Hermes Agent setup guide (the easiest path)

What you need:

• A Mac with Apple Silicon (macOS 12+), a Windows 10/11 PC, or Linux. Intel Macs aren't supported by the Mac installer.
• An account for a model provider. The easiest is a free Nous Portal account.
• Optional: Telegram on your phone.

Simplest setup path (no terminal):

1. Download Hermes Desktop from hermes-agent.nousresearch.com.
2. Install it. Mac: open the DMG and copy Hermes.app to Applications. Windows: open the .appinstaller file.
3. Open Hermes and follow the setup steps.
4. Pick "Quick Setup (Nous Portal)." It logs you in, picks a model, and turns on web tools. No API keys.
5. Have one normal chat. Ask it something simple.
6. Only then add Telegram (see How-to 1).

Terminal path (if you're comfortable): The website's one-line installer is curl -fsSL https://hermes-agent.nousresearch.com/install.sh | bash (Mac/Linux/WSL2). Then run hermes setup --portal. Only run install commands from the official site.

Minimal-risk option: Choose Blank Slate setup. Almost everything starts off, and you turn on only what you need.

First-run checklist:

• ☐ One normal chat works.
• ☐ Approvals mode is smart (default) or manual. Never off.
• ☐ Messaging is limited to my own user ID (allowlist).
• ☐ I use a separate email account for Hermes, not my personal one.
• ☐ I know how to stop it (Ctrl+C in the terminal, or /stop in chat).
• ☐ I wrote down which model I'm paying for.