Most people run one AI agent in one chat window and call it a system. The Hermes agent Paperclip combo is what happens when you stop doing that: Paperclip gives you the company, Hermes gives you the employees, and you get promoted to CEO. This page is the exact method I use to run it.
One bit of housekeeping first. I have already published a full review of the platform itself — The AI Org Chart That Works — so if you want the tool-by-tool rundown, read that. This is the companion piece: the operating procedure. I call it the GOLDIE Method, and it takes you from an empty dashboard to an autonomous AI company that messages you when the work is done.
📺 Watch: Paperclip + Hermes Agent Changed Everything!
What You Are Actually Building
Think of it as an employee and a company. The Hermes agent, built by Nous Research, is the employee. It does not just answer questions — it does things. It runs locally, ships with 30 native tools and 80 skills, keeps persistent memory across sessions, and works with multiple model providers. Give it a job, it does the job, it reports back.
Paperclip is the company. It is open-source, free and self-hosted, and it looks like a task manager — but under the hood it is a full company operating system: an org chart, a ticketing system, scheduled heartbeats that wake your agents up, governance, a mobile-ready dashboard and multi-company support. You can even give each agent a token budget so nobody quietly burns through your API spend.
The Hermes Agent Paperclip Setup, Step By Step
There are two pieces to set up: Paperclip itself and the Hermes agent adapter that connects the two. The flow is simple — get the adapter, then ask Hermes to set it up for you.
- Install Paperclip. It is one command — or get Claude Code to do it for you. The platform spins up automatically: no database setup, no server configuration, no coding.
- Connect the adapter. Grab the Hermes adapter and ask Hermes to wire itself in.
- Budget the time. Roughly 30 to 60 minutes to configure everything properly.
Your agents do not all have to be Hermes, either. There are seven adapter choices, including Claude Code, Hermes, OpenCode, Codex, Pi and Cursor — I have covered the Hermes and OpenCode integration separately if you want to pair those two. And if you are still deciding what machine should host all this, my guide to the best OS for the Hermes agent covers that side of it.
📺 Watch: Hermes: Agent OS + Obsidian + Kanban + Paperclip
The GOLDIE Method: Six Steps To An Autonomous AI Company
This is the heart of it. I built the GOLDIE Method so I would never skip a step: Goal, Org chart, Launch, Delegate, Iterate, Expand. Run them in order.
G — Goal: Set The Mission
In Paperclip, the first thing you set is the mission. Mine is simple: help grow the AI Profit Boardroom. Every agent in the company works toward it. This matters more than people realise — agents need a why, not just a task. A mission is what turns a pile of tickets into a company.
O — Org Chart: Build The Team
Next, build the team — every role, every reporting line, every job description, all as AI agents. In my company that means a CEO agent managing a Chief Marketing Officer who manages a Facebook marketing specialist, plus a Hermes engineer and a Hermes tester — alongside the roles you would expect: CTO, marketing, SEO, support. They run 24/7, and mixed adapters are welcome. Deciding which model powers which role is where my own testing earns its keep: the Goldie Bench side-by-sides tell me which model I trust in each seat.
If you want an AI team doing real work while you sleep, the AI Profit Boardroom has the full Paperclip + Hermes operating procedure and 100 setup prompts inside. → Get the operating procedure
L — Launch: Hit Go
Then you launch. Agents wake on their scheduled heartbeats, check their tasks, do the work and report back. You watch it all from the dashboard — recent activity, live updates — like a CEO wandering the office floor without having to make small talk.
D — Delegate: Assign Work Like A Real CEO
Delegation works the way it does in a real company. Create a new issue — mine was to build an SEO strategy for the AI Profit Boardroom — add a description, assign an agent. It picks the task up and runs with it. Agents work in parallel and share the mission context, so nobody needs the backstory explained twice. No babysitting, no reminders, no chasing.
I — Iterate: Review, Approve, Redirect
Results come back to you, and you steer. When my keyword work came in, I replied with one line — go more specific on best AI agent community keywords — and the agent queued it up and did it. That is the posture the whole method rests on: you are the board of directors, the agents are staff. You stay in control without doing the work yourself.
E — Expand: More Goals, More Agents, More Companies
Once one company runs smoothly, expand: more goals, more agents, more tools — even more companies. I run one for Julian Goldie and one for Goldie Agency, with different teams and different missions. This is the strange milestone the method leads to: you stop managing agents and start managing companies made of them.
