Hermes Agent Server Commands: CLI for Ops & Maintenance

This is the operator-focused guide to hermes agent server commands—the CLI verbs used to run, configure, observe, and maintain Hermes Agent in production. If you deploy assistants for a team, this page is your quick handbook.

Hermes Agent server commands: mental model

Control plane vs chat surface

Chat commands help end users. hermes agent server commands help administrators: process lifecycle, configuration, skills packaging, updates, and logs. Treat the CLI as production tooling—scriptable, auditable, and repeatable.

Lifecycle commands

hermes start

Starts the agent services according to your configuration.

Example

hermes start

Tip: Prefer explicit config paths in production scripts to avoid ambiguous defaults.

hermes stop

Stops services gracefully when possible—allowing in-flight work to complete based on policy.

Example

hermes stop

Tip: Announce maintenance windows in Feishu/Discord admin channels before stopping busy instances.

hermes status

Shows running state, versions, connected integrations, and sometimes health checks.

Example

hermes status

Tip: Automate hermes status in your monitoring stack; alert on unexpected states.

Configuration commands

hermes config

Validates, prints, or edits configuration (depending on build).

Examples

hermes config validate
hermes config show
hermes config set integrations.feishu.enabled true

Tip: Keep configuration in version control where possible; avoid "snowflake" servers.

Skills management

hermes skill

Lists, installs, updates, or removes skills packages.

Examples

hermes skill list
hermes skill install ./skills/company-handbook
hermes skill update company-handbook

Tip: Name skills like internal libraries: stable IDs, semver, and changelogs.

Updates and maintenance

hermes update

Applies updates with a defined strategy (policy-dependent): channel, version pinning, rollback guidance.

Example

hermes update

Tip: Snapshot configs and back up secrets before major upgrades.

Observability

hermes logs

Tails or fetches logs for debugging incidents.

Examples

hermes logs
hermes logs --since 1h --level error

Tip: Correlate logs with chat timestamps when reproducing user reports.

Practical runbooks

Rollout checklist

1. Validate config: hermes config validate
2. Check status: hermes status
3. Apply update: hermes update
4. Restart if required: hermes stop && hermes start
5. Verify: hermes status and spot-check chat commands

Incident triage

1. hermes status
2. hermes logs --level error
3. Isolate integrations (Feishu tokens, Discord webhooks) via config
4. Roll back or freeze model routing if needed

Security operations

Secrets rotation

Rotate API keys on a schedule; restart services cleanly; verify with hermes status and a test message in a private channel.

Least privilege

Grant operators only the commands they need; separate production credentials from dev sandboxes.

Performance tuning (high level)

Concurrency limits

Tune worker counts and request concurrency based on CPU, network, and upstream model rate limits.

Backpressure

If queues grow, investigate slow skills, slow models, or integration timeouts—logs usually tell the story.

Managed deployment note

If you consume Hermes as a managed service, some hermes agent server commands may be abstracted behind a provider console. The concepts remain: validate configuration, observe health, ship updates safely, and keep logs actionable.

Conclusion

hermes agent server commands are how teams keep an assistant reliable after day one. Start with hermes status, treat hermes config validate as a gate, and never skip log review during incidents. Explore View Plans for current tiers and limits, or email Contact Us for rollout guidance tailored to your workspace.