Hermes: Your 24/7 AI Assistant, Dummy-Proof Setup
🪽 1. What Is Hermes?
Hermes is a free, open source AI agent made by Nous Research. Think of it as an employee that never logs off: it has its own memory, learns your business over time, and you talk to it from your phone. Unlike Claude Code, it does not die when you close your laptop, because it does not live on your laptop. It lives on a tiny rented server that stays on forever.
Prefer to watch first? This walkthrough covers the same setup:
🧾 2. What You Need (3 Things)
No coding. No terminal experience. Every command below is copy, paste, press Enter. If a step shows a green "You should see" box, check it matches before moving on. If something looks different, jump to Section 8 and it will get you unstuck.
- Go to hostinger.com, open VPS Hosting, pick the KVM 2 plan. Choose the datacenter closest to you.
- When it asks for an operating system, pick Ubuntu 24.04 (the plain one, no extra panels or templates).
- Set a root password when asked. Write it down somewhere safe. This is the master key to your server.
- Once the server shows as running, open your VPS in hPanel and click Browser terminal. A black window opens in your browser. That is your server. Log in as
rootwith your password.
Copy this whole line, paste it into the black window, press Enter, and let it run. It installs everything Hermes needs by itself.
curl -fsSL https://hermes-agent.nousresearch.com/install.sh | bash
When it finishes, run this so your server recognizes the new hermes command:
source ~/.bashrc
Now give Hermes a brain. This connects it to an AI model. The Portal route is the simplest: it opens a login link, you create a Nous account, add a few dollars of credit, done.
hermes setup --portal
Prefer your own key? Run hermes model instead. It walks you through picking any provider (OpenRouter, OpenAI, and others) and pasting a key. Either path works. Portal is fewer steps.
Final check for this step:
hermes doctor
Hermes has one wizard that connects every messaging app. You run it, pick your app, paste one token. Telegram is the fastest. Discord is better if your team lives there. Pick one now, add the other whenever.
- In Telegram, search @BotFather and open it
- Send
/newbot. Name it whatever you want, like Hermes Ops - BotFather replies with a token (long code). Copy it
- On your server run:
hermes gateway setup - Pick Telegram in the wizard, paste the token
- Open your new bot in Telegram and send it "hey"
- Go to discord.com/developers/applications, click New Application
- Open the Bot tab, copy the token
- Same tab: turn ON all three Privileged Gateway Intents
- Invite it to your server (OAuth2 URL generator, scope: bot)
- On your server run:
hermes gateway setup, pick Discord, paste the token - Say "hey" to it in your server
Right now Hermes stops if you close the browser terminal. This command installs it as a permanent service: starts when the server boots, restarts itself if it ever crashes, runs forever.
hermes gateway install
Check it took:
hermes gateway status
Here is the part nobody tells beginners: you do not configure Hermes with files and settings. You just tell it things in chat, like onboarding a new hire. It saves what matters to its own memory. Send it these three messages from your phone, one at a time, edited with your details.
Why the 8pm message changes behavior: a reminder app is easy to swipe away. A team member with memory asking "you committed to 3 proposals today, how many went out?" is not. Hermes brings receipts from the morning. That pressure is the product.
Right now Hermes is smart but knows nothing about YOUR agency. This step gives it your SOPs, your processes, and your client docs, so it answers from your playbook instead of generic knowledge. Two levels. Level 1 takes zero setup. Level 2 gives it a whole synced library.
Hermes saves what you send it. So literally text it your documents, one message each:
This puts a full folder of your documents on Hermes's server and keeps it synced. You do NOT need to know git. It is drag and drop plus three commands.
- Go to github.com and create a free account if you do not have one.
- Click New repository. Name it
agency-brain. Set it to Private. Click Create. - On the new repo page, click the "uploading an existing file" link. Drag in your SOPs, processes, and client docs (markdown, text, or PDFs). Click Commit changes. That is your brain, in the cloud.
