Nous Research’s Bot Mode for Hermes Agent transforms isolated agent profiles into a roster of specialized, named AI bots capable of multi-agent collaboration.
Nous Research shipped Bot Mode for its open-source Hermes Agent, turning agent profiles into a roster of named bots. Bot Mode originally launched as a one-day public beta plugin created by co-founder Teknium and is now bundled as a default-on feature inside Hermes Desktop v0.20.3 (via PR #87886). Both Hermes Agent and the Bot Mode plugin are distributed under the permissive MIT licence.
Each bot operates as an isolated Hermes profile stored on disk at ~/.hermes/profiles/<name>/. This keeps memory, configuration, skills, credentials, and chat histories separated without adding a new storage layer. Users can customise each bot’s avatar, model pin, enabled skills, custom SOUL.md persona file, and routine schedules.
Bots communicate with one another using a persistent Agent Inbox. Handoffs are executed via CLI commands (e.g. hermes -p <bot> chat -c "Agent Inbox"), triggered when a user or bot uses an @mention.
The system supports multi-agent collaboration rooms for two to six bots in Nous Research’s Hermes Agent framework. Group chats operate using up to three serial rounds per user message. Mentioned bots respond, or all bots take turns if no specific member is mentioned, with each bot choosing to reply briefly or pass. The system pulls bots from various connected profiles configured under Hermes Desktop settings.
