hermes-agent/apps/desktop

Hermes Desktop ☤

The native desktop app for Hermes Agent — the self-improving AI agent from Nous Research. Same agent, same skills, same memory as the CLI and gateway, in a polished native window — chat with streaming tool output, side-by-side previews, a file browser, voice, and settings, no terminal required. Available for macOS, Windows, and Linux.

Intel Macs: the Hermes-Setup.dmg bootstrap installer is built for Apple Silicon (arm64) only, so on an Intel Mac it reports "not supported on this Mac". The desktop release pipeline also builds a native darwin-x64 bundle (signed, notarized, with its own update feed); use that build, or install the CLI and run hermes desktop. See Platform Support.

Chat with the full agent	Streaming responses, live tool activity, structured tool summaries, and the same conversation history as every other Hermes surface.
Side-by-side previews	Render web pages, files, and tool outputs in a right-hand pane while you keep chatting.
File browser	Explore and preview the working directory without leaving the app.
Voice	Talk to Hermes and hear it back.
Settings & onboarding	Manage providers, models, tools, and credentials from a real UI. First-run setup gets you to your first message in seconds.
Stays current	Built-in updates pull the latest agent and rebuild the app in place.

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Install

Install with Hermes (recommended)

Already have the Hermes CLI? Just run:

hermes desktop

It builds and launches the GUI against your existing install — same config, keys, sessions, and skills. If Desktop cannot find a usable runtime or saved remote connection, first launch lets you connect to an existing Hermes gateway or install Hermes locally. Local onboarding then walks you through choosing a provider and model.

Prebuilt installers

Prebuilt installers are built and distributed via the Hermes Desktop website..

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Updating

Update through the owner of the installed artifact: Windows App Installer for sideload MSIX, Microsoft Store for Store packages, and electron-updater for macOS bundles. Source-built apps use the checkout update handoff.

hermes update updates managed source checkouts; it does not rewrite a bundled payload. See BUILDING.md for package and release contracts.

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Screenshot shortcut (macOS)

Enable Settings → Keyboard Shortcuts → Screenshot shortcut, then press the left and right Command keys together in any app. Hermes captures that app's frontmost window and attaches the image to the last-active Hermes composer, including split-pane chats. It does not send the draft or capture the whole screen. Release both keys before taking another screenshot.

The shortcut is off by default and saved only on this Mac. macOS requires Input Monitoring and Screen & System Audio Recording permission; the settings row links to the relevant system pane and offers Retry. If macOS asks to restart the app after granting access, do so before retrying. Review the attachment before sending, especially when the captured window is sensitive.

Requirements

Bundled packages provide Python 3.14 and their supported dependencies. Source/bootstrap builds have a separate preparation path. Platform-native requirements, including system Git on POSIX, are described in BUILDING.md. macOS source builds also require Xcode Command Line Tools to compile the native shortcut helper. Prebuilt installers include it; no compiler is needed at runtime.

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Development

Want to hack on the app itself? Install workspace deps from the repo root once, then run the dev server from this directory:

npm install          # from repo root — links apps/desktop, web, apps/shared
cd apps/desktop
npm run dev          # Vite renderer + Electron, which boots the Python backend

Point the app at a specific source checkout, or sandbox it away from your real config:

# throwaway HERMES_HOME, separate Electron userData, distinct app name to avoid the single-instance lock
../../scripts/dev-sandbox.sh npm run dev
HERMES_DESKTOP_HERMES_ROOT=/path/to/clone npm run dev
HERMES_HOME=$HOME/.hermes/cache/scratch/throwaway npm run dev
npm run dev:fake-boot   # exercise the startup overlay with deterministic delays

Building installers

npm run dist:mac     # DMG + zip
npm run dist:win     # MSIX
npm run dist:linux   # AppImage + deb + rpm
npm run pack         # unpacked app under release/ (no installer)

These are ordinary packaging commands, not complete tagged payload builds. Use BUILDING.md for the native bundled builder, Azure/Apple signing, R2 artifact publication, and release gates. The current release matrix publishes Windows and macOS packages; Linux desktop legs are disabled.

How it works

The bundled app carries the Electron shell, native React chat surface, and local agent payload. It runs the payload directly from resources. User data lives in HERMES_HOME outside the app. Bootstrap builds instead provision a source installation; Light is a remote-only variant without a local runtime.

The app has three boundaries:

• Electron resolves and validates a runnable backend, owns native filesystem/git/window capabilities, and exposes a narrow preload bridge.
• React owns the Desktop routes, panes, interaction state, and @assistant-ui/react transcript.
• Hermes Agent runs as a headless hermes serve process and exposes the tui_gateway JSON-RPC/WebSocket API. The renderer connects through apps/shared, which is also used by the browser dashboard.

