Hermes agent OS is the automation setup I wish I'd built twelve months ago.
I've been automating parts of my business with AI for a while now.
Content creation, SEO, competitor research, client reporting — I've had individual tools for all of it.
But they never talked to each other.
Every automation was its own island.
I'd build something in Hermes, something else in Claude, route tasks manually between them, and spend way too much time as the middleman.
The Hermes agent OS fixed that.
In one session, I went from a collection of disconnected automations to a fully coordinated AI operating system where everything runs together, remembers everything, and compounds over time.
This post is the full breakdown — what I built, how it works, and how you can build your own.
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Why I Needed an Agent OS (Not Just More Tools)
Here's the problem with building automations one by one.
You end up with a bunch of separate tools that can't talk to each other.
ChatGPT in one tab.
Claude in another.
Hermes running in terminal.
OpenClaw in a separate window.
No memory between sessions.
No coordination between agents.
No system connecting it all.
That's what most people's AI setup looks like right now — and it's exactly why most people aren't getting compounding results from AI.
The Hermes agent OS changes the model completely.
Instead of separate tools, you have one operating system.
Instead of manual coordination, you have a mission control dashboard.
Instead of memory resetting every session, you have a persistent Obsidian vault that grows smarter every day.
The result is automation that compounds.
The more you use it, the smarter it gets.
The more context it has, the more useful its outputs become.
What the Hermes Agent OS Looks Like in Practice
When I open my Hermes agent OS, I see a mission control dashboard.
On the left sidebar, I've got quick access to every agent.
In the main dashboard area, I can see:
- Agent status panel — Claude, Hermes, and OpenClaw all showing online/offline in real time.
- Goals tracker — my current targets with percentage completion bars.
- Recent activity feed — every chat log across all agents, searchable.
- Journal section — daily entries that feed directly into agent context.
- Memory panel — linked to my Obsidian vault with 1,261+ memories.
When I click into any agent's control room, I get:
- Direct chat interface.
- Session history.
- API key management and provider settings.
- Skills and plugins enabled for that agent.
- 30-day analytics: sessions, tool calls, tokens, models, peak hours, notable sessions, activity patterns by day.
The whole thing runs locally, is bookmarked like a normal website, and never sends my data to anyone else's servers.
The Four-Layer Automation Architecture
The real power of Hermes agent OS comes from its four-layer architecture.
I call this the Goldie Mission Stack.
Layer 1: Intelligence — Claude
Claude is the thinking layer of the stack.
It's wired directly into the OS as a live connection, not just an API call you make manually.
It has full tool access, MCP integrations, code execution, file reading, and the ability to plan and execute multi-step strategies.
In the context of automation, Claude is where I go for the complex reasoning tasks — building new automations, troubleshooting existing ones, planning workflows, and handling anything that requires deep thought.
Layer 2: Execution — OpenClaw
OpenClaw is the router that makes multi-agent automation possible.
Think of it like a network router for your agents.
Your phone, laptop, and TV all connect to the internet through one router.
OpenClaw does the same thing for your agents — routing tasks between them, managing sessions, and handling coordination automatically.
Without OpenClaw, I'd be the coordination layer myself.
With it, agents can hand tasks to each other without me in the middle.
Layer 3: Research + Execution — Hermes
Hermes handles the real-world execution tasks.
It can run tool calls, manage Kanban-style task lists, use skills and plugins, and execute multi-step workflows on a schedule.
For automations like competitor research, content research, or anything that needs to go out into the world and gather information or take action, Hermes is the layer that does it.
The key insight from the video above is treating Hermes as an operator loop, not just a tool launcher.
One of our community members, Ash, put it perfectly: he stopped treating Hermes like a polite approval clerk and started treating it like an operator that continuously runs its loop.
That's when automations become genuinely autonomous.
Layer 4: Self — Obsidian Vault
This is the most important layer and the one most people skip.
Your Obsidian vault is your personal knowledge base.
It stores your goals, your journal entries, notes about your business and team, your automation ideas, your plans.
When your agents have access to this vault, they stop being generic AI assistants.
They become AI that understands you, your business, and what you're actually trying to achieve.
Every chat I have with any agent auto-saves into the vault.
OMI runs in the background taking notes on my work throughout the day.
The vault currently has 1,261 memories about me.
When I ask Hermes to give me ideas on what to automate today based on my vault, it comes back with genuinely relevant suggestions — not generic advice.
Practical Automations You Can Build With This Setup
Here are some of the automations I've either built or could stack into the OS immediately.
Daily content creation automation.
Hermes researches trending topics in my niche, compiles a brief, and passes it to Claude to write a blog post draft.
The whole workflow runs on a schedule without me involved.
Competitor monitoring.
Hermes runs a research workflow on my competitors' sites, tracks new content and backlinks, and logs a daily summary into my Obsidian vault.
