A hermes agent bot is Hermes Agent running as a bot you can message on Telegram, Discord, Slack, WhatsApp, Signal and other apps, through its built-in messaging gateway. It's the same agent you use in the terminal, with the same memory and skills, just reachable from your phone.
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There's also a second meaning. Inside the Hermes Desktop app there's a feature called Bot Mode, which turns your profiles into a roster of named specialist Bots. I'll cover both here, show you how to set each one up, and keep it all to what the Hermes docs actually say.
Quick background: Hermes Agent is the open-source, self-hosted AI agent built by Nous Research, MIT licensed. I run it every day inside my own Agentic Operating System, with a separate profile per model.
What a Hermes agent bot actually is
Per the Hermes docs, the messaging gateway is "a single background process" that connects to all your configured platforms, handles sessions, runs cron jobs, and delivers voice messages. You set it up once and then chat with your agent from whichever app you already live in.
The docs list a long set of supported platforms: Telegram, Discord, Slack, WhatsApp, Signal, SMS, Email, Home Assistant, Mattermost, Matrix, DingTalk, Feishu/Lark, WeCom, Weixin, BlueBubbles (iMessage), QQ, Yuanbao, Microsoft Teams, LINE, ntfy, or your browser.
The Hermes docs are careful about terms, and it helps to get them straight:
- Messaging bot is an account on a platform such as Telegram, Discord or Slack, connected to Hermes through the gateway. Its bot token identifies that platform account.
- Bot Mode bot is a profile shown as a named entry in the desktop app's Bot Mode roster, with an avatar and a persistent Bot Chat.
- Subagent is a child assistant spawned by delegate_task for one task, with a fresh conversation.
One more tip straight from the docs: bots need both a model provider and tool providers (like TTS and web). A Nous Portal subscription bundles all of them.
If you want the full walkthrough of building bots like this, the AI Profit Boardroom ($69/mo) has Hermes courses, my Agent OS zip, daily updates and four coaching calls a week.
Which platforms get which features
Not every app supports every feature. Here's a slice of the platform comparison table from the Hermes docs for the big four plus a couple of others:
| Platform | Voice | Images | Files | Threads | Streaming |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Telegram | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Discord | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Slack | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| No | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | |
| Signal | No | Yes | Yes | No | No |
| No | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
If talking to your bot out loud matters, Telegram, Discord and Slack all support voice. I've got a separate piece on the Hermes voice agent if that's your main use case.
📺 Watch: Grok Bot DESTROYS Hermes Agent?
How to set up a Hermes bot on Telegram
Telegram is the simplest place to start. Here's the flow from the Hermes docs:
- Get the CLI working first. The install docs say to run hermes gateway setup once the CLI works, if you want a bot or always-on setup.
- Create the bot in BotFather. Open Telegram, search for @BotFather, send /newbot, pick a display name and a username that ends in "bot". BotFather replies with your API token.
- Keep the token secret. Per the docs, anyone with the token can control your bot. If it leaks, revoke it with /revoke in BotFather.
- Run the wizard. hermes gateway setup walks you through each platform with arrow-key selection, shows what's already configured, and offers to start or restart the gateway when you're done.
- Lock down who can talk to it. See the security section below.
- Keep it running. hermes gateway install sets it up as a user service on Linux or a launchd service on macOS, so the bot stays online.
The other gateway commands from the docs:
- hermes gateway runs it in the foreground
- hermes gateway start and hermes gateway stop control the service
- hermes gateway status checks it
- sudo hermes gateway install --system installs a boot-time system service (Linux only)
If the gateway starts but nobody can message it, the docs say the bot token, allowlist or platform setup is incomplete. Re-run hermes gateway setup and check hermes gateway status.
📺 Watch: Hermes3D Is INSANE: AI Agents Now Have a 3D Office
Keeping your bot secure
This matters because your bot can have terminal access. Per the Hermes docs, by default the gateway denies all users who aren't in an allowlist or paired via DM.
You have two ways to let people in:
- Allowlists. Set variables like TELEGRAM_ALLOWED_USERS, DISCORD_ALLOWED_USERS or GATEWAY_ALLOWED_USERS with the user IDs you trust. There is a GATEWAY_ALLOW_ALL_USERS=true option, but the docs flag it as not recommended for bots with terminal access.