A bundled artifact uses its payload. If that payload is unusable, the app reports damage rather than installing a second checkout. It does not adopt an arbitrary hermes command on PATH or a system Python installation.

Non-bundled builds can use the explicit source-root override, development checkout, completed managed install, or HERMES_DESKTOP_HERMES deployment override before offering bootstrap. Candidates are probed before use. A runtime that predates serve falls back to headless dashboard --no-open. This is compatibility for the backend command only and does not launch or embed the dashboard UI.

The Electron orchestration entry point is electron/main.ts; pure resolution, probe, hardening, and platform policies live in focused modules beside it. The renderer is under src/, with shared atoms in src/store and transport/native adapters in src/lib.

Before changing the app, read:

• AGENTS.md: architecture, state ownership, resolver/fallback, transport, performance, and testing rules.
• DESIGN.md: visual system, information architecture, motion, direct manipulation, and keyboard behavior.

Connections, projects, and switching

Desktop supports a managed local backend, explicit remote gateways, and Hermes Cloud connections. Remote and cloud modes use the same remote-capability path; authentication and discovery differ, not the renderer feature model.

When no usable local runtime or saved remote connection exists, the first-run screen offers Connect to existing Hermes before starting the local installer. Desktop probes the gateway to discover token or OAuth authentication, requires a successful HTTP and WebSocket connection test, and saves the connection using the same encrypted Desktop configuration used by Settings. A saved remote connection bypasses this choice on later launches. The regular Desktop build still includes the local-install option; this is a remote operating mode, not a separate client-only application.

In remote mode the gateway host is the execution boundary: agent tools, terminal commands, and file operations run against the remote Hermes host, not the computer displaying the Desktop UI.

Remote gateways that sit behind an access proxy may require extra headers on every HTTP and WebSocket request. Configure them per connection in Settings → Connections (Extra gateway headers), or add a headers object to Desktop's Electron userData/connection.json remote block:

{
  "mode": "remote",
  "remote": {
    "url": "https://hermes.example.com",
    "authMode": "token",
    "token": { "encoding": "safeStorage", "value": "..." },
    "headers": {
      "CF-Access-Client-Id": { "encoding": "safeStorage", "value": "..." },
      "CF-Access-Client-Secret": { "encoding": "safeStorage", "value": "..." }
    }
  }
}

Per-profile remote entries under profiles[name].headers use the same shape. Desktop applies these headers only to matching remote gateway requests, treats https and wss as the same gateway origin for WebSocket upgrades, and drops transport- or Hermes-managed header names such as Authorization, Cookie, Host, Origin, Referer, and X-Hermes-Session-Token.

Projects are the workspace abstraction. A project may own multiple folders, repositories, worktrees, and sessions; a bare new chat remains detached unless the user enters a project or configures a default project directory. Use the Projects UI rather than adding a second per-session folder-picker workflow.

Changing profiles or connection modes is a soft workspace switch, not another cold boot. The shell and current management overlay remain mounted while gateway-bound nanostores are wiped, query-backed data is invalidated, and the new connection repopulates skeletons. This prevents rows or transcripts from the previous gateway bleeding into the next one. Switching changes only the foreground view and request route: it does not cancel turns or stop a backend, and retained background sockets continue receiving events from running jobs.

Verification

Run before opening a PR (lint may surface pre-existing warnings but must exit cleanly):

npm run fix
npm run typecheck
npm run lint
npm run test:ui
npm run test:desktop:platforms

Run npm run test:desktop:all for install, boot, update, packaging, or other release-path changes.

Troubleshooting

Boot logs land in HERMES_HOME/logs/desktop.log (includes backend output and recent Python tracebacks) — check it first if the app reports a boot failure.

macOS / Linux:

# Force a clean first-launch setup
rm "$HOME/.hermes/hermes-agent/.hermes-bootstrap-complete"
# Rebuild a broken Python venv
rm -rf "$HOME/.hermes/hermes-agent/venv"
# Reset a stuck macOS microphone prompt (macOS only)
tccutil reset Microphone com.nousresearch.hermes

Windows (PowerShell):

# Force a clean first-launch setup
Remove-Item "$env:LOCALAPPDATA\hermes\hermes-agent\.hermes-bootstrap-complete"
# Rebuild a broken Python venv
Remove-Item -Recurse -Force "$env:LOCALAPPDATA\hermes\hermes-agent\venv"

The default Hermes home on Windows is %LOCALAPPDATA%\hermes. Set the HERMES_HOME env var if you've relocated it.

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Community

• 💬 Discord
• 📖 Documentation
• 🐛 Issues

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License

MIT — see LICENSE.

Built by Nous Research.