How To Set Up Hermes Pixel Office (Free, 5 Min)

Here is how to set up the Hermes Pixel Office, the free open source dashboard that turns every Hermes agent into a pixel character you can watch working live.

Setup takes about five minutes, there is nothing to sign up for, and it runs either as a browser page or as a panel inside VS Code.

This is the full walkthrough: demo mode first, then the two install routes, then how to read every character, flag and animation once your real agents are in there.

What the Hermes Pixel Office is

It is a free, open source live dashboard for Hermes agents, built by Teknium — one of the people behind Nous Research, the same team that builds Hermes Agent.

Every agent session shows up as a pixel character in a shared cartoon office.

They walk in through the door, sit down, get to work, then stand up and walk out when they are finished.

Nothing to sign up for, nothing to unlock.

Why you would want it

Hermes agents normally work in the background.

They run tools, they spin up helper agents, they get real work done — and it all happens out of sight.

You hit go and then you stare at scrolling text, hoping it is going okay and not quietly stuck on something.

The Pixel Office turns that into a room you can read at a glance.

Step 1 — Start with demo mode

Do this before you wire anything up.

It ships with a demo mode that fills the office with pretend agents, so you can see how the whole thing looks and moves before connecting your real setup.

It is the fastest way to get comfortable with what every character means, and it costs you nothing but a couple of minutes.

Learn the vocabulary on fake agents, then point it at your real ones.

Step 2 — Pick where it runs

In your browser. Open it as its own page. Simplest option, and it fits how most people work since you are in a browser all day anyway.

In VS Code. Drop it straight in and the office sits in a panel right next to your code while you work. You also get a "+ agent" button that starts a fresh Hermes run without ever leaving your editor.

Same office either way. Your pick.

Step 3 — Connect your Hermes setup

Every Hermes agent running on your machine shares the same office.

So once it is connected, anything you launch — from the command line, from a chat app, or from a job you set to run on a schedule — appears in the same room automatically.

There is no per-agent configuration to do.

If you run Hermes on a server, it works over a remote connection out of the box, so you still get the office on your own screen with no extra wrestling. My agent operating system runs remotely and this needed no special handling.

Step 4 — Learn to read the room

Every agent session is one character, regardless of where it was launched from.

Helper agents get a gold collar and a name tag showing their job. These are the sub-agents a bigger agent spins up for a side task, so you instantly know who is a main worker and who was pulled in to help.

Characters act out what they are doing:

What you see	What it means
Typing	Writing a file
Little book open	Reading something
Browsing	Using the web
Green monitor flicker	Running a terminal command
Red exclamation mark	Waiting on your approval
Standing up and leaving	Task finished

You do not have to read a single log line. You just look at the room.

Step 5 — Turn on the approval alerts

Sometimes an agent hits a command that could be risky and needs you to say yes or no before it proceeds.

That character throws up a bright red exclamation mark over its head.

The top of the screen shows a counter — something like "2 waiting".

There is also an optional chime, off by default, that dings when an agent needs your okay or when a helper finishes its job.

Switch it on and you do not even have to be looking at the screen.

This is the single most useful thing to enable, because a silently blocked agent is the most expensive failure in any agent workflow.

🔥 Want the Agent OS this plugs straight into?

Inside the AI Profit Boardroom you get the full Agent OS zip ready to install with Hermes as the brain, a 30-day roadmap, Pixel Office and Hermes walkthroughs, and four live coaching calls every week with 4,000+ members.

→ Get access here

Does it slow your agents down?

No, and this is the assumption almost everyone makes.

The Pixel Office is a window and nothing more.

It watches what your agents are already doing and draws it out for you.

It never blocks them, never changes their work, and never adds any weight to how they run.

Your agents do not even know it is there.

The one rule to remember

It is a window, not a controller.

Keep your agents' own safety rules turned on.

The red flag only tells you when to look — you are still the one who says yes or no to anything risky.

What it looks like on a real job

I kicked off a batch of Hermes agents to draft hooks, scripts and captions for a content series.

Each helper appeared as a gold-collared character — one typing away, one reading through notes, several working at the same time.

When one hit a step that needed my approval, the red flag went up and I knew the exact second to step in.

I have also used it to watch a member onboarding flow complete — welcome messages, first-call prep, resource walkthroughs — with each character finishing and walking out, which confirmed at a glance that nothing was silently stuck.

Setup checklist

One. Open demo mode and watch the fake office until the animations make sense.

Two. Decide between the browser page and the VS Code panel.

Three. Connect your Hermes setup — every agent on the machine joins the same office automatically.

Four. Run a batch job with helper agents so you see gold collars in action.

Five. Turn the chime on for approvals so the sound means something.

Six. Leave it open for a day and count how many stalls you would have missed.

FAQ

How do I set up the Hermes Pixel Office? Try demo mode first, then run it either as a browser page or as a VS Code panel and connect your Hermes setup. Every agent on the machine joins the same office automatically.

Is it free? Yes — free and open source, from Teknium at Nous Research. Nothing to sign up for.

Can I use it in VS Code? Yes, as a panel next to your code, with a "+ agent" button to start a fresh Hermes run without leaving the editor.

Does it work with a remote server? Yes, over a remote connection out of the box.

How do I know an agent needs approval? A red exclamation mark appears over that character, with a waiting counter at the top and an optional chime.

About Julian

I'm Julian Goldie — AI entrepreneur, SEO expert, and founder of the AI Profit Boardroom (4,000+ members). I help business owners scale with AI agents, automation, and SEO.