hermes — Core CLI: Chat, Prompts, and Session Flags

hermes is the main CLI entry point for Nous Research’s Hermes Agent. When launched through Hermes USB Portable, it runs inside the sandboxed portable environment with HERMES_HOME pointed at data/. All conversations, configurations, memories, and skills stay inside that folder — nothing is written to the host computer.

Commands

Command	Description
`hermes`	Start the TUI chat interface
`hermes chat`	Same as `hermes`
`hermes --version`	Show the installed Hermes Agent version
`hermes -z "<prompt>"`	One-shot prompt — outputs result and exits without opening the TUI
`hermes --resume <name>`	Resume a specific named session
`hermes --continue`	Continue the last session
`hermes version`	Version information
`hermes uninstall`	Uninstall Hermes

Examples

macOS / Linux
Windows

# Start interactive chat
./launch.sh

# One-shot prompt
./launch.sh hermes -z "Summarize the current directory"

# Resume a saved session
./launch.sh hermes --resume my-project

# Continue the most recent session
./launch.sh hermes --continue

# Show version
./launch.sh hermes --version

REM Start interactive chat
launch.bat

REM One-shot prompt
launch.bat hermes -z "Summarize the current directory"

REM Resume a saved session
launch.bat hermes --resume my-project

REM Continue the most recent session
launch.bat hermes --continue

REM Show version
launch.bat hermes --version

When you run ./launch.sh or launch.bat without any arguments, Hermes Portable opens an interactive terminal dashboard instead of starting the CLI directly. From the menu you can:

[1] Start Hermes Chat — launches the TUI chat interface
[2] Setup / Reconfigure Hermes — runs the interactive setup wizard
[3] Start / Stop Gateway — toggles the messaging gateway
[4] Advanced Options — diagnostics, logs, config editing, and updates

Pass arguments directly to skip the menu and run the command immediately:

./launch.sh hermes -z "What files are in this directory?"

All hermes commands should be run through launch.sh (macOS/Linux) or launch.bat (Windows) to ensure the portable environment is properly activated. Running hermes directly will use the host’s environment instead of the sandboxed portable runtime, which may produce unexpected behavior or fail entirely.

Environment Variables Set by the Launcher

The launcher configures several environment variables before starting Hermes:

Variable	Value	Purpose
`HERMES_HOME`	`<portable-root>/data`	Points Hermes at the portable data directory
`VIRTUAL_ENV`	Portable venv path	Activates the sandboxed Python environment
`PYTHONNOUSERSITE`	`1`	Prevents host user site-packages from leaking in
`PLAYWRIGHT_BROWSERS_PATH`	`.cache/runtimes/<platform>/playwright`	Keeps browser binaries inside the portable folder

Launcher Commands

Hermes CLI

Reset Scripts

hermes — Core CLI: Chat, Prompts, and Session Flags

Commands

Examples

Interactive Launcher Menu

Environment Variables Set by the Launcher

Build docs developers (and LLMs) love

Launcher Commands

Hermes CLI

Reset Scripts

Documentation Index

​Commands

​Examples

​Interactive Launcher Menu

​Environment Variables Set by the Launcher

Build docs developers (and LLMs) love

Commands

Examples

Interactive Launcher Menu

Environment Variables Set by the Launcher