Everything you need to install, set up, and actually use Hermes Agent: Self-learning skills, persistent memory, Telegram integration, building your own automated workflows, real use cases - and why people are choosing Hermes over everything else.
Hermes Agent is the fastest growing AI agent repo in history - FREE, OPEN SOURCE, MIT LICENSE. But somehow most people still can't use it.
On April 19, Hermes hit 100,000 GitHub stars in just 53 days!
Hermes Agent hit 100,000 stars on GitHub It took just 53 days! For comparison, Langflow (a drag-and-drop LLM app builder) took 890+ days to hit 100k stars Hermes: 1/ Self-improving AI agent - writes its own skills from experience 2/ Persistent memory across every session 3/
Hermes Agent just hit 100,000 stars on GitHub!!! Thank you everyone!!
Today it's already past 160000+ stars, 26000+ forks, 1000+ contributors - and most importantly, developers are actively migrating to it and building entire agent ecosystems on top of it.
This isn't a 'what is Hermes' explainer. This is a full walkthrough - from installation to running your own automated agents.
- 1/ WHY HERMES - what makes it different from every other agent framework (and why OpenClaw users are migrating). - 2/ INSTALLATION - two paths: terminal for devs, one-click wrapper for everyone else. - 3/ TELEGRAM SETUP - turn Hermes into a personal assistant you control from your phone. - 4/ USE CASE - personal telegram bot for everything. - 5/ USE CASE: VIRALITY ANALYZER ( Hermes + Grok for analyze viral posts in real time). - 6/ CONCLUSION - where Hermes is going and why starting now matters.
Most AI agents work like this: you give a task, it does the task, session ends, everything is forgotten.
Next time you open it: blank slate. you explain the same things. AGAIN AND AGAIN.
But Hermes works in a completely different way, he remembers absolutely everything.
Every time Hermes completes a complex task, it doesn't just stop - it enters a reflective phase, analyzing what it did and forming a reusable skill so that next time it handles your request much faster and better.
In simple words: you give a task -> agent completes it -> agent creates a skill from what it learned -> skill gets refined with each use -> agent searches its own past conversations -> builds a model of YOU across sessions -> repeat
And the reason it can do all of this is the memory architecture - Hermes doesn't just remember your last message, it runs a full three-tier memory system:
Most agents have one type of memory or none at all, but Hermes has three:
Prompt memory: at the start of every session, Hermes loads your personal notes from MEMORY.md and USER.md directly into the system prompt. your preferences, your environment, your projects - all there before you type a single word.
Episodic memory: a full searchable archive of every past conversation built on SQLite FTS5. the agent can search across all previous sessions and recall anything you've ever discussed, even months later.
Procedural memory: auto-generated skills saved from completed tasks. step-by-step workflows that the agent reuses and refines over time.
This skill was created automatically after Hermes deployed an app once. Next time you say 'deploy this to Fly' it already knows every step.
Both are open source, both connect to messaging platforms, both support multiple models. but they were built with opposite philosophies:
> OpenClaw thinks in terms of organizations of agents, Hermes thinks in terms of one agent that improves over time.
OpenClaw is stronger when you need multiple agents collaborating across platforms: Slack agent, email agent, research agent etc.
Hermes is stronger when you need one agent that gets smarter every day: learns your codebase, remembers your preferences, builds skills from experience, and recovers from errors on its own.
There are two ways to install: via terminal commands or through a one-click wrapper.
Open Terminal on macOS/Linux or PowerShell on Windows, enter this command to install:
For free local models (no API keys, fully offline):
That's all you need to install Hermes and start using it via terminal or Telegram bot.
Already on OpenClaw? migration is one command:
It ports your entire setup automatically.
But honestly? after a while I got tired of the terminal. I wanted something that just works in one click without debugging configs at 2am.
So I went looking for a wrapper.
One-click wrapper installation:
After spending hours debugging dependencies and fighting Python version conflicts at 2am, I started looking for something simpler.
I just wanted Hermes without the setup pain.
After trying a few wrappers I landed on
> download the app, open it, pick your model, and you're running.
Hermes Agent chat in the app
1/ I can run FREE local models (Qwen, Gemma, Llama) completely offline - no API keys. 2/ I can switch to cloud models (Claude, GPT, Grok, Gemini) with one click when I need more power. 3/ I can control my entire screen - computer use with native Apple Vision OCR gives pixel-accurate coordinates for every button. 4/ I can connect 16+ messengers from one settings panel: Telegram, Discord, Slack, WhatsApp, iMessage, Signal, Gmail, Teams etc..
And everything runs on top of the same Hermes core.
Easy integration with Telegram, Discord..
What you choose is up to you: pure Hermes or a wrapper, both run the same agent under the hood.
This is where Hermes stops being a terminal tool and becomes a personal assistant in your pocket.
You start controlling it right from your phone.
There's no point in showing the username, you won't be able to use my personal bot.
I set up a Telegram bot called kai hermes (my personal bot) and now I control everything from my phone.
Step 1: create your bot via @ BotFather in Telegram
Copy the API token BotFather gives you
Step 2: connect it to Hermes
Paste your bot token when prompted.
Step 3: install as background service so it runs 24/7
Step 4: verify it works - open Telegram, find your bot, type anything
But here's what most people miss: the bot is only as good as you train it:
Review what it knows anytime:
it's like a new hire: first week is training, by week two it knows your workflow better than most people you work with.
kai isn't just a chatbot - it's my daily operating system. here's what I actually use it for:
kai searches the web, pulls trending discussions from X, and sends a 5-bullet summary to Telegram. every morning.
And many other things, I have given the simplest examples so that you understand that the bot is capable of absolutely anything.
I am an active content creator on various platforms, and kai is my irreplaceable assistant.
5 days ago xAI officially announced that Grok works natively inside Hermes, and I immediately started thinking about how this could help me with my activities.
X API + Hermes via xurl skill
Hermes is an open-source AI agent from Nous Research that runs in your terminal. Out of the box it comes with a skill called xurl that lets the agent read and write to X on your behalf — posting,...
I connected Grok to kai and the possibilities opened up immediately.
What Grok adds to Hermes:
> Grok 4.3 with 1M context window > Text-to-Speech: kai can reply with voice messages > Grok Imagine: image generation right inside Telegram > X real-time search: search posts, threads, profiles as they happen
All through one OAuth login (No API keys, No separate billing) - just X Premium+ or SuperGrok.
As a content creator, the first thing I tried was obvious: can kai tell me why certain posts go viral?
One message. 30 seconds and i have a full breakdown that used to take me 30 minutes of manual scrolling and guessing.
Competitor analysis on autopilot:
Content ideas based on real data:
kai knows my style from memory, knows what's trending from Grok, and combines both.
I got my clone that works 24/7.
Hermes is not just another AI tool - it's a system that grows with you. every task makes it smarter, every session makes it faster, every week it knows you better.
Whether you install via terminal or use a wrapper - give it your first task tonight. by next week you'll wonder how you worked without it.
It's only a matter of time before absolutely everyone uses it.
If you want to receive updates on the AI world and Agents, you can join my telegram channel: