Hermes Toolbox is a public Hermes profile distribution. It packages the identity, behavior settings, workspace policy template, and reviewed skills used by the default profile, without personal data or LLM choices.
SOUL.md: installable identity and universal operating policyconfig.yaml: portable behavior settings onlyskills/: ten reviewed skills for coding policy, planning, review, skill lifecycle, Honcho tuning, and Hermes maintenancetemplates/AGENTS.md: workspace guidance with generic paths and identity placeholdersdistribution.yaml: native Hermes profile distribution metadata- Repository policy, CI, tests, and validation tooling: inert support files that travel with the profile and validate the exact distribution source
No plugins are included.
- Credentials, auth files, API keys, tokens, and private URLs
- Memories, user profiles, sessions, logs, databases, caches, plans, and local state
- LLM model names, provider choices, auxiliary model settings, and fallback chains
- Local working directories, personal IDs, email addresses, and private notes
- The Herdr agent-state plugin and the failed goal-related plugin
- Claude Code-specific skills
- Unfinished profile-builder work and skills changed as part of that work
- Model-provider plugins maintained in separate repositories
- Hermes Agent 0.18.2 or newer
- Git
- A model and credentials selected locally after installation
critonly when using thecritorcrit-cliskills- Honcho only when using
honcho-profile-tuning
Install from the repository's default branch and create the hermes-toolbox wrapper:
hermes profile install github.com/srinitude/hermes-toolbox --alias --yesThe public config intentionally has no LLM model or provider. Select your own model inside the new profile, then start it:
hermes-toolbox model
hermes-toolboxIf the wrapper directory isn't on PATH, use:
hermes --profile hermes-toolbox model
hermes --profile hermes-toolboxRun hermes-toolbox setup if the chosen provider still needs local authentication.
This public distribution uses a safer approval default than the source profile:
approvals.mode: smartskills.write_approval: falsememory.write_approval: false
The terminal backend is local, not sandboxed. Smart mode lets Hermes request approval for commands it judges dangerous, while the deny list blocks a small set of destructive shell patterns. Review config.yaml before installation. Use approval mode off only as an explicit opt-in on a trusted machine.
Hermes records the Git source during installation. This command re-clones the repository at its current remote HEAD and updates the profile:
hermes profile update hermes-toolbox --yesHermes preserves the installed config.yaml by default, so your local model and provider choices survive updates. Use --force-config only when you intend to replace the whole config with the public copy. After that flag, select a local model again.
Hermes 0.18.2 copies every repository root entry during install and update. This distribution therefore declares its policy, CI, tests, and validation tooling as owned support files alongside SOUL.md, skills/, and templates/. Updates replace every declared path except the preserved config.yaml. Keep profile-local additions outside those paths or maintain them in a separate profile.
AGENTS.md is workspace-scoped in Hermes, so a profile distribution can't choose the right workspace root for you. Copy the template into the root of a dedicated profile workspace:
cp ~/.hermes/profiles/hermes-toolbox/templates/AGENTS.md /path/to/profile-workspace/AGENTS.mdReplace every angle-bracket placeholder and remove any rule that doesn't match the workspace. The template expects a non-Git workspace root with durable repositories under projects/ or plugins/. Each nested repository still needs its own root AGENTS.md.
mise run ciThe CI contract checks the distribution manifest, public config boundary, expected skill set, frontmatter, size limits, privacy patterns, and explicit exclusions.
The repository follows the remote default branch rather than a hard-coded branch name. New releases amend the public history to one root commit only when the repository owner intentionally performs a history reset. Normal users should update with hermes profile update, not by force-resetting an installed profile.