Hermes Agent Bot Mode is a feature in the Hermes desktop app that turns your profiles into a roster of named Bots, each with its own role, model, memory, skills, avatar and one permanent chat. It's built in and on by default. You build a specialist once, and it's there every time you open the app, one click away.
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Quick heads-up before we start. This is not about Telegram, Discord or Slack bots. Those are messaging bots connected through the gateway, and I cover them in my Hermes Agent bot guide. This page is only about the desktop's Bot Mode.
If you want to build a team of Bots alongside other people doing the same thing, the AI Profit Boardroom is where I share my setups and walk through them live.
What a Bot actually is
There's no new thing to learn here. A Bot is a Hermes profile. Same isolated config, memory, skills, credentials and chat history, all living under ~/.hermes/profiles/ with the Bot's name.
The Hermes docs put it simply: a Bot Mode bot is a profile presented as a named entry in the desktop roster, with an avatar and a persistent Bot Chat.
Every Bot is a profile. But not every profile is a Bot. A profile becomes a Bot when Bot Mode stores its roster look (title, avatar, section, hidden state) in the profile's metadata and pins its Bot Chat. A profile you only ever run from the CLI, Docker or a gateway stays a plain profile.
Because it's the same profile underneath, everything is visible from the terminal too. hermes -p with the Bot's name opens the same agent, and the Bot's routines show up in hermes cron list.
Bot Mode is not Bot Screen
People mix these up. Bot Screen gives each bot its own desktop on a headless Linux gateway host, so you can watch it work and take over at a login or CAPTCHA. Bot Mode is the roster, the chats, the routines and the group rooms. If Bot Screen is what you're after, read my Hermes Bot Screen guide.
What Hermes Agent Bot Mode adds on top of plain profiles
Your profiles keep working exactly as before. Bot Mode adds what a profile alone lacks.
| With plain profiles | With Bot Mode |
|---|---|
| A pile of sessions per profile | One permanent Bot Chat per Bot |
| Switch profiles to talk to a different specialist | Every Bot sits in one roster with avatar, latest message and unread state |
| Profiles never talk to each other | Bots message each other and share group chats |
| Scheduled jobs live apart from any chat | Each Bot's routines sit right beside its chat |
You'll find it as a Bots tab next to Sessions in the left sidebar, with a Routines tile docked beside the conversation while the Bots tab is open.
The Bot Chat is a forever-chat
Click a Bot and you land in its Bot Chat. It's created and pinned the moment the Bot is born, and a row click always opens that same conversation.
Here's the clever bit. If you type /new or /reset inside a Bot Chat, Hermes doesn't fork off a fresh session. It reroutes to /compact instead. You get fresh working context in the same conversation. Regular sessions on that profile still get full /new freedom.
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How to create a Bot
Hit New Agent in the roster. The quick path is three fields:
- Name
- Title
- Description
The Bot exists in seconds and introduces itself as the first message of its new Bot Chat.
Open the Advanced section and you get the full control panel:
- Clone from an existing profile to start from another Bot's config, skills, SOUL and memory, or pick a fresh profile.
- Create empty to skip the bundled skills for a minimal profile.
- Model and provider pin so each Bot can run its own model. Different Bots can run different models side by side.
- Custom SOUL.md for the Bot's persona and standing instructions.
- Per-skill, per-toolset and per-MCP-server switches so the specialist gets only what it needs.
- Copy API keys from the main profile, on by default. Static API keys get copied. Single-use OAuth logins don't, so you sign the Bot in separately.
Every Bot gets a face too. Blob faces are drawn from the Bot's name by default, and you can also use geometric faces, an uploaded image, an AI-generated portrait if an image backend is set up, or a pixel pet.
Want help deciding which Bots your business actually needs? Grab a free AI strategy session.
📺 Watch: Grok Bot DESTROYS Hermes Agent?
Routines: scheduled work that lives with the Bot
The Routines pane attaches recurring tasks to the Bot that does them. The docs use the example "summarize my inbox every morning", which lives right next to the Bot responsible for it.
A schedule picker builds the timing for you, frequency first, then just the detail that matters. An Advanced field shows the raw Hermes schedule string if you want it.
Under the hood, routines are plain Hermes cron jobs, named with the Bot's name in brackets in front of the routine name. They show up in hermes cron list and the core Cron page. And the runs land in the Bot's own chat history, so the result is exactly where you'd go to talk to that Bot anyway.
