Hermes Agent Setup

planning-with-files treats Hermes Agent by Nous Research as a first-class host: the Hermes CLI, the Hermes TUI and gateway sessions, and the Hermes Desktop app all run the same adapter. Everything on this page was verified against the Hermes v0.19.1 source and a live Hermes install on Windows; the POSIX paths follow Hermes' own defaults.

The adapter has two parts:

• .hermes/skills/planning-with-files/ is the Hermes-facing skill bundle: SKILL.md, the three templates, and the scripts the workflow references.
• .hermes/plugins/planning-with-files/ is a native Hermes plugin (Python, plugin.yaml plus register(ctx)). It provides the tools, the slash commands, the per-turn plan injection, the progress reminders, and the completion gate.

What you get

The plugin is self-contained: plan resolution, injection, attestation checks, the gate and /pwf initialization run in Python, so nothing depends on sh, bash or PowerShell being present. The completion check tool prefers the bundled check-complete.sh when sh exists and evaluates the plan in Python otherwise.

Install on the Hermes CLI

Two commands, both from the Hermes hub and both verified on Hermes 0.19.1.

1. Install the skill bundle

hermes skills install OthmanAdi/planning-with-files/.hermes/skills/planning-with-files --yes

Install this path, not skills/planning-with-files. The canonical SKILL.md carries Claude Code hook frontmatter (allowed-tools, hook scalars with command substitution, deep relative links) that Hermes' skills-guard scanner classifies as dangerous, and the hub refuses a dangerous verdict even with --force. The .hermes bundle scans SAFE. The hub delivers SKILL.md, scripts/check-complete.sh, scripts/init-session.sh, scripts/session-catchup.py and the three templates into <HERMES_HOME>/skills/planning-with-files/.

2. Install and enable the plugin

hermes plugins install OthmanAdi/planning-with-files/.hermes/plugins/planning-with-files
hermes plugins enable planning-with-files

hermes plugins install accepts the owner/repo/path shorthand and copies only that subdirectory into <HERMES_HOME>/plugins/planning-with-files/. Plugins are opt-in: the second command adds the plugin to plugins.enabled in config.yaml. Restart any running gateway (hermes gateway restart) or start a new hermes chat session.

3. Verify

hermes plugins list        # planning-with-files ... enabled ... 0.2.0
hermes chat
> /pwf Night run
> /pwf-status

/pwf Night run creates .planning/2026-09-01-night-run/ with the three files and makes it the active plan. The next turn starts with the injected plan block.

Project-local plugin (optional)

A repository that vendors the plugin under ./.hermes/plugins/planning-with-files/ can load it without a user-level install:

export HERMES_ENABLE_PROJECT_PLUGINS=1
hermes plugins enable planning-with-files   # project plugins go through the same plugins.enabled opt-in
hermes chat                                 # started from the repository root

Project plugin discovery reads the process working directory when Hermes starts, so this route is for the CLI started inside the repository. Hermes Desktop does not see project plugins; use the user-level install there.

Hermes Desktop

Hermes Desktop runs the same backend (hermes serve) and therefore the same plugin system. Install the plugin as a user plugin with the two commands above, then restart the app. Each Desktop session pins its own project folder, and the plugin resolves the plan from that folder, so two Desktop sessions in two projects inject two different plans. hermes desktop --cwd <project> sets the initial project directory; Desktop Projects (hermes project) group sessions per workspace. /pwf, /pwf-status and the tools work in Desktop chats exactly as in the CLI.

Windows

• The Hermes home on native Windows is %LOCALAPPDATA%\hermes, not ~\.hermes. hermes skills install and hermes plugins install place files there.
• sh is optional. With Git for Windows on PATH the completion check runs the bundled check-complete.sh; without it the plugin evaluates the plan in Python and reports "route": "python".
• The hub does not deliver the PowerShell scripts; nothing in the adapter needs them.
• Short-name paths (C:\Users\OASRVA~1\...) in HERMES_HOME make hermes skills install fail its subpath check. Use the long form.

Usage

• /pwf creates task_plan.md, findings.md and progress.md in the project root. /pwf Night run creates an isolated .planning/YYYY-MM-DD-night-run/ plan and points .planning/.active_plan at it. /pwf --gated Night run also writes .mode, .nonce, resets the gate counter and attests the plan, mirroring init-session.sh --gated.
• /pwf-status (alias /plan-status) prints the active plan id, mode, attestation state, current phase, phase counts and logged errors.
• The model can call planning_with_files_init, planning_with_files_status and planning_with_files_check_complete itself; the skill text tells it when.
• Load the skill text with /planning-with-files or skill_view("planning-with-files") when you want the workflow instructions in context. With the plugin enabled the skill is also reachable as planning-with-files:planning-with-files through skill_view, even when the hub install was skipped.
• Edit the plan after /pwf --gated or /pwf --autonomous? Re-attest it: sh scripts/attest-plan.sh from the canonical skill, or delete and re-create the plan with /pwf. An unattested v3 plan is refused at injection by design.

