nousresearch-hermes-agent

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NousResearch Hermes Agent Overview

Secure your stack with a hardened NousResearch Hermes Agent image freshly-built by Minimus. Minimus images always include the most up-to-date package version for all packages and dependencies contained in the image.

Hermes Agent is a self-hosted AI agent from Nous Research that runs continuously in the background — from a terminal, or connected to messaging platforms like Telegram, Discord, Slack, WhatsApp, and Signal — instead of a chat session that resets every time it's reopened. It keeps memory of past conversations across sessions, runs scheduled jobs on a cron-style timer, and reaches external systems through built-in tools and Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers. It also creates and refines its own skills for tasks it's asked to repeat. Hermes Agent works with many LLM providers, including OpenAI, Anthropic, OpenRouter, and self-hosted models, so teams aren't locked into one vendor.

Try It Out

For a quick test, print the help menu:

docker run --rm reg.mini.dev/nousresearch-hermes-agent --help

Step 1 - Configure an LLM Provider

Prerequisites: An API key from a supported LLM provider (OpenAI, Anthropic, OpenRouter, or a self-hosted endpoint).

Hermes Agent stores its configuration and secrets under /opt/data. Create a local directory for it and run the interactive setup wizard once to generate config.yaml and .env:

mkdir hermes-data

docker run --rm -it \
  -v "$(pwd)/hermes-data:/opt/data" \
  reg.mini.dev/nousresearch-hermes-agent setup

Follow the prompts to pick an LLM provider and paste in its API key.

Step 2 - Start the Gateway

Run Hermes Agent as a persistent gateway, reusing the same data directory so it picks up the configuration from Step 1:

docker run -d --name hermes \
  --restart unless-stopped \
  -v "$(pwd)/hermes-data:/opt/data" \
  -p 8642:8642 \
  reg.mini.dev/nousresearch-hermes-agent gateway run

Step 3 - Verify It's Running

Confirm the gateway started cleanly:

docker logs hermes

Then send it a one-shot message from the CLI to confirm it's responding:

docker exec -it hermes hermes chat send "hello"

Step 4 - Optional: Enable the Dashboard

Hermes Agent also ships a web dashboard for managing skills, memories, and connected messaging platforms. It stores API keys, so it's meant to stay off the public network — bind it to localhost and reach it over an SSH tunnel or a reverse proxy with its own authentication rather than exposing it directly:

docker run -d --name hermes-dashboard \
  --restart unless-stopped \
  -v "$(pwd)/hermes-data:/opt/data" \
  -p 127.0.0.1:9119:9119 \
  reg.mini.dev/nousresearch-hermes-agent dashboard --host 0.0.0.0 --no-open

Clean Up

docker stop hermes hermes-dashboard
docker rm hermes hermes-dashboard

Technical Considerations

The NousResearch Hermes Agent image provided by Minimus is a slim, security-hardened alternative to the public image from Docker Hub. The images are largely interchangeable, with a few differences as noted below.

NousResearch Hermes Agent built by Minimus:

Starts container init as root — required for the s6-overlay supervisor to run its initial permission setup — then drops each supervised service to the same non-root hermes user (uid 10000) the public image uses before it runs.
Drill down on the version specification tab to see the default user, listening ports, entrypoint, volumes, environment variables, etc.

The Payoff

A hardened, minimal image that will remain more secure for the long run and accrue vulnerabilities at a slower rate.

See the risk reduction dashboard for a detailed CVE comparison over the past 30 days.
Review the compliance report to see the default hardening and security configurations for the image.

Terms & Info

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Disclaimer

Images are provided "as-is" without warranty of any kind. "Hardened" refers to the security configuration applied at the time of build and does not constitute a guarantee of ongoing security or absence of vulnerabilities. The free tier is provided without support, SLA, or guaranteed patching timelines. Security updates may be applied to paid subscriptions before or instead of free tier images. By pulling or using any image you agree to our Terms of Use.