Hermes Agent

Hermes Agent is an autonomous AI agent platform by Nous Research. Alga connects to a Hermes gateway via a self-contained Python plugin, allowing Hermes to act as an AI SRE investigator — receiving alert dispatches over SSE, reasoning about root causes, and taking lifecycle actions through the shared alga_* tools.

Hermes and OpenClaw are alternative, peer agent runtimes — both plug into the same Alga agent API. You can run either one, or both as different agent tokens. For the connection model, thread semantics, message flow, presence, the full tool catalog, and incident role boundaries, see the Agent API & Tool Reference. This page covers only what is specific to Hermes.

Prerequisites

• Hermes Agent installed (~/.hermes/ exists)
• httpx>=0.27 Python package (pip install 'httpx>=0.27')
• Alga backend running and reachable from the Hermes host

Setup Guide

Step 1: Create an Agent Token in Alga

1. In the Alga web UI, go to Agents → Add agent
2. Choose Hermes Agent as the agent type
3. Select the capabilities you need (at minimum: investigate)
4. Set the scope (all for catch-all, or labels to restrict to specific alert labels)
5. Check "Set as default" if this agent should receive automated investigation traffic
6. Save — copy the token immediately, it's shown only once (alga_agent_...)

TIP

The hermes agent type is the default in Alga. If you leave the type unspecified or enter an unrecognized value, it normalizes to hermes.

See Agents Overview for what capabilities and scope mean.

Step 2: Install the Plugin

cd integrations/alga-hermes-agent-plugin
bash install.sh

Step 3: Enable the Plugin

hermes plugins enable alga-platform

Step 4: Configure Credentials

Add to ~/.hermes/.env:

ALGA_SERVER_URL=http://alga:8080
ALGA_AGENT_TOKEN=alga_agent_xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Or in ~/.hermes/config.yaml:

platforms:
  alga:
    enabled: true
    extra:
      server_url: "http://alga:8080"
    token: "${ALGA_AGENT_TOKEN}"

Step 5: Enable the Toolset and Restart

hermes tools enable alga
hermes gateway restart

Interactive Setup (Alternative)

The plugin integrates with hermes gateway setup — select "Alga" from the platform list and it will prompt for the server URL and agent token interactively.

Configuration Reference

Variable	Required	Description
ALGA_SERVER_URL	Yes	Alga backend base URL (no trailing slash), e.g. http://alga:8080
ALGA_AGENT_TOKEN	Yes	The alga_agent_... bearer token from Alga
ALGA_HOME_CHANNEL	No	Private operator DM chat ID (default: alga_dm)
ALGA_ALLOWED_USERS	No	Comma-separated user IDs allowed to use the channel (default: allow all)
ALGA_ALLOW_ALL_USERS	No	Set to true to allow all users (default)

Backend Configuration (Alga Side)

On the Alga backend, the Hermes integration is configured via:

Variable	Description
HERMES_PLATFORM_URL	URL of the Hermes platform (stored encrypted at rest in IntegrationConfig)
HERMES_PLATFORM_TOKEN	Platform token for Hermes (stored encrypted at rest in IntegrationConfig)

What the Plugin Provides

Component	Description
Platform adapter	SSE listener + REST sender bridging Hermes to Alga's owner-scoped threads
Agent tools	The shared alga_* toolset, including the task-driven coordination tools (see below)
Setup wizard	Interactive configuration via hermes gateway setup
Platform hint	Injected into the LLM system prompt with Alga-specific guidance and role instructions

Hermes-Specific Behavior

• Message-driven coordination — Hermes exposes the incident coordination tools (status updates, structured handoffs) the commander and responder roles use to collaborate through the coordination thread. See Coordination.
• Draft streaming — Hermes edits messages in place as the agent reasons, via /api/v1/agent/drafts.
• Reconnect — exponential backoff (2s base, 60s max).

Avoiding Coordination Ping-Pong

Hermes treats new @mentions as interrupts — if a teammate mentions an agent that's mid-task, that agent posts ⚡ Interrupting current task... and switches. To avoid unnecessary interruptions:

• Activate roles with dedicated tools, not extra @mentions
• Don't ping back for acknowledgements — let published status updates speak for themselves
• Do not set display.busy_input_mode: queue — it would also queue /stop, making runaway processes hard to abort

Uninstall

bash install.sh --uninstall
hermes plugins disable alga-platform

See Also

• Agent API & Tool Reference — the shared contract, tool catalog, and role boundaries
• Agents Overview — tokens, capabilities, scope, presence
• OpenClaw — the alternative agent runtime
• Alga Agent — the native first-party agent
• AI Investigation — the full investigation pipeline and scheduler