PaperClipAI/packages/adapters/hermes

Paperclip Adapters for Hermes Agent

A Paperclip adapter package that lets you run Hermes Agent as a managed employee in a Paperclip company.

Hermes Agent is a full-featured AI agent by Nous Research with 30+ native tools, persistent memory, session persistence, 80+ skills, MCP support, and multi-provider model access.

This package owns both built-in Hermes adapter types:

• hermes_local runs the local Hermes CLI as a child process. The package root exports remain compatible with the original local adapter.
• hermes_gateway calls an already-running Hermes API server over HTTP/SSE. Gateway entrypoints live under the ./gateway export namespace.

Choose hermes_local when Paperclip and Hermes run on the same trusted host and Paperclip should start hermes chat for each heartbeat. Choose hermes_gateway when Hermes is already running as an API server, often on another host, in Docker, or behind a private-network/TLS endpoint. The adapter type keys did not change during package consolidation.

Key Features

This adapter provides:

• 8 inference providers — Anthropic, OpenRouter, OpenAI, Nous, OpenAI Codex, ZAI, Kimi Coding, MiniMax
• Skills integration — Scans both Paperclip-managed and Hermes-native skills (~/.hermes/skills/), with sync/list/resolve APIs
• Structured transcript parsing — Raw Hermes stdout is parsed into typed TranscriptEntry objects so Paperclip renders proper tool cards with status icons and expand/collapse
• Rich post-processing — Converts Hermes ASCII banners, setext headings, and +--+ table borders into clean GFM markdown
• Comment-driven wakes — Agents wake to respond to issue comments, not just task assignments
• Auto model detection — Reads ~/.hermes/config.yaml to pre-populate the UI with the user's configured model
• Session codec — Structured validation and migration of session state across heartbeats
• Benign stderr reclassification — MCP init messages and structured logs are reclassified so they don't appear as errors in the UI
• Session source tagging — Sessions are tagged as tool source so they don't clutter the user's interactive history
• Filesystem checkpoints — Optional --checkpoints for rollback safety
• Thinking effort control — Passes --reasoning-effort for thinking/reasoning models

Hermes Agent Capabilities

Feature	Claude Code	Codex	Hermes Agent
Persistent memory	❌	❌	✅ Remembers across sessions
Native tools	~5	~5	30+ (terminal, file, web, browser, vision, git, etc.)
Skills system	❌	❌	✅ 80+ loadable skills
Session search	❌	❌	✅ FTS5 search over past conversations
Sub-agent delegation	❌	❌	✅ Parallel sub-tasks
Context compression	❌	❌	✅ Auto-compresses long conversations
MCP client	❌	❌	✅ Connect to any MCP server
Multi-provider	Anthropic only	OpenAI only	✅ 8 providers out of the box

Installation

This package ships with Paperclip core as the built-in hermes_local and hermes_gateway adapters. No Adapter manager installation is required for normal Paperclip use.

Prerequisites

• Hermes Agent installed (pip install hermes-agent)
• Python 3.10+
• At least one LLM API key (Anthropic, OpenRouter, or OpenAI)

Quick Start

1. Optional: override the built-in for adapter development

For local adapter development, install the package from a local path in Adapter manager, or add an entry to ~/.paperclip/adapter-plugins.json and restart Paperclip. The external package can override either built-in Hermes adapter while it is enabled:

[
  {
    "packageName": "@paperclipai/hermes-paperclip-adapter",
    "localPath": "/absolute/path/to/paperclip/packages/adapters/hermes",
    "type": "hermes_local",
    "installedAt": "2026-06-23T00:00:00.000Z"
  }
]

Use "type": "hermes_gateway" with the same package when testing a gateway override.

The package root exports createServerAdapter() for the local server adapter, a declarative config schema for the generic agent form, and ./ui-parser for local run transcript parsing. Gateway entrypoints are exported from ./gateway, ./gateway/server, ./gateway/ui, ./gateway/cli, and ./gateway/ui-parser. Paperclip core imports these same package entrypoints for built-in adapter registration.

2. Create a local Hermes agent in Paperclip

In the Paperclip UI or via API, create an agent with adapter type hermes_local:

{
  "name": "Hermes Engineer",
  "adapterType": "hermes_local",
  "adapterConfig": {
    "model": "anthropic/claude-sonnet-4",
    "maxIterations": 50,
    "timeoutSec": 300,
    "persistSession": true,
    "enabledToolsets": ["terminal", "file", "web"]
  }
}

This mode shells out to the local hermes CLI. Paperclip injects runtime environment variables and captures stdout/stderr from the child process.

3. Create a Hermes gateway agent in Paperclip

Start Hermes with its API server enabled first:

API_SERVER_ENABLED=true \
API_SERVER_KEY=<generated-secret> \
hermes gateway run --replace --accept-hooks

Then create an agent with adapter type hermes_gateway:

{
  "name": "Hermes Gateway Engineer",
  "adapterType": "hermes_gateway",
  "adapterConfig": {
    "apiBaseUrl": "http://127.0.0.1:8642",
    "apiKey": "<same-value-as-API_SERVER_KEY>",
    "paperclipApiUrl": "http://127.0.0.1:3100",
    "sessionKeyStrategy": "issue",
    "timeoutSec": 600
  }
}

If the URL you have is the default Hermes dashboard at http://127.0.0.1:9119 or the default chat URL at http://127.0.0.1:9119/chat, Paperclip maps it to http://127.0.0.1:9119/api before calling Hermes API routes. /chat and the dashboard root are browser UI routes; Paperclip tests /api/health and starts runs with /api/v1/runs after mapping them to the API base.

This mode does not start Hermes. It creates runs with POST /v1/runs, streams Hermes events with SSE, polls run status as a fallback, and stops timed-out runs with POST /v1/runs/{run_id}/stop.

Compatibility with the old gateway package

@paperclipai/adapter-hermes-gateway remains as a deprecated compatibility shim for one release. It re-exports the gateway entrypoints from @paperclipai/hermes-paperclip-adapter/gateway and preserves the legacy exports for existing plugin installs. New installs and built-in Paperclip registrations should use @paperclipai/hermes-paperclip-adapter; the adapter type remains hermes_gateway.

Runtime API guidance

Hermes receives Paperclip runtime identity through environment variables:

• PAPERCLIP_API_URL
• PAPERCLIP_API_KEY
• PAPERCLIP_RUN_ID

Prompts should reference those variables directly. Command output may redact secret values, so do not copy printed tokens into comments or config. Use Authorization: Bearer $PAPERCLIP_API_KEY on Paperclip API requests and X-Paperclip-Run-Id: $PAPERCLIP_RUN_ID on mutating issue requests. For multiline comments or status updates, preserve newlines with a heredoc plus jq --arg.

Hermes-originated Paperclip tasks

The package includes a Hermes skill/helper for the reverse direction: a user starts in Hermes and asks Hermes to create or update Paperclip work. This is not the same as Paperclip waking Hermes through hermes_local or hermes_gateway.

Configure Paperclip access in Hermes env/profile secrets, not prompt text:

PAPERCLIP_API_URL=http://127.0.0.1:3100/api
PAPERCLIP_BRIDGE_API_KEY=<task-bridge-scoped-agent-api-key>

Optional env values:

• PAPERCLIP_COMPANY_ID
• PAPERCLIP_AGENT_ID
• PAPERCLIP_RUN_ID

The bundled paperclip-task-bridge skill provides deterministic helper commands:

node ./paperclip-task.mjs list-assigned
node ./paperclip-task.mjs create-task --parent-id "<approved-parent-issue-id>" --title "Investigate checkout failures" --description "Capture failing request and root cause."
node ./paperclip-task.mjs comment --issue PAP-123 --body "Found the failing request path."
node ./paperclip-task.mjs update-status --issue PAP-123 --status in_review --comment "Ready for review."

The helper reads credentials from environment variables and prints only JSON summaries. It supports create-task, comment, update-status, and list-assigned.

Create the bridge key with scope.kind = "task_bridge" plus a parentIssueId or projectId boundary. Do not use a normal claimed agent API key for internet-facing Hermes chat/webhook task-bridge operations.

4. Assign work

Create issues in Paperclip and assign them to your Hermes agent. On each heartbeat, Hermes will:

1. Receive the task instructions
2. Use its full tool suite to complete the work
3. Report results back to Paperclip
4. Persist session state for continuity

Configuration Reference

Core

Field	Type	Default	Description
model	string	anthropic/claude-sonnet-4	Model in provider/model format
provider	string	(auto-detected)	API provider: auto, openrouter, nous, openai-codex, zai, kimi-coding, minimax, minimax-cn
timeoutSec	number	300	Execution timeout in seconds
graceSec	number	10	Grace period before SIGKILL

Tools

Field	Type	Default	Description
toolsets	string	(all)	Comma-separated toolsets to enable (e.g. "terminal,file,web")

Available toolsets: terminal, file, web, browser, code_execution, vision, mcp, creative, productivity

Session & Workspace

Field	Type	Default	Description
cwd	string	(assigned task workspace)	Absolute working directory override. Without an override, use Paperclip's resolved task workspace.
persistSession	boolean	true	Resume sessions across heartbeats
worktreeMode	boolean	false	Git worktree isolation
checkpoints	boolean	false	Enable filesystem checkpoints for rollback

Advanced

Field	Type	Default	Description
hermesCommand	string	hermes	Custom CLI binary path
verbose	boolean	false	Enable verbose output
quiet	boolean	true	Quiet mode (clean output, no banner/spinner)
extraArgs	string[]	[]	Additional CLI arguments
env	object	{}	Extra environment variables
promptTemplate	string	(built-in)	Custom prompt template
paperclipApiUrl	string	http://127.0.0.1:3100/api	Paperclip API base URL

Prompt Template Variables

Use {{variable}} syntax in promptTemplate:

Variable	Description
{{agentId}}	Paperclip agent ID
{{agentName}}	Agent display name
{{companyId}}	Company ID
{{companyName}}	Company name
{{runId}}	Current heartbeat run ID
{{taskId}}	Assigned task/issue ID
{{taskTitle}}	Task title
{{taskBody}}	Task instructions
{{projectName}}	Project name
{{paperclipApiUrl}}	Paperclip API base URL
{{commentId}}	Comment ID (when woken by a comment)
{{wakeReason}}	Reason this run was triggered

Conditional sections:

• {{#taskId}}...{{/taskId}} — included only when a task is assigned
• {{#noTask}}...{{/noTask}} — included only when no task (heartbeat check)
• {{#commentId}}...{{/commentId}} — included only when woken by a comment

Architecture

Paperclip                          Hermes Agent
┌──────────────────┐               ┌──────────────────┐
│  Heartbeat       │               │                  │
│  Scheduler       │───execute()──▶│  hermes chat -q  │
│                  │               │                  │
│  Issue System    │               │  30+ Tools       │
│  Comment Wakes   │◀──results─────│  Memory System   │
│                  │               │  Session DB      │
│  Cost Tracking   │               │  Skills          │
│                  │               │  MCP Client      │
│  Skill Sync      │◀──snapshot────│  ~/.hermes/skills│
│  Org Chart       │               │                  │
└──────────────────┘               └──────────────────┘

The adapter spawns Hermes Agent's CLI in single-query mode (-q). Hermes processes the task using its full tool suite, then exits. The adapter:

1. Captures stdout/stderr and parses token usage, session IDs, and cost
2. Parses raw output into structured TranscriptEntry objects (tool cards with status icons)
3. Post-processes Hermes ASCII formatting (banners, setext headings, table borders) into clean GFM markdown
4. Reclassifies benign stderr (MCP init, structured logs) so they don't show as errors
5. Tags sessions as tool source to keep them separate from interactive usage
6. Reports results back to Paperclip with cost, usage, and session state

Session persistence works via Hermes's --resume flag — each run picks up where the last one left off, maintaining conversation context, memories, and tool state across heartbeats. The sessionCodec validates and migrates session state between runs.

Managed instructions and resumed turns

The local adapter reads instructionsFilePath on every run. It sends that bundle, its relative-reference base directory, and the standard Paperclip API guidance through Hermes's native HERMES_EPHEMERAL_SYSTEM_PROMPT overlay. Hermes applies this overlay at each model request, including after context compression. It does not append the overlay to saved user turns. This requires a Hermes CLI that supports the documented environment hook.

Fresh sessions, resumed sessions, and session resets all receive the current bundle. Edits take effect on the next run; removing the bundle removes it from the next overlay. The server's session compatibility and conversation generation checks still control session reuse. A missing or failed resume remains a failed run and requires an explicit session reset; it does not automatically restart work. The next fresh run receives the complete current instruction overlay.

The -q user turn contains current runtime identity, task/wake context, handoff content, and the rendered custom promptTemplate, if configured. Custom templates run on every normal wake. quiet changes CLI display only. Disabling persistence uses full fresh-session context even if old session parameters are supplied.

An explicit HERMES_EPHEMERAL_SYSTEM_PROMPT in env is preserved before the Paperclip overlay. Hermes gives this environment hook precedence over its profile's configured personality/system prompt. Put required additional profile guidance in that explicit environment value or in the managed bundle. Paperclip does not write Hermes profile files or modify the parent process environment. Existing copies in old user turns remain in history until Hermes compresses them or the session resets.

Run the credential-free capture-process regression tests with:

pnpm --filter @paperclipai/hermes-paperclip-adapter test -- src/server/execute.instructions.test.ts

These tests verify actual child-process arguments and environment, not provider billing, model behavior, or measured token savings.

Skills Integration

The adapter scans two skill sources and merges them:

• Paperclip-managed skills — bundled with the adapter, togglable from the UI
• Hermes-native skills — from ~/.hermes/skills/, read-only, always loaded

The listSkills / syncSkills APIs expose a unified snapshot so the Paperclip UI can display both managed and native skills in one view.

Development

git clone https://github.com/paperclipai/paperclip
cd paperclip/packages/adapters/hermes
pnpm install
pnpm build

License

MIT — see LICENSE

Links

• Hermes Agent — The AI agent this adapter runs
• Paperclip — The orchestration platform
• Nous Research — The team behind Hermes
• Paperclip Docs — Paperclip documentation