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What is Hermes Agent?

Hermes Agent is a one-click app in the Knotie AI Pro App Catalog. It runs Hermes — an autonomous AI agent with tool use, web browsing, code execution, and persistent memory — on a customer’s VPS. Once deployed, you can chat with it directly from the partner portal. All model calls are routed through the Knotie AI Gateway, so usage shows up in your normal AI Usage dashboard.
Hermes Agent is currently in beta. Core features (install, chat, memory) work end to end, but the app may not be available in every plan tier yet.

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When to use it

Pick Hermes Agent when your customer needs:
  • An autonomous task runner that can browse the web, run code, and use tools on its own
  • A persistent assistant that remembers previous conversations
  • A self-hosted alternative to hosted agent services (data stays on the customer’s VPS)
  • A chat surface for ops, research, or coding workflows
If your customer mainly needs a voice or chat agent for inbound or outbound calls, use the Retell, VAPI, or Knova agents instead.

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How to install it

Hermes runs on a customer’s VPS, so installing it has two parts: provision a VPS (if you don’t already have one), then deploy Hermes onto that instance.

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1. Provision a VPS

  1. In the partner sidebar, open VPS & Infrastructure → VPS Servers.
  2. Click Purchase VPS and choose a plan. Cloud VPS 10 is plenty for a single Hermes agent.
  3. Pick a Region, and optionally Assign to Customer so the instance is tied to their account.
  4. Click Proceed to Payment. The VPS is billed to your Knotie account and takes a few minutes to come online.
Already have a VPS for this customer? Skip to step 2 and deploy Hermes onto the existing instance.

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2. Deploy Hermes onto the instance

  1. Go to VPS Servers → My Instances and open the active instance.
  2. Open its app catalog and select Hermes Agent.
  3. Confirm the deploy. The portal installs Hermes in the background and shows live progress — the first run can take a few minutes.
Re-running the deploy is safe — it skips steps that are already complete, so you can use it to reconfigure the agent or recover from a broken install.
The exact way to open the app catalog can vary by portal version — on some instances it’s reached through the Reinstall action. If you can’t find Hermes on an active instance, contact Knotie support for the current path.

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Chatting with Hermes

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From the partner portal

  1. Open AI Chat from the partner sidebar (if available).
  2. Pick the customer’s instance from the instance selector.
  3. Type a message and press Enter. Hermes replies in the chat window.
The partner portal handles the connection to the VPS for you — there is no public-internet exposure or extra setup required.

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From the VPS terminal (advanced)

If you have SSH access to the customer’s VPS, you can chat with Hermes directly: 
hermes chat
Run hermes doctor at any time to verify the install is healthy.

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Use cases

  • Customer support agent — let Hermes read the knowledge base, look up orders, and draft replies
  • Operations assistant — schedule, summarize, and triage incoming items
  • Research helper — browse the web, gather sources, and return a summary
  • Dev-sidekick — code review, shell tasks, and ad-hoc scripting from a single chat surface

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Troubleshooting

Deploy is taking longer than expected The first deploy can take up to a few extra minutes while the VPS finishes its own background setup. The portal will keep showing live progress — no action needed from you. Portal chat returns an error Run hermes doctor on the VPS to confirm the install is healthy, then re-check the instance status in the portal. Hermes isn’t responding as expected Re-running the catalog deploy will reset the agent to a known-good state. Your customer’s saved memory and configuration are preserved.
  • VPS App Catalog — browse and deploy other apps (note: this page is currently unreliable in the live UI; see the install warning above)
  • VPS Servers — purchase and manage VPS instances
  • Knova Agent — built-in voice + chat agent (no VPS required)