setup Intermediate

Hermes Agent Curator Guide: Fix Your Agent Skills

⏱️ ~10 minutes

The Hermes Agent Curator is a background maintenance system that automatically manages agent-created skills. As your Hermes Agent creates skills through its self-improvement loop, the Curator consolid

Hermes Agent Curator Guide: Fix Your Agent Skills

Overview

The Hermes Agent Curator is a background maintenance system that automatically manages agent-created skills. As your Hermes Agent creates skills through its self-improvement loop, the Curator consolidates, prunes, and organizes them to prevent clutter and maintain optimal performance.

Video Reference: Watch on YouTube
Duration: ~10 minutes
Difficulty: Intermediate

What is the Curator?

The Curator is designed to solve a common problem: over time, your Hermes Agent automatically creates many skills based on tasks you give it. This can lead to:

  • Cluttered skills folder
  • Near-duplicate skills
  • Unused or outdated skills
  • Difficulty tracking which skills are actually being used

The Curator runs automatically (configurable to once a week or daily) and:

  • Tracks skill usage frequency
  • Records when skills were last updated/created
  • Archives unused skills (recoverable)
  • Consolidates near-duplicate skills
  • Never touches bundled (native) skills

Prerequisites

  • Hermes Agent installed and running
  • Latest Hermes Agent update
  • Basic familiarity with terminal commands

Setup Instructions

Step 1: Update Hermes Agent

First, ensure you have the latest version:

hermes update

Wait for the update to complete before proceeding.

Hermes Update Command

Step 2: Check Curator Status

Verify that the Curator feature is enabled:

hermes curator status

You should see:

  • Whether Curator is enabled
  • Number of agent-created skills
  • Top 5 least recently used skills

Curator Status

Step 3: Run the Curator

You have two options:

Option A: Run with live logs (recommended for first time)

hermes curator run sync

Option B: Run in background

hermes curator run

The sync option lets you watch the process in real-time, which is helpful for understanding what's happening.

Step 4: Review the Report

After completion, you'll see a summary. The full report is located at:

~/.hermes/logs/curator/[timestamp]/report.md

Open the report to review:

  • Skills archived
  • Skills patched/absorbed
  • Skill clusters identified
  • LLM final summary

Curator Report

Understanding the Report

Key Sections

Archived Skills: Skills moved to archive (recoverable if needed)

Patched/Absorbed Skills: Near-duplicate skills consolidated into one

Skill Demotion: Skills that were downgraded in priority

Clusters Left Alone: Native bundled skills that Curator doesn't touch

LLM Final Summary: The most important section with actionable insights

Restoring Archived Skills

If the Curator archived a skill you still need:

hermes curator restore [skill-name]

Replace [skill-name] with the exact name of the skill from the report.

Troubleshooting

Issue: No Report Generated

If the Curator runs but produces no report:

  1. Check for Curator block in config file

The config file should contain a Curator section. If missing, you need to add it manually or ask your Hermes Agent to fix it.

  1. Verify the logs directory exists

Check if ~/.hermes/logs/curator/ exists. If not, the Curator cannot write reports.

  1. Check for import errors

The Curator runs its LLM review in a daemon thread. If you see "no module named fire" errors, this is a known bug. Ask your Hermes Agent to diagnose and fix the issue.

Issue: Curator Takes Too Long

If the Curator runs for over an hour with no output:

  1. Feed the official Curator documentation to your Hermes Agent
  2. Ask it to check if everything is configured correctly
  3. Verify the Curator block exists in your config file
  4. Check that the logs directory structure is correct

Common Configuration Issues

Missing Curator Block: Your ~/.hermes/config.json should include a Curator configuration section. If it's missing, the Curator cannot create the necessary directories.

Daemon Thread Errors: The Curator may fail silently if there are import errors. Check the state file for error messages.

Best Practices

  1. Run Weekly: Set up the Curator to run once a week for optimal maintenance
  2. Review Reports: Always check the report after each run to ensure important skills weren't archived
  3. Restore Promptly: If you notice a needed skill was archived, restore it immediately
  4. Manual Verification: The Curator is helpful but not perfect—verify its decisions match your needs

Tips

  • The Curator never auto-deletes skills—it only archives them (recoverable)
  • Native bundled skills are never touched by the Curator
  • You can configure how often the Curator runs
  • Keep track of your most-used skills to ensure they're not accidentally archived

Related Resources

Need Help?

If you encounter issues not covered here:

  1. Check the official Hermes documentation
  2. Ask your Hermes Agent to diagnose the problem
  3. Join the community Discord for support
  4. Report bugs to the Hermes team

Last Updated: 2026-05-06

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