I review the summary in my mission control dashboard — no manual research needed.
SEO agent for blog deployment.
I mentioned in the video this is something I want to stack in next.
An SEO agent inside the OS that creates content and deploys blogs every day — all triggered from the mission control sidebar.
Client reporting.
For Goldie Agency, pulling together weekly performance reports used to take hours.
With an agent that knows my clients, my metrics, and my reporting format from the Obsidian vault, it's a matter of telling the agent to run the report and reviewing the output.
Personal planning.
Every morning, Hermes reviews my journal entries and goals from the past 24 hours and surfaces the top 3 things I should focus on today.
Context-aware planning that actually knows what I've been working on.
The Operator Mindset: What Actually Changes
Let me be honest about the shift this creates.
When you run a Hermes agent OS, your role as a business owner or entrepreneur fundamentally changes.
You stop being the worker executing tasks.
You become the operator running the system that executes tasks.
You set direction.
You check the dashboard.
You approve results.
You scale what works.
The analogy I use is this: the difference between having a hammer and running a construction company.
Having a hammer means you do the work yourself.
Running a construction company means you manage the system that does the work.
The Hermes agent OS makes you the construction company.
Your three or four agents are running in parallel, all with full context about you and your business, all coordinated through mission control.
You're no longer the bottleneck.
That's the real unlock here.
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How to Build It (The Actual Steps)
Here's the practical setup process.
Step 1. Open Claude desktop and tell it to build you a local operating system — a mission control dashboard for managing Claude, OpenClaw, and Hermes in one place.
Step 2. Answer Claude's questions about the stack. The recommended setup is Next.js and Tailwind. Just go with it.
Step 3. As Claude builds, describe additional features you want — journal tab, goals tracker, voice input, Kanban board, memory panel.
Step 4. Once the base is built, set up your Obsidian vault as the self layer.
Step 5. Connect OMI to start auto-generating memories from your screen and mic activity.
Step 6. Link each agent — Claude, Hermes, OpenClaw — via their respective API connections and settings.
Step 7. Set your goals inside the OS and write your first journal entry.
Step 8. Ask Hermes: "Based on my Obsidian vault, what should I automate first?"
Step 9. Take one of its suggestions and say: "Go build this."
Step 10. Watch it get built locally, the same way you just built the OS itself.
You do not need a developer at any point in this process.
The whole system builds itself through conversation.
Free vs Paid: What Does This Actually Cost?
Let me break down the real cost.
Hermes agent: Free, open-source.
Hermes API connection: Free via Nova Pro 1.5 Flash on OpenRouter.
OpenClaw: Free, open-source, free to run locally.
OpenClaw API: Free via our alpha on OpenRouter.
Obsidian: Free.
OMI: Free tier available.
Claude: Needed to build the OS (one session) — so you need a Claude subscription or API access for the build. After that, the running cost is just your API usage.
Total ongoing cost to run: Essentially zero if you use the free API options.
This is a professional-grade AI operating system that most businesses would pay thousands to set up — and you can have it for free.
FAQ: Building a Hermes Agent OS
How long does it take to build the Hermes agent OS from scratch?
I built mine in roughly one hour using Claude desktop. The base OS takes about an hour. You can keep adding features in smaller sessions afterwards.
Do I need to install anything specific before building?
You'll need Hermes installed first, then Hermes workspace if you want that layer. Install Hermes before Hermes workspace — that's the correct order.
Can I use Hermes as a middleware for my own app?
Yes. You can run Hermes as an MCP server and connect your app to it via the MCP documentation. You can also host a cloud version of Hermes that users connect to through your app's interface.
What model should I use with Hermes agent OS?
A good setup is GPT-5.5 as the primary model, OpenRouter as a fallback router, and Ollama as the last backup in case everything else fails. This gives you reliability across multiple providers.
Does the Hermes agent OS update automatically when Hermes gets new features?
No — you need to manually add new features by describing them to Claude. But this takes minutes. Just open a new session, describe what you want added, and Claude updates the OS.
Is it better to run Hermes agent OS locally or on a VPS?
Local is better for most people. It's faster, more private, and easier to connect to your Obsidian vault and memory system. VPS works if you need remote access, but adds complexity.
Related Reading
- Hermes Agent Workspace: The Complete Setup
- Hermes Second Brain: Full Obsidian Integration
- Hermes Agent Swarms: Running Parallel Agents
- Hermes MCP Server Setup Guide
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About Julian
I'm Julian Goldie — AI entrepreneur, SEO expert, and founder of the AI Profit Boardroom (2,800+ members). I help business owners scale with AI agents, automation, and SEO.
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- 7-figure AI agency (Goldie Agency)
- Daily training inside the Boardroom
- Author of multiple AI automation playbooks
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When your Hermes agent OS is running, you stop being the worker and start being the operator — and that's the automation shift that changes everything.