ForgeGuard Hermes Agent

Overview

What it solves.

Hermes Agent is the self-improving AI agent built by Nous Research. It creates skills from experience and improves them during use, curates its own memory, searches its past conversations, and builds a model of who you are across sessions. It runs on a small VPS, a GPU cluster, or serverless infrastructure, and you can reach it from Telegram, Discord, Slack, WhatsApp, or Signal while it works on a remote machine. Use any model provider and switch with a single command.

ForgeGuard maintains a distribution of that product. It syncs to upstream tagged releases and adds a packaging and release overlay: versioned runtime-* and cli-* container images on GitHub Container Registry, plus Linux and macOS desktop installers attached to each fork release. ForgeGuard does not change how the agent behaves — it packages and ships it. The runtime image keeps an immutable install tree at /opt/hermes separate from a durable state volume at /opt/data, so upgrading is pulling a newer tag and recreating the container while configuration, sessions, memory, and skills persist.

Verified capabilities

What it does.

• Self-improving skillsCreates skills from experience and improves them during use. (Upstream product.)
• Persistent memory and recallCurates its own memory and searches its past conversations. (Upstream product.)
• User modelingBuilds a model of who you are across sessions. (Upstream product.)
• Runs anywhere, cheaplyA small VPS, a GPU cluster, or serverless infrastructure that costs nearly nothing when idle. (Upstream product.)
• Reachable from chat appsTalk to it from Telegram, Discord, Slack, WhatsApp, or Signal. (Upstream product.)
• Any model providerUse any model provider and switch with a single command. (Upstream product.)
• Versioned runtime and CLI imagesImmutable runtime-* and cli-* GHCR tags tied to a specific upstream base. (ForgeGuard overlay.)
• Desktop installersLinux (.AppImage/.deb/.rpm) and macOS (.dmg/.zip, ad-hoc signed, not notarized) builds attached to each fork release. (ForgeGuard overlay.)
• Durable, separable stateA /opt/data state volume kept separate from the immutable /opt/hermes install tree, with s6-overlay supervision. (ForgeGuard overlay.)

Operational facts

The operating contract.

Evidence

The Hermes dashboard.

docker run -d --name hermes --restart unless-stopped \
  -v ~/.hermes:/opt/data -p 9119:9119 \
  -e HERMES_DASHBOARD=1 \
  ghcr.io/forgeguard-ai/hermes-agent:runtime-<release> gateway run
curl --fail http://localhost:9119/api/status

Architecture

Data flow.

Client channels — the CLI and TUI, the desktop app's Client Mode, and messaging platforms — all reach the agent through the dashboard/gateway backend on port 9119. That backend drives the agent runtime, which calls tools (including a bundled browser) and whichever model providers you configure. Durable state lives on the mounted /opt/data volume, separate from the immutable /opt/hermes install tree, with s6-overlay supervising the services.

Deployment

Deployment paths.

docker run -d --name hermes -v ~/.hermes:/opt/data -p 9119:9119 \
  -e HERMES_DASHBOARD=1 \
  ghcr.io/forgeguard-ai/hermes-agent:runtime-<release> gateway run

distrobox create --image ghcr.io/forgeguard-ai/hermes-agent:cli-latest --name hermes
distrobox enter hermes

chmod +x Hermes-*.AppImage
./Hermes-*.AppImage

# https://hermes-agent.nousresearch.com/docs/getting-started/quickstart

Compatibility

Support matrix.

Lineage & attribution

Where this work comes from.

A ForgeGuard AI maintained distribution of NousResearch/hermes-agent, the self-improving AI agent by Nous Research. The agent runtime, providers, tools, messaging gateway, and desktop app are upstream-owned; ForgeGuard adds a packaging and release overlay only. Licensed MIT, copyright Nous Research, with attribution preserved. ForgeGuard does not claim upstream sponsorship or endorsement of its distribution-specific builds.

• NousResearch/hermes-agentMIT

  The upstream Hermes Agent product — runtime, tools, gateway, and desktop app.

• Hermes documentation (Nous Research)Reference

  The authoritative documentation for how the agent itself works.

Status & limitations

Known limitations.

• Container images are built for linux/amd64 only.
• macOS desktop builds are ad-hoc signed and not notarized.
• ForgeGuard ships and versions the upstream product without changing agent behavior; features and support for the agent itself come from upstream.
• The fork advances quickly and tracks upstream tagged releases; confirm against the FORK_UPSTREAM_BASE marker and the newest release before pinning.

Release history is published on the repository releases page.