hermes-agent/plugins/memory/openviking

OpenViking Memory Provider

Context database by Volcengine (ByteDance) with filesystem-style knowledge hierarchy, tiered retrieval, and automatic memory extraction.

Requirements

• OpenViking installed with the openviking-server command available
• OpenViking server config initialized and validated (openviking-server init, then openviking-server doctor)
• OpenViking server running and reachable from Hermes

OpenViking 0.2.10 or newer is recommended. For backward compatibility, Hermes can identify older servers that expose the legacy status-only health response, but only when anonymous OpenAPI metadata also identifies the service as OpenViking. OpenViking 0.2.6 and earlier are deprecated for this integration; upgrade them to receive the current health contract and compatibility fixes.

Setup

Prepare OpenViking first:

openviking-server init
openviking-server doctor
openviking-server

Then configure Hermes:

hermes memory setup    # select "openviking"

The setup can link to an existing ~/.openviking/ovcli.conf, copy its current connection values into Hermes, or create a minimal ovcli.conf when one does not exist.

Or manually:

hermes config set memory.provider openviking

Add the connection settings to the active profile's .env file. For the default profile that is ~/.hermes/.env; for a named profile use ~/.hermes/profiles/<profile>/.env.

OPENVIKING_ENDPOINT=http://127.0.0.1:1933
# OPENVIKING_API_KEY=...
# OPENVIKING_ACCOUNT=default
# OPENVIKING_USER=default
# OPENVIKING_AGENT=hermes

Config

OpenViking's server config is separate from Hermes:

• ov.conf configures OpenViking storage, embedding/VLM models, auth, and server behavior. OpenViking reads it from --config, OPENVIKING_CONFIG_FILE, or ~/.openviking/ov.conf.
• ovcli.conf stores client/CLI connection values such as url, api_key, account, and user. It is read from OPENVIKING_CLI_CONFIG_FILE or ~/.openviking/ovcli.conf.

Hermes-side provider config is read from environment variables in the active profile's .env:

Env Var	Default	Description
OPENVIKING_ENDPOINT	http://127.0.0.1:1933	Server URL
OPENVIKING_API_KEY	(none)	User/admin API key for authenticated servers
OPENVIKING_ACCOUNT	default	Tenant account for local/trusted mode
OPENVIKING_USER	default	Tenant user for local/trusted mode
OPENVIKING_AGENT	hermes	Hermes peer ID in OpenViking, used for peer-scoped memories

When OPENVIKING_API_KEY is set, Hermes lets OpenViking derive account/user identity from the key. In local or trusted deployments without an API key, Hermes sends OPENVIKING_ACCOUNT and OPENVIKING_USER as identity headers. Hermes also sends User-Agent: openviking-memory-hermes/<version> on OpenViking requests. This standard harness identifier contains the Hermes version, but no per-user identifier, and does not add a separate request.

Tools

Tool	Description
viking_search	Semantic search with fast/deep/auto modes
viking_read	Read content at a viking:// URI (abstract/overview/full)
viking_browse	Filesystem-style navigation (list/tree/stat)
viking_remember	Store a fact directly with OpenViking content/write
viking_forget	Delete one exact viking:// memory file URI
viking_add_resource	Ingest URLs/docs into the knowledge base

Memory Writes And Deletes

viking_remember writes directly to OpenViking with POST /api/v1/content/write and mode=create. It creates peer-scoped memory files under explicit-uid viking://user/<user>/peers/${OPENVIKING_AGENT}/memories/... URIs, where <user> is resolved client-side from /api/v1/system/status (server-asserted current user). Hermes caches a confirmed user only for the active connection. If the probe fails, Hermes uses the configured user, or default, for that operation and retries the probe later. Explicit-uid URIs are canonical and work under every OpenViking auth mode and version; the viking://~ alias only expands for USER/ADMIN roles, not the default dev mode. Explicit remembers do not depend on session commit extraction.

Hermes built-in memory tool additions are mirrored to OpenViking after the local memory operation succeeds:

Hermes action	OpenViking operation
add	content/write with mode=create under the configured peer memory namespace

Built-in replace and remove operations are not mirrored because Hermes native memory entries do not yet carry stable OpenViking file URIs. Use viking_forget when the user explicitly asks to delete a specific OpenViking memory URI.

viking_forget is intentionally narrow. It only accepts concrete user memory file URIs, such as viking://user/default/peers/hermes/memories/preferences/mem_abc123.md (any explicit user id works; viking://~/... input is passed through untouched for deployments where the server expands the home alias). Files directly under memories/, such as viking://user/default/memories/profile.md, are also allowed because OpenViking supports them. The tool rejects directories, resources, skills, sessions, generated summary files, and URIs with query strings or fragments. Use OpenViking's MCP, CLI, or admin APIs for broader resource and directory cleanup.