Type /bg followed by a prompt and Hermes agent /bg hands that prompt to a separate background session — the agent works on it independently while your current session stays completely free. When the task finishes, the result comes back to you: as a panel in the CLI, or delivered straight into the chat you sent it from if you fired it off through a messaging platform. That is the entire trick, and it has quietly become one of my most-used Hermes commands, because a twenty-minute research job no longer holds my main conversation hostage.
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In this guide I will cover what /bg does, the syntax, where the results land, the /bg versus /btw mix-up that catches almost everyone, and how it compares with bot mode and subagents. I am Julian Goldie, and these days I run more background tasks than foreground ones.
What the Hermes agent /bg command actually does
The Hermes agent /bg command runs your prompt in a separate background session. That word — separate — is the one that matters. You are not pausing your current session, and you are not asking the agent you are mid-conversation with to juggle two things at once. Hermes processes the /bg prompt independently, in its own session, and the session you are sitting in stays free. You keep chatting and firing off other requests while the background task grinds away until it is done.
Because /bg starts a fresh, separate session, I treat every /bg prompt like a brief for a freelancer who has not read my chat history. I put the full context into the prompt itself — goal, format, constraints — rather than assuming the background session knows what I have been discussing. Vague /bg prompts come back vague; self-contained ones come back exactly right. That one habit decides whether /bg feels magical or like a lucky dip.
Syntax and where the /bg results land
The syntax is as simple as slash commands get: /bg followed by your prompt, all in one message. A real one from my week: /bg followed by a request to compare five rank-tracking tools' pricing pages and summarise the differences. Send it, forget it, carry on working — no flags to memorise, no setup steps.
Where the output lands depends on where you fired it from, and this is documented behaviour rather than my guesswork:
- In the CLI — the /bg result appears as a panel when the task finishes, so it waits for you rather than shouting over whatever you are doing.
- On messaging platforms — /bg works through the messaging gateway too, and the result is delivered back to the originating chat. Fire a task off from your phone and the answer lands in that same conversation.
Both points are confirmed in the official slash-commands reference, which I would genuinely bookmark — /bg sits in a family of short commands that look similar and behave very differently.
Quick pause: if you like the idea of background agents doing real work while you get on with your day, that is precisely what I teach — come and grab my Hermes background-task playbook inside AI Profit Lab. Prefer to map it onto your own business first? Book a free SEO strategy session and I will walk you through it one to one.
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Hermes agent /bg vs /btw — the mix-up half the community makes
This is the section to memorise, because the official docs contrast these two commands directly. /bg runs a prompt in a separate background session — independent work on a new task. /btw is for asking a question about the current conversation without interrupting it — a side note inside the session you are already in. One spins up something new elsewhere; the other stays exactly where you are. I have broken the second one down properly in my /btw command guide.
People genuinely do confuse them. The unofficial Hermes Release Watch cheat sheet from 5 September 2026 listed /bg among the commands worth knowing, and in the chatter around it one user admitted they had been using /bg for ages when what they actually wanted was /btw. It is an easy mistake — both feel like "do this on the side" — but use /bg for a question about your current conversation and you have shipped it off to a separate session when /btw would have answered it in place.
My rule of thumb: a new task that stands on its own gets /bg. A question about what is already on the screen gets /btw. Say it twice and you will never mix them up again.
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/bg vs bot mode and subagents
/bg is not the only way Hermes runs work in parallel, so it is worth placing it against the other options. Bot mode gives you a roster of named bots for parallel work — standing characters with their own jobs, which I covered in my bot mode guide. Subagents are workers spun up inside a task, and since v0.21 you can steer those live while they run. And if you are wondering what happens when you message an agent that is mid-task, that is governed by the busy-behaviour controls, which are a separate lever entirely.
Here is my mental model. /bg is the one-off: fire a single task into the background and collect the result later. Bot mode is the standing team: named bots you return to again and again for ongoing streams of work. Subagents are the machinery a task manages for itself. For most people /bg is the right starting point — zero setup, and because it runs in its own separate session, nothing in your main conversation collides with it. That is why it is my default for anything longer than a couple of minutes.
Practical ways I use /bg every day
None of this needs clever syntax — the bit after /bg is just a normal prompt. These are the patterns that earn their keep:
- Long research while I keep chatting. Competitor breakdowns, keyword clustering notes, summarise-everything-on-this-topic jobs — anything slow goes to /bg while my main session stays on the task in front of me.
- Drafts that should not block the main thread. If I am mid-flow on one article, the outline for the next one gets sent to the background rather than derailing the session I am in.
- The walk-away batch. Before I step out, I fire two or three /bg tasks in a row. In the CLI the results wait for me as panels; from my phone they arrive back in the chat. Either way I return to finished work instead of a to-do list.
All of this sits inside my wider Agent OS setup, where background work is the default rather than the exception. When I want to know whether a workflow genuinely runs better in the background, I do not guess — Goldie Bench is where I test and log that sort of thing. And when a background run comes back better than expected, I make that permanent — my /learn command guide covers how I bake those lessons into the agent for good.
/bg, /btw or a bot? My quick decision table
| Situation | What I reach for |
|---|---|
| A research task I want in twenty minutes, not right now | /bg — separate background session, main session stays free |
| A quick question about the conversation I am already in | /btw — answered without interrupting the session |
| Ongoing parallel work split across named roles | Bot mode — a standing roster of named bots |
| I keep messaging the agent while it is mid-task | Busy-behaviour controls — decide how interruptions are handled |
| A one-off draft that should not hold up my main thread | /bg again — fire it and carry on |
Hermes /bg FAQ
Does my current session freeze while /bg runs?
No. The documented behaviour is the whole appeal of /bg: the task is processed independently in a separate background session, and your current session stays free. You carry on working as if it did not exist and collect the result when ready.
Where do the results of a /bg task show up?
In the CLI, the /bg result appears as a panel when the task finishes. On messaging platforms, the command works through the messaging gateway and the result is delivered back to the chat you sent it from.
What is the actual difference between /bg and /btw?
/bg runs a prompt in a separate background session — independent work on a new task. /btw asks a question about your current conversation without interrupting it. The docs contrast them directly, and the community mixes them up constantly.
Does /bg work outside the CLI?
Yes. /bg works in the CLI and through the messaging gateway, and on messaging platforms the finished result is delivered straight back to the originating chat — handy for firing tasks off from your phone.
Is /bg the same as bot mode?
No. /bg sends one prompt into one background session and you collect the result. Bot mode gives you a roster of named bots for ongoing parallel work. Start with /bg; graduate to bots when parallel work becomes all-day work.
My verdict on Hermes agent /bg
Of all the Hermes commands I have written up, Hermes agent /bg has the best effort-to-payoff ratio. One habit change — anything slow goes to the background — and your main session stops being a queue. Learn the /btw distinction, brief every background task as if it knows nothing, and fold it all into the wider discipline in my Hermes agent best practices guide. Background-first is simply a calmer, faster way to work.
If you would rather copy a working system than assemble it one command at a time, join me inside AI Profit Lab and take my exact background-agent setups — or book a free SEO strategy session and we will map /bg onto your business together.
