OpenViking Memory Provider

Context database by Volcengine (ByteDance) with filesystem-style knowledge hierarchy, tiered retrieval, and automatic memory extraction.

Requirements

OpenViking installed with the openviking-server command available
OpenViking server config initialized and validated (openviking-server init, then openviking-server doctor)
OpenViking server running and reachable from Hermes

Setup

Prepare OpenViking first:

bash

openviking-server init
openviking-server doctor
openviking-server

Then configure Hermes:

bash

hermes memory setup    # select "openviking"

The setup can link to an existing ~/.openviking/ovcli.conf, copy its current connection values into Hermes, or create a minimal ovcli.conf when one does not exist.

Or manually:

bash

hermes config set memory.provider openviking

Add the connection settings to the active profile's .env file. For the default profile that is ~/.hermes/.env; for a named profile use ~/.hermes/profiles/<profile>/.env.

text

OPENVIKING_ENDPOINT=http://127.0.0.1:1933
# OPENVIKING_API_KEY=...
# OPENVIKING_ACCOUNT=default
# OPENVIKING_USER=default
# OPENVIKING_AGENT=hermes

Config

OpenViking's server config is separate from Hermes:

ov.conf configures OpenViking storage, embedding/VLM models, auth, and server behavior. OpenViking reads it from --config, OPENVIKING_CONFIG_FILE, or ~/.openviking/ov.conf.
ovcli.conf stores client/CLI connection values such as url, api_key, account, and user. It is read from OPENVIKING_CLI_CONFIG_FILE or ~/.openviking/ovcli.conf.

Hermes-side provider config is read from environment variables in the active profile's .env:

Env Var	Default	Description
`OPENVIKING_ENDPOINT`	`http://127.0.0.1:1933`	Server URL
`OPENVIKING_API_KEY`	(none)	User/admin API key for authenticated servers
`OPENVIKING_ACCOUNT`	`default`	Tenant account for local/trusted mode
`OPENVIKING_USER`	`default`	Tenant user for local/trusted mode
`OPENVIKING_AGENT`	`hermes`	Hermes peer ID in OpenViking, used for peer-scoped memories

When OPENVIKING_API_KEY is set, Hermes lets OpenViking derive account/user identity from the key. In local or trusted deployments without an API key, Hermes sends OPENVIKING_ACCOUNT and OPENVIKING_USER as identity headers.

Tools

Tool	Description
`viking_search`	Semantic search with fast/deep/auto modes
`viking_read`	Read content at a viking:// URI (abstract/overview/full)
`viking_browse`	Filesystem-style navigation (list/tree/stat)
`viking_remember`	Store a fact directly with OpenViking `content/write`
`viking_forget`	Delete one exact `viking://` memory file URI
`viking_add_resource`	Ingest URLs/docs into the knowledge base

Memory Writes And Deletes

viking_remember writes directly to OpenViking with POST /api/v1/content/write and mode=create. It creates peer-scoped memory files under viking://user/peers/${OPENVIKING_AGENT}/memories/...; OpenViking may return a canonical user-scoped form such as viking://user/default/peers/${OPENVIKING_AGENT}/memories/... in API-key mode. Explicit remembers do not depend on session commit extraction.

Hermes built-in memory tool additions are mirrored to OpenViking after the local memory operation succeeds:

Hermes action	OpenViking operation
`add`	`content/write` with `mode=create` under the configured peer memory namespace

Built-in replace and remove operations are not mirrored because Hermes native memory entries do not yet carry stable OpenViking file URIs. Use viking_forget when the user explicitly asks to delete a specific OpenViking memory URI.

viking_forget is intentionally narrow. It only accepts concrete user memory file URIs, such as viking://user/peers/hermes/memories/preferences/mem_abc123.md or the canonical viking://user/default/peers/hermes/memories/preferences/mem_abc123.md. Files directly under memories/, such as viking://user/default/memories/profile.md, are also allowed because OpenViking supports them. The tool rejects directories, resources, skills, sessions, generated summary files, and URIs with query strings or fragments. Use OpenViking's MCP, CLI, or admin APIs for broader resource and directory cleanup.