hermes-agent-spawning

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# Spawning Hermes Agent Instances

Run additional Hermes Agent processes as autonomous subprocesses. Unlike `delegate_task` (which spawns lightweight subagents sharing the same process), this launches fully independent `hermes` CLI processes with their own sessions, tools, and terminal environments.

## When to Use This vs delegate_task

| Feature | `delegate_task` | Spawning `hermes` process |
|---------|-----------------|--------------------------|
| Context isolation | Separate conversation, shared process | Fully independent process |
| Tool access | Subset of parent's tools | Full tool access (all toolsets) |
| Session persistence | Ephemeral (no DB entry) | Full session logging + DB |
| Duration | Minutes (bounded by parent's loop) | Hours/days (runs independently) |
| Monitoring | Parent waits for result | Background process, monitor via `process` tool |
| Interactive | No | Yes (PTY mode supports back-and-forth) |
| Use case | Quick parallel subtasks | Long autonomous missions, interactive collaboration |

## Prerequisites

- `hermes` CLI installed and on PATH
- API key configured in `~/.hermes/.env`

### Installation

Requires an interactive shell (the installer runs a setup wizard):

```
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent/main/scripts/install.sh | bash
```

This installs uv, Python 3.11, clones the repo, sets up the venv, and launches an interactive setup wizard to configure your API provider and model. See the [GitHub repo](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent) for details.

## Resuming Previous Sessions

Resume a prior CLI session instead of starting fresh. Useful for continuing long tasks across process restarts:

```
# Resume the most recent CLI session
terminal(command="hermes --continue", background=true, pty=true)

# Resume a specific session by ID (shown on exit)
terminal(command="hermes --resume 20260225_143052_a1b2c3", background=true, pty=true)
```

The full conversation history (messages, tool calls, responses) is restored from SQLite. The agent sees everything from the previous session.

## Mode 1: One-Shot Query (-q flag)

Run a single query non-interactively. The agent executes, does its work, and exits:

```
terminal(command="hermes chat -q 'Research the latest GRPO training papers and write a summary to ~/research/grpo.md'", timeout=300)
```

Background for long tasks:
```
terminal(command="hermes chat -q 'Set up CI/CD for ~/myapp'", background=true)
# Returns session_id, monitor with process tool
```

## Mode 2: Interactive PTY Session

Launch a full interactive Hermes session with PTY for back-and-forth collaboration. You can send messages, review its work, give feedback, and steer it.

Note: Hermes uses prompt_toolkit for its CLI UI. Through a PTY, this works because ptyprocess provides a real terminal — input sent via `submit` arrives as keystrokes. The output log will contain ANSI escape sequences from the UI rendering — focus on the text content, not the formatting.

```
# Start interactive hermes in background with PTY
terminal(command="hermes", workdir="~/project", background=true, pty=true)
# Returns session_id

# Send it a task
process(action="submit", session_id="<id>", data="Set up a Python project with FastAPI, add auth endpoints, and write tests")

# Wait for it to work, then check progress
process(action="log", session_id="<id>")

# Give feedback on what it produced
process(action="submit", session_id="<id>", data="The tests look good but add edge cases for invalid tokens")

# Check its response
process(action="log", session_id="<id>")

# Ask it to iterate
process(action="submit", session_id="<id>", data="Now add rate limiting middleware")

# When done, exit the session
process(action="submit", session_id="<id>", data="/exit")
```

### Interactive Collaboration Patterns

**Code review loop** — spawn hermes, send code for review, iterate on feedback:
```
terminal(command="hermes", workdir="~/project", background=true, pty=true)
process(action="submit", session_id="<id>", data="Review the changes in src/auth.py and suggest improvements")
# ... read its review ...
process(action="submit", session_id="<id>", data="Good points. Go ahead and implement suggestions 1 and 3")
# ... it makes changes ...
process(action="submit", session_id="<id>", data="Run the tests to make sure nothing broke")
```

**Research with steering** — start broad, narrow down based on findings:
```
terminal(command="hermes", background=true, pty=true)
process(action="submit", session_id="<id>", data="Search for the latest papers on KV cache compression techniques")
# ... read its findings ...
process(action="submit", session_id="<id>", data="The MQA approach looks promising. Dig deeper into that one and compare with GQA")
# ... more detailed research ...
process(action="submit", session_id="<id>", data="Write up everything you found to ~/research/kv-cache-compression.md")
```

**Multi-agent coordination** — spawn two agents working on related tasks, pass context between them:
```
# Agent A: backend
terminal(command="hermes", workdir="~/project/backend", background=true, pty=true)
process(action="submit", session_id="<agent-a>", data="Build a REST API for user management with CRUD endpoints")

# Agent B: frontend
terminal(command="hermes", workdir="~/project/frontend", background=true, pty=true)

From helix4u/hermes-agent-private, MIT.

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