The Hermes Portable launcher is an interactive terminal UI with full ANSI color support and real-time status detection. When you runDocumentation Index
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launch.bat (Windows) or ./launch.sh (macOS / Linux) without any arguments, you are greeted by a color-coded dashboard that reflects the live state of your portable environment — no configuration files to parse by hand, no guessing whether the gateway is running.
Status Dashboard
Before the menu options appear, the launcher prints a status bar at the top of the screen. Each row is refreshed every time you return to the main menu so the information is always current.| Field | Values | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Setup | Configured / Not configured | Green [OK] when data/.env contains at least one key/value pair; red [x] otherwise |
| Provider | e.g. openrouter, anthropic | Active LLM provider read from data/config.yaml |
| Model | e.g. claude-opus-4-5 | Default model read from data/config.yaml |
| Gateway | Running (PID …) / Stopped / Stopped (stale lock) | Live process check against the PID stored in data/gateway.pid |
| Version | e.g. v1.2.0 | Hermes Agent version read from src/hermes-agent/hermes_cli/__init__.py |
The launcher detects gateway status by reading
data/gateway.pid and then checking whether the stored PID is still alive. If the process is gone but the file remains, the status shows Stopped (stale lock) — highlighted in yellow to prompt a clean restart.Main Menu
After the status bar, five numbered options are displayed.| Option | Label | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| [1] | Start Hermes Chat | Launches the TUI chat interface — equivalent to running hermes directly |
| [2] | Setup / Reconfigure Hermes | Runs the interactive setup wizard (hermes setup) to configure your LLM provider, model, API keys, and more |
| [3] | Start Gateway / Stop Gateway | Toggles the messaging gateway. The label changes to Stop Gateway [live] in red when the gateway is already running |
| [4] | Advanced Options --> | Opens the advanced submenu (see below) |
| [5] | Exit | Exits the launcher |
Advanced Options
Select [4] Advanced Options from the main menu to reach a secondary submenu with six entries.| Option | Label | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| [1] | Run Doctor | Runs hermes doctor to diagnose configuration problems, missing dependencies, and connectivity issues |
| [2] | View Logs | Displays the last 20 lines of data/logs/gateway.log inline in the terminal |
| [3] | Edit Config | Opens data/config.yaml in your system’s default editor via hermes config edit |
| [4] | Restart Gateway | Stops the running gateway and starts it again via hermes gateway restart |
| [5] | Update Hermes | Fetches the latest Hermes Agent version from NousResearch via hermes update |
| [6] | Back to Main Menu | Returns to the main menu |
Passing Arguments to Skip the Menu
If you already know the command you want to run, you can pass arguments directly tolaunch.bat or launch.sh. When the launcher detects arguments, it forwards them straight to hermes and exits — bypassing the interactive menu entirely.
- Windows
- macOS / Linux
The
hermes prefix stripping is a convenience feature. Both launch.bat setup and launch.bat hermes setup execute the same underlying command.