What's the actual point?"

The point is peripheral awareness. You don't watch your agent every second — you glance over while doing something else. A spinner tells you nothing; it spins whether the job's flying or dead. A pet that waves when it's done and cries when it failed tells you the one thing you needed, without reading a word. Cute is just the delivery.

✦
400kYouTube subscribers
3,600+Founders inside AIPB
163kX / Twitter followers
38Countries · live members
My story · why this matters

I kept checking on an agent that was already done.

Before — I'd fire off a job and tab away to do something else.
Then the doubt: is it still going? Did it crash? Is it stuck waiting on me?
So I'd tab back. Read the spinner. Read the logs. Nothing useful.
Tab away. Tab back. Read again. Half my attention living in a terminal.
The spinner spins exactly the same whether the job's flying or dead.

Then my agent got a face.

After — now there's a little otter in the corner of my dashboard.
It sips its tea when nothing's happening. It perks up when it's thinking.
It waves when it's done. It cries when something broke.
I don't read anything. I glance, I know, I get back to work.
A status light I actually look at — because it's alive.

Before you scroll on —

Give your agent a face today. It takes two minutes.

This is the rare upgrade that's pure upside. It costs nothing, it can't break anything, and it makes a tool you stare at all day feel alive.

The whole thing is one command. By the end of this guide you'll have picked a pet and watched it react to your own agent.

So promise yourself one small thing: you finish this guide, you run the one command, and your agent has a sidekick before you close the laptop tonight. The little wins are what make this stuff stick — and a tool you enjoy opening is a tool you actually use.

Two minutes. One command. Your agent gets a face. Let's go.

✦
The framework · The Hermes Agent Sidekick

The Hermes Agent Sidekick™ — five things that make it more than cute.

A pet sounds like a gimmick until you live with it. Here's what actually makes it useful.

i.

It Mirrors The Work

The pose isn't random — it's wired to what your agent is really doing. Idle, thinking, done, failed, waiting. The picture always matches reality.

ii.

Status You Read In A Glance

No reading spinners or scrolling logs. Your eye catches the pose from across the room. Done waves, failed cries — you know before you've read a single word.

iii.

~3,000 To Choose From

Otters, dragons, cats, robots — a whole gallery called the petdex. Pick the one that's yours. The agent you enjoy looking at is the one you actually use.

iv.

It Lives Everywhere Hermes Does

The same pet shows up in the command line, the desktop app, and — because I wired it in — the Agent OS dashboard. One companion, every surface.

v.

Zero Cost, Zero Risk

It's a sprite. It can't touch your code, your data, or your agent's work. Worst case you turn it off with one command. There's no downside to try it.

Thinking it? "Won't a moving thing on screen just distract me?"

It sits quietly in a corner and bobs gently — you stop noticing it until the pose changes. That's the whole design: invisible when nothing's new, impossible to miss the moment something is. And if it's ever too much, hermes pets off and it's gone.

0
pets in the petdex
0
live poses
one per state
1
glance to know the status
✦
Old way vs new way

Staring at a spinner vs glancing at a face.

Here's the real shift. The old way, your agent's status was a wall of text that told you nothing fast. The new way, it's a face you read in a heartbeat.

Old way · the blank spinner
half your attention in a terminal
  • Tab back constantly to check if it's alive
  • Read the spinner — it spins the same whether it's working or dead
  • Scroll the logs to find out what's actually happening
  • Miss a failure because nothing flagged it
  • Never quite sure if it's waiting on you
New way · the Sidekick
one glance, you know
  • A pet sits in the corner, posed to match the work
  • Thinking, done, failed, waiting — each is its own pose
  • Catch the status from the corner of your eye
  • The crying pose means a run failed — you can't miss it
  • A tool you enjoy opening, so you actually use it
✦
How it works · I wired it into my own Agent OS

Here's the otter living in my real dashboard.

I didn't just install it in the command line. I wired the pet straight into the Hermes tab of my Agent OS, driven by the live chat state — so when the agent's thinking, the otter's thinking; when the reply lands, it waves. This is a real screenshot, not a mockup:

Boba the pet wired into the Hermes tab of the Agent OS dashboard
Boba, bottom-right of the Hermes tab — sipping away while the agent waits for a prompt.
The command line The desktop app The Agent OS dashboard One pet same agent · same state You — at a glance wherever you're looking
Command line, desktop, the dashboard — the same pet, mirroring the same agent. Look anywhere, you know its state.

Thinking it? "Does it work outside Hermes' own apps?"

The pet ships with Hermes — command line, the TUI, the desktop app, all built in. Getting it into a custom screen like my Agent OS dashboard took a small bit of wiring (the screenshot above is the result). If you run it the normal way, it just appears — no wiring needed.

✦
Get it set up with us

Want your whole Agent OS set up like mine?

The pet is the fun part. The real prize is the Agent OS underneath it — one dashboard where Hermes, Claude, GLM and more share one memory, one team, one screen. I show founders how to build it, step by step.

Get the Agent OS →

link in the description ↗

✦
Do it yourself · the setup

Give your agent a pet — about two minutes.

Update Hermes.

Run hermes update so you've got the pet engine. (Mine pulled it in along with the latest build.)

Browse the gallery.

Run hermes pets list to see the petdex — nearly 3,000 of them. Search it: hermes pets list otter, or dragon, or cat.

Install your pick.

One command adopts it and makes it active: hermes pets install boba --select. Swap boba for any slug you liked.

Watch it react.

Open a chat with your agent. The pet sits in the corner and changes pose as the agent works — idle, thinking, done.

Make it yours.

Resize it with hermes pets scale, swap pets any time, or turn it off with hermes pets off. Nothing's permanent.

A few things worth knowing ↓
✦
What's holding you back

Three beliefs to drop.

Wrong: "A pet is a pointless gimmick."

Right: It's a status light you actually look at. A spinner tells you nothing; a pet that waves when it's done and cries when it failed tells you the one thing you needed — without reading a word.

Wrong: "Anything on screen that moves will distract me."

Right: It's quiet until the pose changes. That's the design — invisible when nothing's new, impossible to miss when something is. And one command turns it off if you ever want.

Wrong: "Little touches like this don't matter."

Right: The tool you enjoy opening is the tool you actually use every day. Making your agent feel alive isn't fluff — it's what turns a thing you tolerate into a thing you reach for.

Don't take my word for it

3,600+ founders are building agents like this inside the Boardroom right now. Their wins — real businesses, real results — are documented here.

Read the 158-page member wins →
✦
The recap

What you actually gain.

i.Status in one glance.The pose matches the work — idle, thinking, done, failed, waiting.
ii.You stop watching the terminal.No more tabbing back to read a spinner that says nothing.
iii.You never miss a failure.The crying pose flags a broken run from across the room.
iv.An agent that's yours.Pick from ~3,000 pets. The tool you enjoy is the one you use.
v.Pure upside.Free, can't break anything, one command to undo.
the bigger picture → The Hermes Powerhouse™ — all five new Hermes upgrades The pet is one of five. See the whole set — /learn, the Oracle, Jarvis voice, and the AI lead + email agent — in one showcase.
Stop staring at a spinner. Give your agent a face.
Your turn

Adopt your agent's sidekick tonight.

You've seen it react to my own agent — idle, thinking, done. If you want your whole Agent OS set up like mine, with Hermes wired in step by step, it's all inside the AI Profit Boardroom.

Get the Agent OS →

I'll see you inside ↗