← Hermes Agent
Creator Magic
Hermes Agent Tutorial for Beginners - Crash Course
⏱ 10 min video · 2 min read22 May 2026Worth watching
TL;DR
A beginner-friendly crash course on installing and using Hermes Agent, a free open-source AI assistant by Nous Research that runs locally, remembers conversations, and teaches itself new skills. The video covers installation on Mac, connecting to Claude or local models via Ollama, setting up a Telegram bot interface, and integrating with 9,000+ apps via Zapier MCP.
Key points
1
Hermes Agent is free, open-source, runs on Mac/Windows/Linux, and reached 160,000 GitHub stars in under two months
2
Persistent memory is a core differentiator: Hermes saves what it learns about you in local files and recalls context across every future conversation
3
Hermes can self-generate and save new skills on demand, creating a self-improving loop where it gets more capable the more you use it
4
You can access Hermes on your phone via a Telegram bot created through BotFather, with scheduled task delivery also supported
5
Zapier MCP integration connects Hermes to over 9,000 apps including Gmail, Slack, and Notion with scoped permissions, using a single server URL
Actionable insights
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Install Hermes with a single terminal command on Mac — the onboarding process walks you through model selection, API keys, and Telegram setup without any manual configuration
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Use Claude Sonnet instead of Claude Opus 4.7 if you are concerned about API costs, and know you can switch models anytime by running 'hermes model'
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Run Ollama locally with Gemma 4 for completely free, private, offline AI — no per-message fees, no internet required, and fully compatible with Hermes including Gmail draft creation
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Connect Hermes to Zapier MCP at mcp.zapier.com to unlock 9,000+ app integrations; scope permissions tightly (e.g. Gmail draft-only) to maintain inbox control
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After completing any novel task, tell Hermes to 'save this as a skill' so it becomes a reusable, schedulable command you can trigger from Telegram in future
Notable quotes
“Hermes literally teaches itself new tricks as you're using it.”
“Every single time I come back, Hermes already knows who I am, what I'm working on, and how I like things done.”
“There is actually nothing stopping you from running both. They don't interfere with each other. You can test each one for vibes and see which one you like.”
Worth watching?
✅
Worth watching the full video?
Worth watching if you want to follow along with the live terminal setup, but all the key steps, commands, and decisions are captured here — save it for when you are ready to install.
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