setup Beginner

Hermes Agent Dashboard Setup Guide

⏱️ ~12 minutes

The Hermes Agent Dashboard is a live web interface that gives you complete control over your Hermes Agent without ever touching the terminal or editing config files. This is a game-changing quality-of

Hermes Agent Dashboard Setup Guide

Overview

The Hermes Agent Dashboard is a live web interface that gives you complete control over your Hermes Agent without ever touching the terminal or editing config files. This is a game-changing quality-of-life improvement that makes Hermes Agent accessible and powerful.

Video Reference: Watch on YouTube
Duration: ~12 minutes
Difficulty: Beginner to Intermediate

What You'll Get

  • Full visibility into your agent's activities through an intuitive web interface
  • No terminal required for most operations
  • Session management with chat history and system messages
  • Analytics for API usage and token consumption
  • Cron job management with a simple form interface
  • Skills overview organized by category
  • Config editor for system settings

Prerequisites

  • Hermes Agent installed and running
  • Terminal access (for initial setup only)
  • Web browser
  • For VPS users: SSH access and local terminal/PowerShell

Setup Instructions

For Local Installation

Step 1: Start the Dashboard

Open your terminal and run:

hermes dashboard

The dashboard will build the web UI (takes about 1 minute).

Building Dashboard

Step 2: Access the Dashboard

Once ready, you'll see a localhost link (typically http://localhost:9119). Click the link or paste it into your browser.

Dashboard Home Screen

For VPS Installation

Step 1: Start the Dashboard on VPS

SSH into your VPS and run:

hermes dashboard

Wait for the build to complete and note the port (usually 9119).

Step 2: Create SSH Tunnel

On your local machine (Windows PowerShell or Mac/Linux Terminal), run:

ssh -L 9119:localhost:9119 user@YOUR_VPS_IP

Replace:

  • user with your VPS username
  • YOUR_VPS_IP with your VPS IP address

Enter your SSH password when prompted.

Step 3: Access the Dashboard

Open your browser and navigate to http://localhost:9119

SSH Tunnel Setup

Dashboard Features

1. Sessions

View all your chat sessions with your Hermes Agent, including:

  • Chat history
  • System messages and notifications
  • Cron job deliveries
  • Command invocations

Use Case: Backtrack to find where things went wrong or locate a specific conversation.

2. Analytics

Track your resource usage:

  • Total API calls made
  • Token consumption over time
  • Per-model breakdown (if switching models mid-session)
  • Time-based views (7 days, 30 days, 90 days)

Use Case: Monitor costs and identify which days or models consume the most tokens.

Analytics Dashboard

3. Logs

Debug your agent with detailed logs:

  • Failed cron jobs
  • Discord/Telegram API issues
  • Error messages with full context

Use Case: Copy error messages and ask your Hermes Agent to diagnose and fix issues.

4. Cron Jobs

The most powerful feature—schedule recurring tasks without command-line configuration.

Creating a Cron Job:

  1. Click "New Cron Job"
  2. Give it a name
  3. Describe what the agent should do each run
  4. Set the schedule (e.g., 0 9 * * * for 9:00 AM daily)
  5. Choose delivery platform:
    • Local (terminal)
    • Discord
    • Telegram
    • Email

Example: Daily newsletter at 6:00 AM delivered to Discord

Cron Job Creation

5. Skills

Browse all available skills organized by category:

  • General
  • Autonomous AI Agents
  • Creative
  • Data Science
  • DevOps
  • Email
  • Gaming
  • GitHub
  • Inference
  • MCP
  • Note-taking (Obsidian)

Features:

  • View skill descriptions
  • See which skills are active
  • Understand tool sets available to your agent

6. Tool Sets

View native tool sets that power your agent's actions:

  • Web search and scraping
  • Browser automation
  • Terminal and processes
  • Text-to-speech
  • Vision and image analysis
  • Clarifying questions

Pro Tip: Enable "Clarifying Questions" to make your agent ask for details before executing tasks (similar to Claude Code's plan mode).

7. Config

Your control center for system settings:

Fallback Providers: Add backup API keys in case your primary model fails or hits usage limits.

Response Settings:

  • Gateway timeout (default: 1800 seconds)
  • Smart model routing
  • Context engine management

Display Settings:

  • Personality configuration (default: kawaii)
  • Custom system prompts

Delegation: Configure multiple models for different tasks

Memory Settings:

  • Enable/disable memory
  • User profile settings
  • Honcho memory integration

Auxiliary: Configure sub-agent spawning with custom providers and models

Configuration Settings

Common Use Cases

Daily Briefing Setup

  1. Go to Cron Jobs
  2. Create new job: "Daily AI & Crypto Briefing"
  3. Schedule: 0 8 * * * (8:00 AM daily)
  4. Delivery: Discord or Email
  5. Task: "Research latest AI and crypto news, create summary with key takeaways"

Token Budget Monitoring

  1. Go to Analytics
  2. Check 7-day token usage
  3. Identify high-consumption days
  4. Adjust model usage or task frequency accordingly

Debugging Failed Tasks

  1. Go to Logs
  2. Filter by error type
  3. Copy error message
  4. Paste into chat with your agent: "Why did this fail? Can you fix it?"

Tips and Best Practices

  1. Check Sessions Regularly: System messages often contain important notifications about scheduled tasks or errors.

  2. Set Up Fallback Providers: Avoid downtime by configuring backup API keys for when your primary model is unavailable.

  3. Use Cron Jobs for Routine Tasks: Automate daily briefings, weekly reports, or periodic data collection.

  4. Monitor Token Usage: Keep an eye on analytics to avoid unexpected API costs.

  5. Explore Skills: Browse the skills section to discover capabilities you didn't know your agent had.

  6. Adjust Timeouts: If your agent frequently times out on long tasks, increase the gateway timeout in Config.

Troubleshooting

Dashboard Won't Load

Local:

  • Ensure hermes dashboard is still running in terminal
  • Try a different browser
  • Clear browser cache

VPS:

  • Verify SSH tunnel is active
  • Check that port 9119 isn't blocked by firewall
  • Restart the SSH tunnel if connection drops

Can't See Recent Changes

  • Refresh the browser page
  • Restart the dashboard: Stop hermes dashboard and run it again

Cron Jobs Not Firing

  1. Check Logs for error messages
  2. Verify the cron schedule syntax is correct
  3. Ensure delivery platform (Discord/Telegram) is properly configured

Related Resources

Next Steps

After setting up the dashboard:

  1. Create your first cron job for a daily task
  2. Explore the skills section to understand your agent's capabilities
  3. Set up fallback providers for reliability
  4. Configure memory settings to match your workflow

Last Updated: 2026-05-06

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