Hermes
Desktop
A native Mac app for your Hermes Agent host. Browse sessions, edit files, run a real terminal — all over SSH, no gateway, no second copy of your data.
What you can do
Every part of Hermes, in one window. Read from the host — never mirrored to your Mac.
The surfaces where you actually have a conversation with the agent.
Sessions
Search transcripts, pin work, start a new chat, or resume in the terminal. The chat runs the real Hermes TUI on the host.
Terminal
Inside the app, with tabs and themes for multi-profile, multi-agent work.
Where Hermes's work gets coordinated, scheduled, and saved for next time.
Kanban
Create, assign, comment, block, and complete tasks. Multi-agent coordination lives here.
Cron Jobs
The jobs Hermes runs on the host. Create, edit, pause, resume, run now, or delete.
Workflows
On your Mac, scoped to each host and profile. Run one and it opens a fresh terminal tab with the first turn ready.
The files that define how Hermes works, and the ones it works on.
Files
Canonical Hermes files and SKILL.md on the host, opened remotely. Conflict check runs before save.
SKILL.md filesSkills
Discover, read metadata, create new skills, edit existing ones — anchored to the host's skills store.
Memory
Edit the files that store what Hermes knows about you, what it remembers, and how it acts. Plain text on the host, with conflict check before save.
See what Hermes is doing, and keep the parts you want.
Usage
Token totals, top sessions, top models, and recent activity for the active profile.
Settings
Active host, active profile, discovered profiles, diagnostics, and the paths Hermes is using.
Profiles
The Hermes profiles your host exposes. Keep the ones you use, retire the ones you don't.
Install
If SSH already works from this Mac to your Hermes host, the rest is short.
Download the app
Get HermesDesktop.app.zip from the latest GitHub release.
Move it to Applications
Unzip, then drag HermesDesktop.app into Applications and replace the old copy if asked.
Right-click → Open
macOS will warn that the app is not notarized. Right-click the app, choose Open, then Open again. Don't move it to the bin.
- macOS 14 or newer
- SSH to the Hermes host already works
python3available on the hosthermeson the host's non-interactivePATH
Help
The same questions people ask after they install. If yours isn't here, open an issue on GitHub.
Where is my data stored?
On the host, in the standard Hermes location: ~/.hermes. If you set a Hermes profile in the connection, the app uses ~/.hermes/profiles/<name> instead. The Mac app does not copy or mirror that data.
The only things the app stores locally are your saved connection profiles and preferences, in ~/Library/Application Support/HermesDesktop/.
Why does macOS say the app can't be verified or is damaged?
Hermes Desktop is currently ad-hoc signed and not notarized by Apple. The Gatekeeper warning is expected for this distribution model and does not mean the app contains malware.
To open it: click Done (not "Move to Bin"), then right-click HermesDesktop.app in Applications and choose Open. macOS will ask once to confirm.
Do not disable Gatekeeper or run sudo commands to install the app. If you'd rather not trust the release zip, build from source.
Why is "Test" failing on my connection?
Test is a preflight. It checks three things in order:
1. The SSH target is reachable from this Mac.
2. SSH authentication works without interactive prompts (no password prompt, no host-key confirmation).
3. python3 is available in the remote SSH environment.
The error in the app names the first check that failed. The most common cause is an SSH config that asks for a password or host-key confirmation on first connect — run ssh your-host in Terminal once first to accept the host key.
What does the "Hermes profile" setting do?
It scopes the app to ~/.hermes/profiles/<name> on the host instead of the default profile. It's not just a label — every section in the app (Sessions, Workflows, Files, Skills, Cron, Usage, chat, Terminal) follows the selected host and profile.
Leave it empty to use the default ~/.hermes. The app still discovers other profiles available on the active host.
How do I update?
Download the latest HermesDesktop.app.zip from the releases page and replace the app in Applications. Your saved connections and preferences are kept — they live in ~/Library/Application Support/HermesDesktop/, outside the app bundle.
Where are the logs?
Workflow launch diagnostics are written to ~/Library/Application Support/HermesDesktop/Diagnostics/workflow-launch-latest.log.
For everything else, open Console.app on the Mac and filter by the subsystem HermesDesktop.
Where do I report a bug or ask for a feature?
Open an issue on GitHub: dodo-reach/hermes-desktop/issues.
Useful to include: macOS version, app version (from the in-app About), what you expected vs what happened, and the diagnostics log if the problem is in a workflow launch.
GitHub stars
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Help it grow.
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