Built-in Tools (70+)

Tools are functions that extend the agent’s capabilities. They’re organized into logical toolsets that can be enabled or disabled per platform.

Available Tools

Hermes ships with a broad built-in tool registry covering web search, browser automation, terminal execution, file editing, memory, delegation, RL training, messaging delivery, Home Assistant, and more.

High-level Categories

Category	Examples	Description
Web	`web_search`, `web_extract`	Search the web and extract page content
X Search	`x_search`	Search X (Twitter) posts and threads via xAI’s built-in `x_search` Responses tool
Terminal & Files	`terminal`, `process`, `read_file`, `patch`	Execute commands and manipulate files
Browser	`browser_navigate`, `browser_snapshot`, `browser_vision`	Interactive browser automation with text and vision support
Media	`vision_analyze`, `image_generate`, `video_generate`, `video_analyze`, `text_to_speech`	Multimodal analysis and generation
Agent orchestration	`todo`, `clarify`, `execute_code`, `delegate_task`	Planning, clarification, code execution, and subagent delegation
Memory & recall	`memory`, `session_search`	Persistent memory and session search
Automation & delivery	`cronjob`, `send_message`	Scheduled tasks and outbound messaging delivery
Integrations	`ha_`, MCP server tools, `rl_`	Home Assistant, MCP, RL training, and other integrations

Using Toolsets

# Use specific toolsets
hermes chat --toolsets "web,terminal"

# See all available tools
hermes tools

# Configure tools per platform (interactive)
hermes tools

Common toolsets include web, search, terminal, file, browser, vision, image_gen, moa, skills, tts, todo, memory, session_search, cronjob, code_execution, delegation, clarify, homeassistant, messaging, spotify, discord, discord_admin, debugging, safe, and rl.

Terminal Backends

The terminal tool can execute commands in different environments:

Backend	Description	Use Case
`local`	Run on your machine (default)	Development, trusted tasks
`docker`	Isolated containers	Security, reproducibility
`ssh`	Remote server	Sandboxing, keep agent away from its own code
`singularity`	HPC containers	Cluster computing, rootless
`modal`	Cloud execution	Serverless, scale
`daytona`	Cloud sandbox workspace	Persistent remote dev environments

Configuration

# In ~/.hermes/config.yaml
terminal:
  backend: local  # or: docker, ssh, singularity, modal, daytona
  cwd: "."          # Working directory
  timeout: 180      # Command timeout in seconds

Docker Backend

terminal:
  backend: docker
  docker_image: python:3.11-slim

One persistent container, shared across the whole process. Hermes starts a single long-lived container on first use and routes every terminal, file, and execute_code call through docker exec into that same container.

Container Resources

Configure CPU, memory, disk, and persistence for all container backends:

terminal:
  backend: docker  # or singularity, modal, daytona
  container_cpu: 1              # CPU cores (default: 1)
  container_memory: 5120        # Memory in MB (default: 5GB)
  container_disk: 51200         # Disk in MB (default: 50GB)
  container_persistent: true    # Persist filesystem across sessions (default: true)

Container Security

All container backends run with security hardening:

Read-only root filesystem (Docker)
All Linux capabilities dropped
No privilege escalation
PID limits (256 processes)
Full namespace isolation
Persistent workspace via volumes, not writable root layer

Background Process Management

Start background processes and manage them:

terminal(command="pytest -v tests/", background=true)
# Returns: {"session_id": "proc_abc123", "pid": 12345}

# Then manage with the process tool:
process(action="list")       # Show all running processes
process(action="poll", session_id="proc_abc123")   # Check status
process(action="wait", session_id="proc_abc123")   # Block until done
process(action="log", session_id="proc_abc123")    # Full output
process(action="kill", session_id="proc_abc123")   # Terminate
process(action="write", session_id="proc_abc123", data="y")  # Send input

PTY mode (pty=true) enables interactive CLI tools like Codex and Claude Code.

Sudo Support

If a command needs sudo, you’ll be prompted for your password (cached for the session). Or set SUDO_PASSWORD in ~/.hermes/.env.

On messaging platforms, if sudo fails, the output includes a tip to add SUDO_PASSWORD to ~/.hermes/.env.