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Hermes Agent Tutorial

Day 5 · Teach It a Trick: Install Your First Skill

Today’s Goal

Section titled “Today’s Goal”

Install a skill from Skills Hub that you’ll actually use (e.g. code-review or axolotl), then trigger it in a conversation and get the expected output.

Prerequisites

Section titled “Prerequisites”
  • Day 2 complete (basic conversation working)
  • Day 4 helps — you’ll have a clearer mental model of the tool/skill distinction

Why this day is a milestone

Section titled “Why this day is a milestone”

The first four days covered everything Hermes ships with out of the box: models, platforms, tools. Today you add a capability for the first time. After installing your first skill, Hermes is no longer a generic assistant — it’s an agent customized for your workflow. That’s the inflection point.

Tools vs Skills: one more time

Section titled “Tools vs Skills: one more time”
Tool (Day 4)Skill (Day 5)
Who maintains itHermes core team, ships with releasesCommunity + official, independent versioning
Where to find itBuilt-inagentskills.io and other hubs
Where it livesPre-installed~/.hermes/skills/
How to triggerHermes decides when to call it/skill-name explicit trigger, or Hermes loads it from context

A skill is fundamentally a Markdown document (SKILL.md) with YAML frontmatter that tells Hermes “when you encounter this kind of task, follow this procedure.” It’s a bundled combination of prompt and executable fragments.

Steps

Section titled “Steps”

  1. Browse the Skills Hub

    In the terminal (exit any active conversation first):

    Terminal window
    hermes skills browse

    You’ll see all available skills grouped by source:

    SourceWhat it is
    officialHermes official — trusted by default
    openai/skills · anthropics/skillsMajor-vendor official — trusted by default
    skills-sh/*skills.sh public directory
    clawhub · lobehub · custom GitHubCommunity

    Or browse in a browser: agentskills.io or skills.sh.

  2. Search for a skill you’ll actually use

    Terminal window
    # Keyword search
    hermes skills search code review
    hermes skills search kubernetes
    hermes skills search python

    Search spans all configured sources. Limit with --source:

    Terminal window
    hermes skills search react --source skills-sh

  3. Preview (strongly recommended before installing)

    Installing a skill means pulling someone else’s SKILL.md and scripts to your machine and authorizing Hermes to execute them. Read before you install — this is basic hygiene in the agent world:

    Terminal window
    hermes skills inspect openai/skills/k8s

    The output shows:

    • Frontmatter (what tools and env vars this skill declares)
    • The main procedure
    • Required permissions and scripts
    • Source repository URL

    If the inspect output shows curl | bash or calls to unfamiliar external URLs — don’t install it.

  4. Install

    Terminal window
    hermes skills install official/code-review

    Installation triggers an automatic security scan:

    Scanning skill for security issues...
    ✓ No dangerous patterns
    ✓ No untrusted network calls
    ✓ Required tools: terminal, read_file (already available)
    ✓ Installed to ~/.hermes/skills/dev/code-review/

  5. View installed skills

    Terminal window
    hermes skills list

    Or inside a conversation:

    /skills

    Every installed skill is automatically registered as a slash command: /code-review, /axolotl, /k8s, etc.

  6. Trigger it for the first time

    Start hermes, write any snippet of code (or cd into any git repo), then:

    You: /code-review

    Hermes loads the skill’s full content and works through its procedure — it may ask “what part should I review?”, then reads files, runs analysis, and delivers structured feedback.

    Second trigger method: natural language

    You: Give that login function I just wrote a thorough code review

    Hermes recognizes this matches the code-review skill and loads it automatically.

  7. Update and uninstall

    Terminal window
    hermes skills check      # see which skills have updates
    hermes skills update     # update all
    hermes skills uninstall code-review   # uninstall

Advanced: write your own skill (5-minute version)

Section titled “Advanced: write your own skill (5-minute version)”

When you’re ready, use this skeleton to get started:

Terminal window
mkdir -p ~/.hermes/skills/personal/my-routine

~/.hermes/skills/personal/my-routine/SKILL.md:

---
name: my-routine
description: My morning standup workflow
version: 0.1.0
---


# My Routine


## When to Use
When I type "/my-routine" or say good morning.


## Procedure
1. Read yesterday's git log (--since="yesterday")
2. Read "Today's Plan" from ~/.hermes/memories/MEMORY.md
3. Use the todo tool to generate a task list for today
4. Suggest the top three items by priority


## Verification
Success: output is a prioritized markdown checklist.

Save the file, run hermes, type /skills — it should appear. /my-routine triggers it. Full schema: official docs under “Skills System.”

Expected Output

Section titled “Expected Output”

Today’s endpoint:

$ hermes skills list
✓ code-review    (official)    v1.4.2
✓ k8s            (openai)      v0.8.0


$ hermes
You: /code-review
Hermes: Which file or code snippet should I review? (paste code, give a file path, or ask me to scan the whole repo)
You: review src/auth/login.ts
Hermes: → [tool] read_file: src/auth/login.ts
        Running through the code-review checklist:
        1. [Correctness] ...
        2. [Security] ...
        3. [Readability] ...

Troubleshooting

Section titled “Troubleshooting”