- In the Hostinger browser terminal, install GitHub's tool and log in:
apt install gh -y gh auth login
Pick GitHub.com, then HTTPS, then Login with a web browser. It shows you a short code. Open the link on your phone, type the code, approve. That is the whole login.
- Now clone your brain onto the server (swap in your GitHub username):
gh repo clone YOUR_USERNAME/agency-brain ~/agency-brain
- Last move: tell Hermes the brain exists. Send this from your phone:
One rule before you upload: only put in documents the bot is allowed to talk about. If your team will ever message this bot, keep deal terms, financials, and anything personal OUT of the repo. A rule in its soul saying "do not share X" is weak protection. The only real boundary is what is on the server. Curate the folder, not the promises.
⚙️ 6. What to Actually Use Hermes For (Agency Edition)
You run an ads agency, so here is the real playbook. Twelve jobs, grouped by what they run. Each card shows the exact message to send Hermes to set it up. Steal them word for word.
⚔️ 7. Claude Code vs Hermes: Which Tool for Which Job
You now own two AI workers. Students mix them up in week 1, so lock this in now. Claude Code is your senior builder at a workstation. Hermes is your ops chief with a phone. Different employees, different jobs.
| CLAUDE CODE | HERMES | |
|---|---|---|
| Where it lives | Your laptop, inside a work session | A server, online 24/7 |
| How you use it | Sitting down, deep work, you drive every step | Texting from anywhere, it drives itself between your messages |
| Its superpower | Building complex things with you in the loop | Schedules, memory, and follow-through without you |
| Dies when | You close the lid | It does not. That is the point. |
| Best session length | 30 min to 3 hours of focus | 15 seconds, 40 times a day |
| Think of it as | Your senior builder | Your ops chief |
Now the same split applied to your actual agency week:
| Agency task | Give it to |
|---|---|
| Build a client landing page or diagnosis funnel | CLAUDE CODE |
| Batch 20 ad copy variations for a test | CLAUDE CODE |
| Set up and edit campaigns through the Meta MCP | CLAUDE CODE |
| Build client dashboards, reports, internal tools | CLAUDE CODE |
| Design pages and ad creatives in Paper | CLAUDE CODE |
| Send the morning brief and run the 8pm accountability check | HERMES |
| Chase the client who owes creatives since Tuesday | HERMES |
| Draft a lead reply while you are at lunch | HERMES |
| Remember every client decision ever made | HERMES |
| Collect team standups in Discord and summarize | HERMES |
| Prep you for the 2pm client call | HERMES |
| Research 5 prospects overnight into pitch dossiers | HERMES |
The golden rule: Claude Code builds it, Hermes runs it. If the job needs your hands on a keyboard and your judgment in the loop, Claude Code. If the job needs to happen at a specific time, from your phone, or while you sleep, Hermes. When both could do it, ask who should own the follow-up. The follow-up owner is Hermes, every time.
How they team up: Claude Code builds the diagnosis funnel in an afternoon session. Hermes watches the leads come in, drafts your replies, and reminds you at 8pm that you promised the client a report. One builds the machine, the other keeps the machine and YOU running.
🔧 8. If Something Breaks (4 Fixes Cover Almost Everything)
| Problem | Fix |
|---|---|
| Bot stopped replying | In the browser terminal: hermes gateway status. If it is down: hermes gateway install again, then test. |
| Anything feels broken | hermes doctor. It diagnoses itself and tells you what to do. |
| Weird errors after a while | hermes update then check status. Old versions cause most mystery bugs. |
| Everything else | Ask Hermes itself. Seriously: "your telegram connection seems broken, how do I fix it?" It knows its own setup better than any forum. Or paste the error into Claude. |
Two safety rules, then you are free: put a monthly spend cap on your model account (start at $25) so a runaway task cannot surprise you. And treat your bot token like a password: anyone who has it IS your bot. That is the entire security lecture.
✅ 9. Homework: Hermes Live Tonight
The compounding play: week 1 it is a reminder machine. Week 4 it knows your clients, your patterns, and your excuses. Week 12 it runs your mornings and drafts half your client communication. It gets smarter the longer it runs, so the best day to start was today anyway.