The completion gate on Hermes

Hermes fires pre_verify once per turn when the agent changed files and is about to finish. The plugin answers with a continuation request when all of these hold, the same decision table check-complete.sh --gate applies on Claude Code:

1. <plan-dir>/.mode contains the gate token (only /pwf --gated or init-session.sh --gated write it).
2. An in_progress phase exists, counted as the per-field maximum of **Status:** in_progress lines and inline [in_progress] markers, exactly as the shell gate counts. An incomplete plan without an active phase never blocks.
3. The block counter <plan-dir>/.stop_blocks is below PWF_GATE_CAP (default 20).
4. The ledger (<plan-dir>/ledger-*.jsonl) advanced since the previous block; a stall releases the turn.

Every block increments the counter and records the ledger size, so the shell gate and the Hermes gate share one state. Limits that come from Hermes itself:

• The hook fires only on turns where the agent modified files. A turn that ends without edits is not gated.
• Hermes caps continuations per turn at agent.max_verify_nudges (default 3). Raise it in config.yaml (agent: { max_verify_nudges: 10 }) for long autonomous runs.
• The continuation is a follow-up message to the model, not a platform-level refusal to stop. In the host capability tiers this is Tier 2 (follow-up inject), next to Cursor, Pi and Kiro.

Shell-hook route (advanced, CLI only)

Hermes also runs shell-script hooks declared in config.yaml. If you already have the canonical skill installed (for example ~/.claude/skills/planning-with-files from the Claude Code route, or npx skills add OthmanAdi/planning-with-files --skill planning-with-files -g), the bridge script shipped with the plugin drives the canonical inject-plan.sh and gate-stop.sh instead of the plugin's Python injection:

hooks:
  pre_llm_call:
    - command: "python3 ~/.hermes/plugins/planning-with-files/shell_hook.py"
      timeout: 30
  pre_verify:
    - command: "python3 ~/.hermes/plugins/planning-with-files/shell_hook.py"
      timeout: 60

Hermes asks for consent on first use (hermes hooks list shows the allowlist state; hermes hooks test pre_llm_call fires it against a synthetic payload). Set PLANNING_WITH_FILES_SKILL_ROOT=/path/to/skills/planning-with-files when the canonical skill lives somewhere unusual. Requirements and limits: sh must be on PATH; the shell hook payload carries the Hermes process working directory, so this route is correct for hermes chat started in the project directory and not for Desktop or gateway sessions; do not enable both the plugin hooks and the shell hooks for the same event, or the plan is injected twice.

Migrating from Claude Code

hermes import-agent claude-code --dry-run previews what Hermes would import from ~/.claude: CLAUDE.md, permission allowlists, MCP servers, memories and ~/.claude/skills/* (copied to <HERMES_HOME>/skills/claude-code/<name>/). Credentials are never imported. Run it without --dry-run to apply, then install and enable the plugin as above. The planning files in your projects need no migration: task_plan.md, findings.md, progress.md, .planning/ and their attestations are read as they are.

Validation

python -m pytest tests/test_hermes_adapter.py tests/test_hermes_first_class.py -q

tests/test_hermes_first_class.py covers slug resolution, the PWF_PLAN_ROOT pin, the ambiguity rule, PLANNING_DISABLED, slug attestation, the pre_verify gate (block, counter, stall, cap), /pwf and /pwf-status, bundled-skill registration, the Python completion fallback and the shell-hook bridge.

Integration Notes

What works today

• Initialization in root and slug mode, with the v3 modes and attestation, from the tool, from /pwf, or from the model.
• Turn-start injection of the active plan with attestation checks, KV-cache-stable progress tail, and per-session reminder delivery.
• Progress reminders after write-like tools.
• The completion gate through pre_verify in gated mode.
• Status and completion checks as tools and as slash commands.
• Hermes Desktop with the same plugin.

What is not a full equivalent of Claude Code

• No per-tool-call plan recitation. Hermes' pre_tool_call hook returns permission directives, not context, so the plan reaches the model once per turn. This matches the autonomous-mode injection shape; the legacy per-tool-call head -30 has no Hermes counterpart.
• The gate is a bounded follow-up, not a hard block. See the limits above.
• No PreCompact equivalent. Hermes' compression fires session:compress on the gateway only; the next turn re-injects the plan from disk, which is the recovery model on every host.
• Markdown command files under .hermes/commands/ are not loaded by Hermes. The plugin registers the commands; the Markdown files remain as documentation of the original intent.

Tradeoffs