- DM pairing. Unknown users get a one-time pairing code when they DM the bot. You approve them with hermes pairing approve telegram followed by the code. hermes pairing list shows pending and approved users, and hermes pairing revoke removes access. Pairing codes expire after one hour.
Email is the exception: unknown email senders are ignored unless email pairing is switched on.
Hermes Agent Bot Mode
Now the other meaning. Per the Hermes docs, Bot Mode turns your Hermes profiles into a roster of named Bots. Each Bot has its own role, model, memory, skills and avatar. Bots run recurring routines, work together in group chats, and message each other directly. Build a specialist once and it's there for good, one click away.
It ships built into the desktop app and is on by default, so there's nothing to install. You'll see a Bots tab next to Sessions in the left sidebar, with a Routines tile docked beside the conversation while that tab is active.
Don't mix this up with Bot Screen, which is a different desktop feature. I cover that one in my Hermes Bot Screen guide.
A Bot is just a profile
The docs are clear that there's no new thing to learn. A Bot is a Hermes profile, with its own config, memory, skills, credentials and chat history under ~/.hermes/profiles/ and the Bot's name. Bot Mode is a UI over that. hermes -p followed by the Bot's name and chat opens the same agent from the CLI, and Bot routines show up in hermes cron list.
Persistent Bot Chats
Every Bot gets one permanent Bot Chat. Click the Bot and you're back in the same conversation. Typing /new inside it doesn't fork a fresh session. The composer reroutes it to /compact instead, so you get fresh working context in the same conversation.
Creating a Bot
Hit New Agent in the roster. The quick path is three fields: Name, Title and Description. The Advanced section lets you clone from an existing profile, pin a model and provider, write a custom SOUL.md, and tick exactly which skills, toolsets and MCP servers the Bot gets. Different Bots can run on different models side by side.
Routines
The Routines pane attaches recurring tasks to the Bot that does them, like "summarize my inbox every morning". Per the docs, routines are plain Hermes cron jobs, and their runs land in the Bot's own chat history.
Group chats and @mentions
Group chats hold 2 to 6 Bots. Your message triggers up to three rounds of member turns. @-mentioned Bots respond, and everyone responds when nobody is mentioned. Bots pull each other in with @name, and escalate real decisions to you with @user, which shows a "needs you" badge. Hard caps (10 messages per send, 3 rounds) stop rooms from spinning.
You can also type something like @researcher have a look at this in any chat. The Bot then composes its own message to that teammate with the message_agent tool, and the reply comes back attributed to that agent.
If you like the idea of several agents working together, my Hermes agent swarm guide goes deeper on that pattern. And for how I wire it all into one system, see the Agent OS guide.
Not sure which setup fits your business? Book a free AI strategy session and we'll map it out.
Messaging bot or Bot Mode: which do you need?
- Use a messaging bot when you want to reach your agent from your phone, share it with a team in Slack or Discord, or get cron results delivered to a chat.
- Use Bot Mode when you want a roster of specialists on the desktop, each with its own model, memory and routines, that can talk to each other.
- Use both if you want specialists on your desktop and a way to reach your agent while you're away from it.
Picking the model for each Bot is half the battle. I test models on real agent tasks in Goldie Bench, which makes that choice a lot easier.
FAQ
What is Hermes Agent Bot Mode?
Hermes Agent Bot Mode is a desktop app feature that turns your Hermes profiles into a roster of named Bots, each with its own role, model, memory, skills and avatar. Per the Hermes docs, it's built in and on by default, and adds persistent Bot Chats, routines, group chats and Bot-to-Bot messaging.
How do I make Hermes a Telegram bot?
Create a bot with @BotFather to get an API token, then run hermes gateway setup and pick Telegram. Approve your own account with an allowlist or DM pairing, then run hermes gateway install to keep it running.
Is a Bot Mode bot the same as a messaging bot?
No. Per the docs, a messaging bot is an account on a platform like Telegram or Slack connected through the gateway. A Bot Mode bot is a profile shown in the desktop roster. Every Bot is a profile, but not every profile is a Bot.
Is it safe to give a bot terminal access?
The gateway denies everyone not on an allowlist or paired via DM by default, which the docs call the safe default for a bot with terminal access. Keep it that way, and avoid allowing all users.
Want help building bots that actually do useful work? Join the AI Profit Boardroom for the Hermes courses and coaching, or grab a free AI strategy session to plan your setup. Either way, a hermes agent bot is the fastest way to get your agent out of the terminal and into the apps you already use.
