How to Install Hermes Agent Skills

1. Install Hermes Agent first

Skills require Hermes Agent to be installed — there's no standalone skills installer. Pick your platform:

Linux, macOS, WSL2, or Android (Termux):

curl -fsSL https://hermes-agent.nousresearch.com/install.sh | bash

Native Windows (PowerShell):

iex (irm https://hermes-agent.nousresearch.com/install.ps1)

macOS/Windows desktop app: download the installer from hermes-agent.nousresearch.com and run it directly.

Prerequisites

• Git is required on every platform.
• Linux also needs curl and xz-utils (the installer fetches Node.js as a .tar.xz archive).
• The desktop app additionally needs a C++ toolchain (g++ / build-essential on Debian-based distros).

You do not need to install Python, Node.js, uv, ripgrep, or ffmpeg yourself — the installer detects what's missing and installs it.

After installing

source ~/.bashrc   # or ~/.zshrc — reload your shell so `hermes` is on PATH
hermes doctor       # verify the install

Then configure the basics:

hermes model             # pick an LLM provider
hermes tools              # enable/disable tools
hermes gateway setup      # wire up Telegram/Discord/Slack/WhatsApp, if wanted
hermes setup --portal     # quick setup via the Nous Portal (recommended default path)

Where things land

2. Browse and search for skills

Once Hermes is running, skills come from eight federated sources (official bundle, Vercel's skills-sh directory, .well-known endpoints, direct GitHub paths, ClawHub, LobeHub, Browserbase's browse-sh, and direct URLs — see the skills guide for what each one is).

hermes skills browse                    # browse what's available across sources
hermes skills search kubernetes         # search all sources for a keyword

3. Install a skill

hermes skills install openai/skills/k8s

This runs a security scan (checking for data exfiltration, prompt injection, and destructive commands) before the skill lands on disk. If the scan flags something non-dangerous on a community-tier skill, you can override it:

hermes skills install some-org/some-skill --force

Dangerous findings cannot be forced through. We have not independently tested what the scanner catches or misses — treat this as a floor, not a substitute for reading the skill's SKILL.md and any bundled scripts yourself, especially for community-tier installs. See evaluating skill repositories for what to check by hand.

Subscribing to a custom source

If your team or a project maintains its own skills repo, register it as a "tap" so its skills show up in browse/search/install:

hermes skills tap add myorg/skills-repo

4. List and manage what's installed

hermes skills list --source hub     # list installed hub skills
hermes skills check                  # check for upstream updates
hermes skills update                 # reinstall skills that have updates

Resetting a skill

hermes skills reset google-workspace             # clear the manifest entry
hermes skills reset google-workspace --restore    # restore the bundled version

5. Using external and project-local skill directories

To load skills from somewhere other than ~/.hermes/skills/ — a shared team repo, or a skills folder checked into a project — add it under external_dirs in config.yaml:

skills:
  external_dirs:
    - ~/.agents/skills
    - ${SKILLS_REPO}/skills

6. Bundled skills: keeping local edits safe across updates

Hermes hashes every bundled skill on install (~/.hermes/skills/.bundled_manifest). If you've edited a bundled skill yourself, it's preserved permanently and skipped during future syncs rather than silently overwritten. If you'd rather not have Hermes seed its default skill set at all:

hermes skills opt-out              # stop future seeding, keep current installs
hermes skills opt-out --remove     # also remove unmodified bundled skills
hermes skills opt-in --sync        # turn seeding back on and re-sync

7. Requiring approval before Hermes edits its own skills

Hermes can create and modify skills autonomously through its learning loop (see the flagship guide). To require a manual check first:

skills:
  write_approval: true

With that set, proposed changes queue under ~/.hermes/pending/skills/:

/skills pending      # list staged writes
/skills diff <id>    # view the diff
/skills approve <id> # apply it
/skills reject <id>  # discard it

Troubleshooting

Sources

• Hermes Agent — Installation (official docs)
• Hermes Agent — Skills System (official docs)
• hermes_cli/skills_hub.py and website/docs/reference/cli-commands.md, NousResearch/hermes-agent — used to confirm the CLI subcommands above exist in the actual source, not just marketing copy