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Starting Hermes

Run hermes from your terminal to open the interactive TUI: 
hermes
If you haven’t run setup yet, you’ll be prompted to configure a provider. You can also run the full setup wizard at any time: 
hermes setup

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The TUI

Hermes uses prompt_toolkit for a full terminal UI:
  • Multiline editing — press Meta+Enter (or Esc then Enter) to insert a newline; press Enter to send
  • Slash command autocomplete — type / and press Tab to cycle through completions; subcommands and model names also complete
  • Ghost-text suggestions — as you type a slash command, the rest appears in dim text
  • Streaming tool output — the ┊ activity feed shows each tool call as it runs
  • Interrupt and redirect — press Ctrl+C to cancel the agent mid-run; your next message becomes the new instruction

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Slash commands

Type /help at any time to see all available commands. Every command resolves its aliases automatically, so /reset and /new both start a new session.

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Session commands

CommandAliasesArgsDescription
/new/reset—Start a fresh session (new session ID + history)
/clear——Clear the screen and start a new session
/retry——Resend the last user message to the agent
/undo——Remove the last user/assistant exchange
/title—[name]Set a title for the current session
/compress——Manually compress conversation context
/rollback—[number]List or restore filesystem checkpoints
/stop——Kill all running background processes
/background/bg<prompt>Run a prompt in the background
/resume—[name]Resume a previously-named session
/history——Show conversation history
/save——Save the current conversation

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Configuration commands

CommandAliasesArgsDescription
/model—[provider:model]Show or change the current model
/provider——Show available providers and current provider
/personality—[name]Set a predefined personality
/skin—[name]Show or change the display skin/theme
/voice—[on|off|tts|status]Toggle voice mode
/reasoning—[level|show|hide]Manage reasoning effort and display
/prompt—[text]View or set a custom system prompt
/verbose——Cycle tool progress: off → new → all → verbose
/statusbar/sb—Toggle the context/model status bar
/config——Show current configuration

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Tools & Skills commands

CommandAliasesArgsDescription
/tools—[list|disable|enable] [name...]Manage tools
/toolsets——List available toolsets
/skills—[search|browse|inspect|install]Search, install, and manage skills
/cron—[subcommand]Manage scheduled tasks
/browser—[connect|disconnect|status]Connect browser tools via CDP
/reload-mcp/reload_mcp—Reload MCP servers from config
/plugins——List installed plugins and their status
CommandAliasesArgsDescription
/help——Show available commands
/usage——Show token usage for the current session
/insights—[days]Show usage insights and analytics
/platforms/gateway—Show gateway/messaging platform status
/paste——Check clipboard for an image and attach it
CommandAliasesDescription
/quit/exit, /qExit the CLI

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Keyboard shortcuts

KeyAction
EnterSend message
Meta+Enter / Esc then EnterInsert a newline (multiline)
Ctrl+CInterrupt the running agent turn
TabAutocomplete slash command or subcommand
↑ / ↓Navigate input history
Ctrl+LClear the screen

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Session management

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Starting and resetting

Each hermes invocation starts (or resumes) a session. To start completely fresh: 
/new
Session IDs are displayed in the welcome banner. You can name a session with /title my-project and resume it later with /resume my-project.

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Retrying and undoing

  • /retry — resends your last message. Useful when the agent took a wrong turn.
  • /undo — removes the last user/assistant exchange from context. The agent won’t see that turn happened.

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Context compression

As conversations grow, context usage approaches the model’s limit. Hermes handles this in two ways: Auto-compression fires automatically when prompt token usage reaches the configured threshold (default: 50% of context length). The middle turns of the conversation are summarized by a fast auxiliary model (default: google/gemini-3-flash-preview), keeping the first three and last four turns intact. Manual compression via /compress triggers the same process immediately — useful before a complex task to free up space. Configure compression in ~/.hermes/config.yaml: 
compression:
  enabled: true
  threshold: 0.50       # Compress at 50% of context limit
  summary_model: "google/gemini-3-flash-preview"

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Filesystem rollback

Hermes takes a filesystem snapshot before destructive file operations (write, patch) once per conversation turn. To list checkpoints: 
/rollback
To restore a specific checkpoint: 
/rollback 3

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Background tasks

Run any prompt in the background without blocking your conversation: 
/background run the test suite and summarize failures
/bg deploy the staging branch
The agent spawns the task and returns immediately. Progress notifications appear in your chat as the background process runs. Control verbosity with /verbose or the display.background_process_notifications config key.

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Personalities

Personalities apply a predefined system prompt addendum to shape the agent’s tone and style. Switch at any time: 
/personality kawaii
/personality concise
/personality technical
Built-in personalities include kawaii, concise, technical, creative, teacher, catgirl, pirate, shakespeare, surfer, noir, uwu, philosopher, and hype. You can define custom personalities in config.yaml under the personalities key.

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Skins and themes

The skin system customizes banner colors, spinner faces, tool prefix, response box label, and branding text. Change at runtime: 
/skin
/skin ares
/skin mono

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Built-in skins

SkinDescription
defaultClassic Hermes — gold and kawaii
aresWar-god theme — crimson and bronze, with spinner wings
monoMonochrome — clean grayscale
slateCool blue — developer-focused
poseidonOcean-god theme — deep blue and seafoam
sisyphusAustere grayscale with persistence theming
charizardVolcanic theme — burnt orange and ember
To set a skin permanently, add it to ~/.hermes/config.yaml: 
display:
  skin: slate

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Custom skins

Drop a YAML file in ~/.hermes/skins/<name>.yaml. All fields are optional — missing values inherit from the default skin: 
name: cyberpunk
description: Neon-soaked terminal theme

colors:
  banner_border: "#FF00FF"
  banner_title: "#00FFFF"
  banner_accent: "#FF1493"

spinner:
  thinking_verbs: ["jacking in", "decrypting", "uploading"]
  wings:
    - ["⟨⚡", "⚡⟩"]

branding:
  agent_name: "Cyber Agent"
  response_label: " ⚡ Cyber "

tool_prefix: "▏"
Activate with /skin cyberpunk.

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Voice mode

Hermes supports speech-to-text input and text-to-speech output. 
/voice on        # Enable voice input (press Ctrl+B to record)
/voice tts       # Enable TTS for agent responses
/voice status    # Show current voice settings
/voice off       # Disable voice
Voice input uses faster-whisper locally by default (no API key needed). TTS defaults to Microsoft Edge TTS (free). See the Configuration page for provider options.

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