Continuity: stop routines repeating themselves
Recurring jobs normally start every run with amnesia. A news scout re-reports the same stories. A monitor re-alerts on the same thing.
Turn on continuity and each run sees its own most recent output, so it can skip what it already covered and pick up where it left off. The first run has nothing before it, so it just runs as normal. The docs confirm the continuity toggle appears in the desktop Bot Mode routine dialog, as well as in the CLI and the dashboard's cron editor.
Group chats and @mentions
A group chat holds 2 to 6 Bots in one shared room.
- Your message kicks off up to three rounds of member turns.
- Mention specific Bots and only they respond. Mention nobody and everyone gets a turn.
- Each Bot replies briefly or passes. Not every Bot speaks every time.
- Bots pull each other in with an @ and their name, and escalate real decisions to you with @user. The group row then shows a needs-you badge.
- Hard caps of 10 messages per send and 3 rounds stop rooms from spinning forever.
- When every member is on the same gateway, the room keeps running even if you close the desktop app.
Right-click a Bot and pick Manage groups to add it to as many group chats as you like.
@mentions in any chat
You don't need a group room to hand work off. Type something like "@researcher have a look at this" in any chat. The autocomplete helps you pick the right Bot. The active Bot then writes its own message to the researcher and sends it. Your text isn't forwarded word for word, and the reply comes back attributed to the Bot that sent it.
Inside Bot Chats, Bots can also message each other directly with the message_agent tool. Every Bot Chat's system prompt includes the teammate roster with names and roles, so each Bot knows who does what before it picks someone.
Managing and removing Bots
Right-click any Bot for the main options:
- Edit Profile reopens the full setup: avatar, title, description, model pin, skills, toolsets, MCP servers and SOUL.md.
- Duplicate makes a full clone, including config, skills, SOUL.md, memory and look.
- Hide Bot takes it out of the roster without breaking anything. @mentions still resolve, group memberships stay, and routines keep running. An eye toggle shows hidden Bots again.
- Move to section files Bots into your own folders, like Clients or Team. Deleting a section never deletes the Bots in it.
- Delete Profile permanently removes the Bot behind a confirmation. The default profile can't be deleted.
One more thing: archiving a Bot Chat retires it. The next click on that Bot starts a fresh conversation that becomes the new Bot Chat. The automatic idle-archive sweep never retires a Bot Chat. Only an explicit archive does.
Use-case ideas for your Bot roster
The docs themselves point at named specialists like a researcher and an inbox summary routine. Here's how I'd set up a starter team:
- Researcher. Web and browser tools on, a SOUL.md that says to cite sources. Give it a daily routine with continuity so it only reports new stuff.
- Writer. Writing skills, your brand voice in its SOUL.md, and a model you like for drafting. @mention it from the researcher's chat to hand off.
- Inbox assistant. A morning routine that summarizes your inbox, with results landing in its Bot Chat.
- Content room. Put researcher, writer and an editor Bot in one group chat. Ask a question with no mentions and let them work it out over three rounds.
Keep each Bot narrow. A specialist with only the tools it needs is easier to trust than one Bot that does everything. If you're new to all this, start with my guide on how to learn creating AI agents.
For the full system I use to run agents every day, read my Agent OS guide. To see how different models perform on real tasks before you pin one to a Bot, check Goldie Bench.
Want templates, live help and my exact Bot setups? Join the AI Profit Boardroom for $69/mo, with 4 live calls a week. Or book a free AI strategy session and we'll plan your roster together.
FAQ
Do I need to install Bot Mode?
No. Bot Mode ships built into the Hermes desktop app and is on by default. You'll see a Bots tab next to Sessions in the left sidebar.
Is a Bot different from a Hermes profile?
Underneath, no. Every Bot is a profile with its own config, memory, skills and credentials. Bot Mode adds the roster entry, avatar, permanent Bot Chat, routines and group chats on top.
How many Bots can be in a group chat?
A group chat holds 2 to 6 Bots. Each message triggers up to three rounds of turns, with a cap of 10 messages per send.
Do Bot routines show up in the CLI?
Yes. Routines are ordinary Hermes cron jobs named with the Bot's name, so they appear in hermes cron list and on the core Cron page, and their runs land in the Bot's own chat.