What A Working Day Actually Looks Like
Day to day, most of it happens in your inbox. Agents message you when tasks complete. One morning I woke up to find my Hermes tester had finished a full round of AI SEO keyword research overnight — keywords, competition breakdown, the lot — automated in the background while I slept. Another time, an agent produced a complete SEO strategy live while I was presenting: priority keywords, technical SEO, a link-building plan, quick wins for the first two weeks and the key metrics to track. I did not touch a keyboard for any of it.
For me, this sits inside a bigger picture. My wider Agent OS is the broader agentic operating system I run everything on, and Paperclip-style team coordination is one layer of it — the layer that turns individual agents into an organisation. I unpack the full architecture in my piece on the agentic operating system if you want to see how the layers fit together.
📺 Watch: Hermes + Paperclip Just Changed AI Agents Forever
Paperclip vs Hermes Workspace vs Aeon UI
These three get lumped together, but they solve different problems.
| Platform | Best for | What it manages | Team support |
|---|---|---|---|
| Paperclip | Running a team of agents across multiple platforms | Org chart, ticketing, heartbeats, governance, token budgets | Yes — coordinated agents with a shared mission |
| Hermes Workspace | Running one Hermes agent well | A basic UI for managing a single Hermes agent | No — one agent at a time |
| Aeon UI | Managing chat conversations | Conversations in a chat interface | No — no org chart, no shared goal, no coordination |
Hermes Workspace is genuinely great for a single agent — I walk through it in my Hermes agent web UI guide, and I have ranked the alternatives in my best Hermes web UI round-up. Aeon UI is a different use case entirely: a chat interface for managing conversations, with no org chart, no shared goal and no team coordination. And if you are tempted to combine Aeon with Paperclip, do not bother — it is pointless extra complexity. Go straight to Paperclip.
The Mindset Shift Behind Hermes Agent Paperclip
The old belief: AI is a tool you use. Like a calculator — ask, get an answer, move on. The new belief: AI is a workforce you manage. Everything in the GOLDIE Method falls out of that one swap, and together the stack proves it daily — agents wake on schedule, pick tasks off the ticketing system, do real work with your tools, remember everything across sessions and report back, all within budgets you set. In my view it is the most powerful autonomous stack for AI agents right now.
Three objections come up every time I show this:
- Agents are just chat, like ChatGPT. No. These agents use tools, search the web, edit files, run code, manage tasks and remember what they did last week. Hermes alone carries 30 tools and 80 skills.
- It is too technical for me. If you can run a WhatsApp group, you can run Paperclip — and Claude Code can handle the install for you.
- I already use Claude and ChatGPT. Claude on its own is one freelancer. Paperclip with Hermes is a whole company: one agent on SEO, one on content, one on support, one on social — coordinating and reporting to each other 24/7.
Who Actually Wins With This
Here is the honest enterprise reality: big companies cannot just wire agents into their internal documents — there are approval layers in the way. Which means solopreneurs, agencies and small teams have the speed advantage. You can set a mission, build an org chart and have agents working tonight, while the corporates are still scheduling the meeting about the meeting.
Hermes Agent Paperclip FAQ
Is Paperclip free?
Yes — it is open-source, free and self-hosted. Your running costs are model usage, and Paperclip lets you set token budgets per agent so the spend stays capped.
Do all my agents have to be Hermes?
No. There are seven adapter choices — including Claude Code, Hermes, OpenCode, Codex, Pi and Cursor — and you can mix them freely within one org chart.
How long does setup take?
The install is one command, or hand it to Claude Code, and the platform spins up automatically with no database or server setup. Allow roughly 30 to 60 minutes to configure everything properly.
Should I use Paperclip or Hermes Workspace?
If you want one agent, Hermes Workspace is a solid, simple UI. If you want a team of agents across multiple platforms working toward a shared goal, Paperclip — every time.
Can I run more than one company?
Yes — multi-company support is built in. I run separate companies for Julian Goldie and Goldie Agency, each with its own team and its own mission.
My Verdict
The Hermes agent Paperclip stack is, in my view, the most powerful autonomous setup you can run right now — and the GOLDIE Method is how you actually operate it: set the Goal, build the Org chart, Launch, Delegate, Iterate, Expand. Set aside an hour this week, install it, and let the first finished task land in your inbox while you are doing something else entirely.
If you want to run an AI company instead of just chatting with a bot, check out the AI Profit Boardroom — inside you get the full GOLDIE Method system with step-by-step operating procedures, daily guides with video tutorials, four weekly live coaching calls, and me answering your questions with a video each day. → Join the Boardroom and build your org chart
